Looking at pieces that I do not understand, I can think "Oh, I like that," or the reverse, but my lack of comprehension strikes at my art, my writing; I do not have the vocabulary to explain why I feel about a picture the way I do.
I assume that writing is a less difficult art as surely everyone understands words, but maybe the writing process is as opaque to others as creating visual art is to me. I sit down to write, the words (cliché alert) do spill out, they need jumbling, weighing and organising so that they flow until I can feel within myself when something is finished, finished and rough polished; maybe needing feedback for that final gloss but I have created phrases, pieces that I am happy with.
"Really liked" in the sense that I found it interesting. One ingredient of 'creative' success is a lightness of touch - I cannot manage that when I write, perhaps because I am too conscious of the need to be properly, accurately, understood. In making visual work I know - hope even - that it will be open to different interpretations, and so long as it expresses my feelings to/for me it is immaterial how others interpret it, although (in this series) I did aim to evoke a sense of place.
ReplyDeleteOf course, self-centred-seeming as I must be, what I also intended to say was that you DO have the ability to produce a piece of writing which speaks to others, which creates moods and evokes personal memories, and you are able to incorporate imagination and ideas in a way which I am not. Stick at it my love.
ReplyDeletedo you find that your creative process is similar to what I described for writing? That you start with an idea; sit down to do something with it and it flows; then spend some time pulling it into shape.
ReplyDeleteYou have in the past said that sometimes you have to walk away & then come back to know that it is complete, and I wondered if this was analagous to the final glossing?
To take your second point first, yes I do have to leave a piece of work for a while (sometimes weeks) before I know that it is finished, but that stage often follows a period of thinking it needs more but being unable to see what it is. (I also totally discard pieces - literally under the bed at times - and come back to them to find that a totally fresh approach can be laid over what I already have.
ReplyDeleteThere is too a parallel with the slow fumbling towards a start, followed by the assembling of parts (be it sentences or plates)and later (if I'm lucky) an unselfconscious flowing when instinct for putting pieces together, using colours etc. results in a succession of good prints. That is when it really DOES feel creative, but not all successful prints go through that stage.
I don't always have a (& prefer not to have) a finished image in mind when I start, but there is a need to visually express ideas which are barely formed. At the moment such ideas seem to be so far back in my consciousness as to be ungraspable - I think the time is coming when I shall have to simply start making physical work and see where that takes me.
But do you feel the frustration at not being able to understand a piece of writing because you don't understand/connect with the writing process? I think this is my issue - I feel I would understand more abou the picture if I know more about the process - or maybe the creating flow itself is just undescribable in general?
ReplyDeleteI've only just found this and am not wholly tuned in to what I was thinking earlier, ... not entirely sure what you mean by 'writing process' - surely not grammar etc?, perhaps more in connection with Teresa's Muse discussion on 6S? My take on printmaking processes is that they give me a range of tools from which I can choose the most suitable for the image I sort of have in mind.
ReplyDeleteI could have described how I made 'Broke from the Cloud' at the time I did it, both practically and from where the ideas came, but to some extent I think if I did it might spoil the effect of the image & might inhbit your imaginings.
You do most certainly have the vocabulary to describe why you do or don't like pictures ...