Take Two
Last week I showed the result of our day 1 warm-up exercise. Part two was to make a second sculpture with a different prompt, and this time, I had "shattering." I went very literal, and created a shattered glass look on a paper box, which then put me in the territory of Harold Edgerton's bullet through the apple, so I added a bullet too. The guesses for the prompt from my classmates were not so accurate with this sculpture, so I guess it was a bit of a stretch. … Do you see it? The stretched pantyhose inside?
Those were just warm ups. The real assignment is to do the same thing, but in our own homes, and to go deeper on the theme of "occupy." And so I thought about it, selected a couple of rooms I thought I'd like to work in, thought about what occupied those rooms, and started visualizing art pieces.
Then in class, I was reminded of two things:
1. That I’d learned a process in the previous drawing course - to mindmap the theme, think of artists who embody aspects of the mindmap, to thinking of images and objects, aka sources, that relate to the mindmap, and then to process those sources by drawing them. I’d not done that.
2. That I'm developing an arts process, not art projects. As my tutor said, if you come up with an idea, and then execute it, then you're designing an art piece. That’s precisely the path I was on.
They want us to stay open for longer to all the possibilities. That’s a concept in design as well - don’t decide on a solution at the start - understand the problem you are solving, and then only after understanding the needs and desires of the people involved, start brainstorming solutions. With respect to art, I see it as, staying open to the magic of the process.
There’s the concept of The Universe being a reservoir that creative folk connect and tap into, that I’ve read in many books by creatives. I would have been in awe of this when younger, but would have felt removed, as if it was not for me. This swooping for celestial inspiration was the experience of chosen ones, talented folk. I’ve since converted the idea of talent to - everyone can do it if they work hard enough - the 10,000 hour rule. And so, I’ve opened up the idea as well, that I could tap into this Universe as well.
If I think of something, then I’m limited by my own cognition. If we don’t constrain but play, then we allow the flow. That’s another concept discussed very well by Betty Edward’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. That’s probably what the tutors are trying to help us with - to stay out of thought and cognition, and stay in flow, in all parts of the process.