Short Thoughts

For some artists, ideas are the bread and butter of their practice. For others, actions take precedence. Personally I feel my own practice is a mixture of both. Ideas come and go, as does the immersion in the action of doing/making that ultimately feeds back into my ideas. I tend to write a few words or create a small sketch in my notebook when I have what I think at the time are ideas worth developing, but in practice those writings don’t necessarily go anywhere. The imprint of the idea though seems to settle somewhere in my mind, waiting until the conditions are appropriate to resurface and marry up with another idea or action that takes place. It’s almost like a tennis player selecting the best ball to serve with. Even though the balls are continually being recycled through several games, at the moment he/she has to serve, a choice is made within the confines of that time and place. As a full-time artist, this process becomes easier to trust in. The need to capture ideas through writing them down or trying to hold onto them as a memory becomes less important, as the repercussions of this are to potentially hinder the flow of spontaneous creativity within the realm of the unexpected.