I’ve been doing lots of work in the studio recently that’s not been working out or has not been producing the results I’m wanting. This normally gets me frustrated but I’ve come to realise that this is all part of my process when making work. There has to be a starting point: an action plan, hitting the grand verb ‘to make’ with astonishing gravitas. Then there’s the excitement of the activity, getting the materials together and then starting the work. The disappointment usually comes when I’m in the process because how can something that’s been formulated in your mind ever live up to the expectations? Is the process then a series of try-outs, failures, re-identification and compromise? The perfection of the idea having to stay trapped in the vitrine of the mind.
But I’ve come to realise that this is what makes it all so fresh and exciting, as is it the impossibility of translating the ideas into the materiality of the real, as we all have our own individual viewpoints on life. Learning to be objective, about yourself and your work, should be intrinsic to your practice. As an ongoing process this criticality should provide the fuel for motivation to continue your investigation, in whichever form that may take.
Being objective only works though if it is combined with the action part; the making. During the making process another type of process takes over, a more intuitive one. This allows decisions to be made based on the materiality, form, structure and other aesthetic judgements. It is a pre-language state.
My art practice then swings between the two conditions; the making and the thinking. Actually there’s also another stage, rest. Vitally important in a practice, either by physically resting or by distance, to mentally and emotionally take yourself away from it all.
Where does the ‘finished piece’ come in to the equation though? I have no idea but it doesn’t happen very often and I may have to spend many hours making and thinking. Which I might appreciate a bit more knowing that this is how I work.
