Postcard 029 - Coming Back
In the days that I've been back from London, one conversation has continued to live rent free in my head, popping up unexpectedly in the strangest places.
I had a chance to visit Catherine Ko Chen in her studio (pictured), which was one of the highlights of the trip. Catherine and I met at Facebook when she joined the Research Associates Program (fka "Rotational Research Program") that I co-created with Christina Janzer and Annie Steele back in 2016. We've become better friends since I've left Facebook, and she's become one of my favorite artists.
While we caught up that afternoon, we talked about our work and the act of creation as it related to artistic and professional endeavors. In doing so, I realized that I found myself describing some of my recent work, especially talks that I'm giving, in ways that are similar to how an artist describes theirs. I mentioned how the talks I was giving, especially the one in London, were very much about me putting ideas out there, akin to a tuning fork — trying to find people with which they resonate. While so much of communication is focused on the audience, what I was describing is art. It's about the creator and the message in search of an audience.
This conversation led me down a rabbit hole, asking the question "How does my work look if I consider myself to be an artist?" I don't mean this in any sort of way other than "what if I focused on producing the things that felt true to me rather than things for a specific audience?" I don't know that I have clarity in that answer yet, but I think even asking it has pushed me to feel less constrained and more playful in some ways. In the broader arc of my life right now, it's enabling me to be more me.
This morning Catherine and I were chatting again and for whatever reason I felt called to open Procreate and revisit some of the photos from her studio. I've always wanted to draw on top of and remix my images in various ways, and I found myself riffing on something Catherine had said in posting this one — "practicing the experience of looking away and coming back." I tried to let that line shape the exploration and here's where we ended up.
I'll leave you with a few more photos from Catherine's studio, not because they are mine, but because her studio space, like her art, is beautiful.