I don’t necessarily want to engage in a discussion over whether art (or art making) can or should be therapeutic. As far as I’m concerned, there’s a problem with the idea. The problem is that art making should entail risk and exposure to that which one would rather not face — but that can easily be the opposite of therapeutic.

This is not to say that I don’t believe that art making can be therapeutic. It’s just that the therapeutic part should be a bonus — instead of the intended goal. But your mileage might differ; and I certainly wouldn’t want to convince anyone of anything as far as their personal art making goes.

Swapping out the “a word”, I view my creative practice largely as a way to come to terms with things that bother me. I personally tend to avoid thinking of the outcome as art for all kinds of reasons, largely because I dislike the general discourse around the idea of art.

Instead, I make things (whether tangible or otherwise), and if you want to view them as art, then, well, that’s fine. But it doesn’t concern me. It’s not that I’m callous; it’s just that I don’t want to be swayed by how people might possibly perceive what I make when I make it.

It took me a while to get to the stage where I would make things first and ask questions later. The reality is that if you don’t make anything, if, in other words, there are no photographs or pieces of text or whatever else you might make, then you don’t have anything to work with. What you make might not turn out to be great, but I find it almost impossible to believe that you wouldn’t learn anything — unless what you do is what you already know well. In that case, you’re just spinning your wheels.

During the Covid pandemic I first consciously set out to make things. During the walks I took photographs in the neighbourhood. Separately, I had a text document on my computer that I added thoughts to on a somewhat regular basis. There was a framework for the text: every little piece had to start with “and then”. Don’t ask me how I came up with that; I think given that every day was feeling like every other day, I wanted to create at least some semblance of a progression in time.

In the end, I combined the photographs with the text pieces. I had the idea that given that every day felt like every other day while we were all waiting for the vaccines, the photographs and text pieces should be viewed in random order. I had just enough skills to program a very primitive version of it (which might not work well on phones; I just don’t have the web skills to program this more nicely). You need to click on the screen to see the next thing. Repetitions are intended (they’re also inevitable, given the number of pictures and words is not infinite).

I can’t look at that website because for me, it so strongly brings back the feelings of those days. For me, it’s just so depressing.

I’m glad that I made it, though, because I have a creative record. Making it helped me throughout, it helped me channel some of my creativity into something later, and having it helps me now because it tells me that even when times are really tough I can still keep going.

Now times are tough again, albeit it for different reasons (well, there’s some overlap, and I probably don’t have to tell you what that overlap is). Early into the year, I strongly felt the need to make something again.

This time, I decided that I would take a picture across the field in front of the house I live in. Mostly in the early mornings, but given all the snow, I now sometimes wait until later in the day. I take the picture with a camera made for children. It prints out the photograph immediately: you get a little print that’s about the size of a credit card.

I scan the print using the cheapo office printer I have that for some reason includes a scanner. I then print it a bit bigger on the black-and-white printer that I use for my photography. I add the date on top, and underneath, I will write something that pops into my head in that moment. With that done, the piece of paper gets placed on top of the growing pile of such prints made the days before. You can see an example in the picture above.

It’s unlikely that I will do anything with these pieces. It’s possible that later, I will respond to them just like I now respond to my Covid work. But for some reason, it’s important for me to make this. The repetitiveness helps me — there always is a new picture to be made, and the process of making it grounds me.

I played around with the size of the picture on the page. If it’s too small, it’s too close to the original print. If it’s too large — filling the page — it clearly doesn’t function well (things get interesting again if you print a picture even larger and montage a grid).

What I was interested in was to find the size where the picture starts falling apart while still functioning in its own right. This seemed important. It took me a while (a number of prints) to get to the right scale.

I suspect that I will keep going with this for a while. There’s no rule, no cut-off point. I know when it will be time to stop.

Well, this email unfolded a little bit differently than originally planned. Maybe the above resonated with you (or some of you anyway).

That’s the thing with writing: you never know where it might take you for sure. I have some links to share, but I think I will save those for a later email.

As always thank you for reading!

— Jörg

PS: Make something!