on creative process

silk screen prints, Kylie Budge

While sitting in my doctor's waiting room recently I was flicking through a 1996 edition of World Interiors and came across an article about the English modernist potter Edmund de Waal. His work is deeply beautiful, simple and clean, and very influenced by Asian aesthetics. A simple sentence from the article struck me as being quite significant. To paraphrase (no, though tempted, I didn't take the mag home with me) de Waal is known for rigorous critiques of his work, which means that he destroys about half of what he makes after it is fired.

I find this fact about his process very interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, at the time of the article de Waal was working with an expensive kind of porcelain but nevertheless he wasn't afraid to destroy something he created. Perhaps he could afford to be this ruthless, perhaps not. Secondly, he focuses on releasing the best of what he can make (or what he considers to be the best), and nothing less. So quality is clearly important to him. And third, there is something deeply thrilling to me about the idea of letting go of the 'lesser pieces', the work that hasn't quite resolved itself (to use an art-y term), and being ok about that. Not tearing yourself up about it but just letting it go and accepting that it is part of the process of developing and creating.

Does anything from this ring a bell for you in terms of your process?

work comes from work

seed pod, illustration, Kylie Budge

One really nice thing about doing a PhD is I get to do a lot of reading. I mean this is how I'm supposed to be spending my time for the next 3 years, right?

A recent find has been a collection of essays in a book called Learning Mind, Experience into Art by folk connected to the School of Art Institute of Chicago. There's some very thought-provoking stuff in there about art, art schools, the art market, galleries, and the like.

One piece by Jerry Saltz (art critic for NY Magazine) called What Art is and What Artists Do has this great bit about persistence.

"Work comes from work," Bruce Nauman said. Artists: the number one thing is work. You have to work in times of doubt, in good times, bad times - work. In a way, you don't do your work. Can you pick your style? It partly picks you. There are certain things you decide, but certain things you don't. In a way, art is working through you. In a sense, you don't exist; your art exists. So you have to get out of its way and work. (p 30)

Now ain't that the truth? I think about the need for persistence a lot. It's a hard, but oh-so-pleasurable grind, the creative gig. When I'm having a difficult patch I get out the pencils or inks or whatever and just try to play. No pressure. No end product required. Just pure play. Some good music on, a pot of tea nearby and some time to just see where the ink takes me.

Any strategies you use to 'get out of the way' of creativity and 'let it work'?

PS. something amazingingly honest on this topic I discovered the other night in twitter-ville.

succulent thoughts

The end of summer is a funny thing. The garden starts changing, mornings are darker, the birds get up later (a good thing as we have some noisy ones around here), even the cat sleeps in :) And the season of serious chai drinking begins!

I rescued these succulent blossoms as they were beginning to wither and dry out on their plants a few days ago. When they're fresh they have a beautiful orange colour, but when dry as you can see here, quite pink. Am I a bit of crazy woman for having dried out succulent blossoms, old seed pods, and driftwood all over the house? Other people have fresh flowers, me the deader and more dried out the better. I love the way their stems go a boney-white, a bit like Georgia Okeefe's paintings of cow bones dried out in the New Mexico desert sun. I just love that washed out look.

Cow's Skull with Calico Roses, Georgia O'Keefe

I quite like pressed leaves and flowers too. Here's a quick wikihow link to flower pressing in case you're keen.

Are you a fresh or dried flower person? And are you a collector of things?

blue noodles in texas

Blue Noodles, Japanese woodblock print, Kylie Budge

I was really very touched when food magazine, Edible Austin (as in Austin, Texas) approached me about using one of my woodblock prints featuring Japanese food to illustrate a story about this same topic. So Blue Noodles sits proudly alongside this great story about Japan's gift to good food in the world. You can see the web version here. Hard copies are available from Edible Austin. They've included some fab resources and recipes.

Blue Noodles was created about 8 years ago while living in Kyoto, Japan. I was surrounded by incredible food all day long and it seeped into my creative consciousness, and then leaked out into my printmaking. At that time I was very fond of eating enoki mushrooms and renkon (lotus root) and so if you look carefully you'll see them swimming around in this print. You can buy fresh renkon in some Asian grocery shops in big cities in Australia. It's highly nutritious (why don't we eat more of it in the West?) and really nice lightly fried with a touch of soy sauce or chilli powder (zing!). Add it to stir fries for a bit of pazazz.

Here are some links to a couple of Japanese cooking blogs if you feel inspired to learn more:

justhungry
justbento

In terms of other Japanese favourites I'm a bit of a closet fan of okinomiyaki. Each region has their own way of making this dish but I do love the Kyoto version. A friend from Hiroshima once made me their local style (with noodles). Interesting! Do you have any favourite Japanese food/s?

nihon power

A beautiful post about how Japan will rebound, from David Bull, long time Tokyo resident and woodblock printer extraordinaire. You might find it a refreshing break from the news coming thick and fast from the mainstream media. Thanks to Annie for alerting me to it.

of white & blue

It feels quite fitting with my current egg obsession in illustration (pics below) that I should now be the owner of this beautiful egg vase by Melbourne based ceramicist, Anne Ronjat. Really, how lovely is this? It's gorgeously thin and delicate - an example of very good crafts-person-ship. Ask any potter, it's not easy to make pottery this thin. Bought from a place not to be missed if you're in Kyneton, Victoria: the Stockroom.





Mr Kitly has a beautiful raffle of Japanese products going on to raise money for disaster relief in Japan.

breakfast work

Egg studies in red - work done in my pj's this morning. It's a breakfast thing, these eggs.

Beautiful drawings can be seen at BSG this week. Two artists in this exhibition whose work is beyond words: Simone Capogreco and Gisele Zuchner-Mogall. Such small detailed lines and patterns with pencil.