Time for NOT Making Art

How much studio time do you give to experimenting, exploring, not trying to make art? In last Friday's zoom workshop, 5 Ways to Get Un-Stuck (you can still buy the recording here), I got a lot of questions that implied a need to make finished work out of everything we do in the studio. While I am demonstrating "mashing sh!t together" or practicing 5-minute paintings, some of the questions are some version of: What Happens Next? How Do You Finish It? How Do You Make This Into Finished Work?

The implied belief is that we are wasting our time/materials/resources if we are not working towards a product, a finished piece. This belief, so ingrained in our daily lives, is probably one of the most challenging habits of mind to break. And yet I know that if I am trying to make good art, I make mediocre contrived, superficial art. When I get absorbed in a visual inquiry, absorbed in process, allow myself to go "off-topic" or make a mess or try combining ideas to see what happens... this is when the good stuff shows up. 

The practices I demonstrated in 5 Ways to Get Un-Stuck do not result in finished works. That is the point. They are designed to remove the pressure or goal of The Finished Piece so that you can practice being in the mindset of inquiry and experimentation. Practicing the mindset is, to me, a worthy goal. It is worthy of our time and materials. You can always paint over, re-use the paper-canvas-board whatever your substrate is. And if the cost of paint holds you back, use cheaper paint for the experimental practices.

Here are a few of my mash-ups from last winter; they are 11"x14" on Bristol

Commitment to Process - Getting UN-Stuck

Commitment to process is an important key to getting unstuck. We have a habit of focusing on results, setting expectations, and making judgements accordingly. We want to know how things will turn out; we want to avoid uncertainty by planning, so that we get it ‘right’. While this habit of planning for results is essential for most activities in our lives (I don’t dispute the value of planning!), it does seem to be one of the main reasons that we get stuck as artists.  

 

Making some marks, the first layers, with no plan.

Of course we can plan out a painting go through the steps, and get the result we expect. Some people can. When I try to do this my result is not satisfying. I feel like I've missed it, and the painting looks - and is - superficial. At times in my early painting career I tried following instructions in a book. I knew instinctively that it would not result in something that felt authentic, but allowing the benefit of the doubt and figured I'd learn something. I didn't. Well, I did learn that I was right about it not feeling authentic. Following step-by-step instructions that focused on a particular result was not a satisfying endeavor. It lacked something essential to making real art. Does this sound familiar?

 

For me it takes periodic RE-commitment to process to stay connected authentically with my work. The tendency towards planning and results orientation is tenacious, and it creeps up unnoticed until I get stuck. I have a few tricks for getting back into my groove:

I am offering a short Zoom session on 5 Ways to Get UN-Stuck to share with you my favorite practices that get me back to a focus on process. See details and sign up here.

 

Painting 'parts' that I will use in collage.

"Letting Loose", mashing things together

Trying to put together an awkward arrangement

Making a bunch of marks with my fingers

Composition as Process

This video is a little glimpse into what I will be showing you in my upcoming Technique Takeaway at Winslow Art Center via ZOOM:  Composition as Process. Friday, August 27 at 2 - 3:30 Pacific Time, 5 - 6:30 Eastern Time.  I will be narrating live my thoughts on composition as I work though several paintings and collages. Hope you'll join me on Zoom!

Photos from the Residency

One of the most valuable things about the VSC residency was meeting all the other artists and seeing their work.  I took pictures of their work at Open Studio on our last day, but won't post here.  Instead, here are a few of the artists who were there:

Galen Cheney, Molly Bosley, Kit Donnelly, Lyal Michel, Janet Fredericks, Kathleen Fiske, Lily Hinrichsen, Irene Cole, Warren Kimble, and of course there were many more (fifty-six of us altogether).

Here are a few more pix of my work in progress, maybe some are finished:

 

 

This is just some of what I worked on.  The verticals are 11"x30".  

Another valuable experience from the residency was coming to terms with my own limitations - my attention span, my stamina.  Not just how-long-can-I-stay-in-the-studio, but How Long Can I Sustain An Idea?  Do my ideas only go so far and then peter out?  What happens when I try to push an idea further than my usual attention span and studio time allow?  I tend to work in short series, and often feel like I flit from one thing to another, and yet I know that common themes and aesthetic issues surface across various series and bodies of work.  Should I be more intentional?  Should I try to push my ideas further? Should, should, should.

What I discovered is that my brain peters out before my physical stamina for staying in the studio.  I want to be working longer, but the paintings come to a point where they need to be left alone for a bit, even if I work on several at once.  My work is pretty decision-intensive, even though the decisions are intuitive.  There is very little "busy work" that I can do on my paintings when my brain is tired.  So maybe this is a good time to make patterned collage papers, do cut-outs of shapes that I am now painting, make repetitious marks, or go back to my 4"x4" collage-paintings (of which I did NONE last week), or push paper around.  Thanks for listening!

A Peek at Process

I am in studio mode again, having finished most of my teaching for the year.  Without any particular direction right now, I am just painting painting painting, putting one brush stroke in front of the other, as it were.  Working on about ten 22"x30" pieces at once (I say "working", but it's really playing, exploring, getting back into a groove).  Here are process shots on just one of the pieces:

The Blank Page on one of my new moveable walls in the studio

I rarely start with collage on pieces this size, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The first layers of paint

More paint

I began adding some drawing and dripping

More collage, more paint, more drawing, finding possible shapes

Trying out some big black lines

And a bit more graphite drawing

...uh...maybe not; let's see what happens when I cover over more of the bright stuff

And then reveal some of it

Now I have no idea where I am or where I'm going, but I sure do have a lot of possibilities, a lot to play with.

Materials and Tools:

• 300 pound watercolor paper substrate
• Collage papers, both hand-painted and found
• Acrylic paints (see Favorite Materials)
• Graphite, Pitt Pens, and watercolor crayons (ditto)
• Brushes, palette knives, etc. (ditto)
• A whole lot of letting go of: attachment to outcome, worrying about "wasting" materials, or any desire to be efficient with my time.
• Curiosity, a lot of "what if?"
• Absence of desire to "finish" or to "make it work" or "resolve"; just the question: what next?

This is like a meditation: repeatedly bringing your focus back to the process at hand, and letting go of the kinds of thoughts that get us stuck (see above).  If this one "makes it", I'll post later.  Meanwhile I can keep going, keep painting, keep lots of them in process.

More Work In Progress in June

Here are two more of the pieces I have in the works, both of which have left me a bit stumped.  I started these with no clear intention, and although I advocate letting go of the idea of a specific outcome, it's not a bad idea to start with a clear beginning.  It can be quite fruitful and also fun to begin with no particular set of parameters: let's just make marks and see where they lead.  That's where these started, but I'm not finding it very satisfying at this point because I had the idea that they would be Pieces, not just marks.  I've found some elements I'd like to work with - the white-on-white texture, the veiled lines, the incised marks, and to some extent the primary colors.  OK great.  I've discovered, perhaps, some new vocabulary.

Here is where I left off at the end of May.

 

The piece went here...

And then here, and it is very much unfinished.

 Another Piece in Process:

This is several steps/layers into the process.

Another couple of layers.  I liked the quality of the black lines in the upper right, made with High Flow acrylic in a fine line applicator

Emphasizing blue

Painting over the blue

At this point I think I will just take what I've learned from these and begin some fresh pieces.  Put them aside, and see if subsequent explorations suggest any further development on these.  I browsed Pinterest and made notes of specific things that resonate, which I might incorporate into these or subsequent pieces.  I'll see how that translates in the studio.  What To Do Next, I think, is to start another group of pieces and try to be specific about my Starting Points.  What issues do I want to explore?  What elements do I want to work with?  And then let the pieces develop from there.

This business of making art is such a balancing act between intention and spontaneity, between considered decision and intuitive response.  This is one of the things that makes art exciting and fresh, but also, at times, frustrating.  I will let you know how it goes.

Blind Drawing video up next.  Stay tuned.  Thanks for visiting!

Another Sequence of Work In Progress

I'm working on a few different things in the studio this week.  Here I am just showing you one piece that I started back in March, picked up on in April, and brought along further this morning.

This is where I left off at the end of April

This morning I wanted to put stenciled letters or numbers in there.

Dividing off the lower section with yellow and gold

And then painting over a bunch of it (this is several more steps down the line).

This is where the piece is now, and it may not need anything else.  I have to let it sit for a while and see if it calls for anything to be added or subtracted.

 Thanks for visiting.  More in the works I can share with you in the next few weeks.  Also, I have a video in the works about drawing blind, that is, without looking at the paper. 

Reclaim Your Creative Freedom

My workshop this year at The Omega Institute is called "Reclaim Your Creative Freedom:  Expressive Abstract Painting and Collage".  Long name, but it fits the workshop, which just recently opened for registration.  July 6 - 11 are the dates.  See my own web page about it here, as it has a little more information.  As with all my longer workshops this year (Whidbey Island, Santa Fe, Whidbey Island again), we will emphasize working in series, and focusing on process.

Collage Journeys, 2013

Ashley Working

Emily Working

Me demonstrating at Collage Journeys 2013

Trying to be taller at Omega, 2013