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The Creative Process
A long time ago I married at a young age without finishing college. When my three young daughters started grade school I decided I needed to go back to school and get my degree in art. With my husbands support I did exactly that and went on to get a Master's degree in painting and printmaking. I set up my studio and began to be a real "artist." Most of my friends continued to think of me as the mom and homemaker that I still was, and they had trouble regarding me and my work as being separate from that part of my life. My experience was and still is that many people do not regard an artist's work as 'real' in the same sense that they regard the work of other professionals. I am often asked if I have a job. When I say "I'm an artist" the response may be "aren't you lucky that you don't have to work" or, "that sounds like a lot of fun!" This attitude represents the notion that being an artist does not require work in the traditional sense. Fooling around with paint has to be a fun activity. Creative endeavors are so mysteriously intuitive and tied to the emotional life of an artist that they can't be described as work. Some folks believe that art is produced during bursts of creativity. Inspiration may occur at any time of the day or night. These are Eureka moments! The truth is that the effort involved in art making, especially art where the art object doesn't require a lot of physical prowess such as drawing or painting, is huge. Just learning the discipline of conjuring up images is a challenge. I found out that artists do work that is often unpaid, usually lasts longer than most nine to five jobs, requires more motivation and strength of purpose than many other occupations, is dependent on significant personal conceptual and technical skills and is lonely and frustrating as well. The self-determining and self-generating nature of the art making process requires constant discipline to develop and maintain constructive work habits. Most of us have had to learn for ourselves the special systems which best unleash our imagination and productivity. There is no formula guaranteed to encourage the motivation and creativity critical to art, let alone good art. The strategy I use involves setting up a structure to provide a framework within which I can spend time working, thinking and planning. Most artists who work alone need to set up a work schedule that allows for some flexibility but not much. The reason for this is obvious. It is hard to get going when your work is totally self directed. I have a permanent work space set aside for a particular process in my studio. Painting has its own needs as does drawing and printmaking and the space has to be delineated so that I can continue with a project while another is also going on. Of course, having a studio where this work can happen is important, but if a studio is not possible, most artists set aside a permanent space in their living quarters that they can call a studio. Being in the studio every day is necessary because it maintains a space for regular daily work patterns. It's not that the entire studio time is designated active work time because a lot of it is planning and organization of materials needed for a project, but it helps to have a space you can go to for your work. Whenever I start a new art project I make some basic decisions such as what will the materials be? What is the conceptual source of the plan and what problems do I need to solve in the execution of the work. The art I have been interested in is abstract. There usually is no subject based on any real object, but the surrounding landscape influences the shapes I plan to work with. After I have begun to work I find that the object takes on a life of its own and what is happening on the canvas or page decides what will happen next. It probably is somewhat similar to writing a novel in that the characters take over and begin to tell their own story. I may have a vision of what I want to express but even that is altered as the art is being created. The end product is unique in that previously it only existed in my mind. It certainly is new. However, the strength of a work of art does not lie in its "newness." Creative thinking consists of special skill in the ability to find alternative solutions to problems. A strong work of art is the result of inventive resolutions of these problems that make the viewer think, "what a surprise this is" and gives the viewer lasting pleasure in the visual experience. In order to get to this point, an artist has to take risks without fear of failure. Risk taking is an adventure into the unknown that creates tension which is necessary and desirable. In order to produce a body of work that has strength and integrity there will be many unsuccessful earlier pieces reflecting major and minor mistakes. Decisions are made as the work evolves and these determine when it is possible to say the work is "finished." The final critique of the work rests in the hands of the viewing public and this is beyond the scope of the artist's power. I can only hope that what I have created will have some effect on some viewer and give pleasure to anyone who owns it. |
http://www.julierichman.com
| http://www.abstractandincolor.com
| http://www.kaysmithartist.com
| http//www.siempreflamenco.com
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