------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHERE DOES YOUR WORK COME FROM? "Art proceeds from a spontaneous instinct like love does; and it must be cultivated like friendship." --Raissa Maritain "I have a feeling I should paint what I am supposed to paint. So I sit. And there my hand moves and I made a picture." -- Norval Morrijeau I was reading through my "quotes" file the other day (for another reason) with this question in the back of my mind. I like these quotes because they help me say two things: --------- "spontaneous instinct..." What I know about me and art is that I have to make art in order to like myself. Periods in my life when I haven't been making art, I have felt like part of me was missing. Making art isn't like breathing...I can live without it. But I become glum, depressed, half-alive. (This is not to say I haven't been all those things AND been making art but if I don't make art I am guaranteed to be those things.) Maybe I have an addiction to being creative. It's like people and their coffee: "I'm a bear if I don't get my coffee in the morning." I'm a bear if there is not some piece of my life wherein I am MAKING something. Something whose purpose is a hopelessly useless beauty. Everybody can make art. I feel like I can't NOT make art. --------- "my hand moves and I made a picture..." It sounds like Norval gets an idea about what she(?) is supposed to paint. I often don't. I just feel I should paint. That "make something" urge comes through very strongly. The more I don't paint, the stronger it gets. I am enthralled and delighted by the PROCESS of making. I just want to make. I want to be splashing paint or ripping paper or bending wire. I want to be manipulating materials. Most of the time I have a vague notion of what materials and what manipulation. But I don't have a picture of the product in my mind. My daughter Alexis, who is two-and-a-half years old, points at her things on the refrigerator and says, "I did that!" That sums it up for me. I want to be able to point to something that is beautiful and say, "I did that!" ---------- That is all why I work and may be a long way of saying: "I don't know where it comes from, it just *comes*." I know more about where THIS (Lenten Series) work comes from: 1. I have been unhappy with the "do work-take slides-submit slides-work hangs (if you're lucky) somewhere were strangers see it and you never know what they thought" process that I think is the way it's supposed to work in the art world. I don't really mind being judged in or out of shows. I mind that the communication loop isn't closed for me. [I suppose that says I make art to communicate. No, I make art to REVEAL. I am, when it comes down to it, an exhibitionist. It's not just "i MADE that." It is "I made that." I did. ME. The one here. This is how it is for ME. This is what comes out of ME. SEE IT. BE TOUCHED BY IT.] [Artist's question: Were you touched by this work? If so, how?] So I want to see people see my art. I want to get some kind of feedback. Some sense of closure. [Artist's question: I solicited feedback from the "audience" by inviting e-mails on the web site and having this discussion. I thought about doing some kind of "written cards" response for church service attendees, but that felt intrusive to me. Are there other ways I could have invited your feedback that would have worked for you?] [Because God Forbid if I ask for their feedback and don't get any, it will mean something's wrong with ME.] So I had this idea of putting my work out into a community setting where I would be there to see people see it. 2. I wanted to start working more on the computer and to learn about the capabilities of the large-format printer. My hands are failing me. I have to find ways that I can keep working as long as possible. The computer is less exhausting, so I wanted to try it. I learned that: PROS: - I can work for longer at the computer than I can physically paint - I enjoy it - I like the product CONS: - I miss the material manipulation - I miss "making my mark" - I worry that people will think I pushed a button and a dove popped onto the work. I'm afraid they'll think "the computer did it" instead of "I did it." [Relatedly, I think I hoped using the computer would make me less dependent on the kindness of others to get my work into "showable" form. The large format certainly doesn't. As usual, I had to have other people mount and hang, tote and manouver (sp)] 3. I wanted to find a way to blend writing and visual art. I want to write. I want to make images. I wanted to find a way of relating the two. In an earlier experiment, I wrote words onto paintings, but that didn't feel right. It wasn't just "words" I wanted. I wanted longer pieces. Hanging the banners (with a few words on them) and writing and reading my poems enabled me to do both in a way that felt complete and satisfying to me. [Artist's question: Did you find yourself relating more to the images or to the poetry? Did the fact that BOTH were there change the experience for you?] 4. I wanted to find a way to make the world wide web/internet part of my process. I put up the web site as a communication tool and originally wanted to invite many people into the process. It's possible that people (other than my advisors) have been watching the progress, but I doubt it. This feels like an "almost worked, but not quite" piece of things. 5. I wanted to involve people in the process of making as some kind of collaboration. I wanted the intended audience to be part of the creation process. I never did quite figure out how to do this and I think it didn't happen. It's something to keep in mind for future. Whew! One leeetle question and look where it got me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT DOES YOUR WORK MEAN TO YOU? I've been holding onto this question for a couple days, now and feeling stuck with it. (See below.) Maybe I've said everything I need to say in my answer above: My (art)work is a way of being who I want to be and expressing that being. It's a way of trying to create beauty. Beauty is something I value highly. (Though our culture's rigid definitions of human physical beauty anger me.) Sometimes I wish my art meant more. That I was trying to change the world with it, or make some kind of bold political statement. But my work isn't that obvious. The fact that I make it, continue to make it, is part of my struggle to value myself in a culture that devalues almost everything I am. (Woman, mystic, introvert, person with disability, artist, etc.) So, the making of it is a political statement but the content isn't. It's all about the making. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHERE ARE THE MESSES? (PANIC, BREAKDOWN OF PROCESS, STUCK PLACES) The messes in my art in general are when I think it ought to be something it's not: less abstract, brighter palette, etc. There are urges to be better than I am, or different in an experimental way. Those work and those encourage me to continue making art. But trying to make my art more like someone else's gets me stuck. The biggest stuck place is just why do it at all. It costs me money. It costs me time. It's not something other people give me a lot of encouragement about. Why bother? If I've been trying to achieve something in the studio and can't (I want the materials to behave in a way that they aren't) these are the days I say, "I should just quit!" Another stuck place is the fear of physically not being able to do it. Why not just stop now and then I won't get more attached to it and therefore be more devastated if I can't do it. I have a hard time knowing what is about learning a skill and what is innate. If I don't like the way something is going, can I practice and get better at it and have it be the way I want it to be, or will I never be able to achieve what I'm trying to achieve? It's hard to know. With this work, specifically, I have been stuck about: - I "shouldn't" be using photos. If I do, it's not really art. - It should be "deeper." The images should make some kind of deep comment about theology or the scripture or something. Mostly, I've enjoyed this project. The challenges have been: - finding the time to do it - getting the physical help to do it (or handling my feelings of guilt about needing all the help) - handling the feeling that I'm imposing this on people - handling the fear that it's awful ------------------------------------------------------------------------------