studio practice, performativity and the public gaze

Truth be told there has been some printmaking happening around here recently, but not a whole lot. I finally got to the studio last weekend to print some new drypoint etchings. But I'm not overly happy with the results (I messed up quite a few in my hurried attempt to do a lot in a short time) so will take a slightly different approach and print again from the same plates soon.

While the printmaking has been slow, there has been quite a bit of post-PhD-thesis-submission brain tinkering though. I've been thinking (and writing) a lot about the notion of creative practice and performativity, and how this becomes enhanced through the use of virtual tools such as blogs and Instagram to reveal studio practice. I am fascinated with the idea of the public gaze and what this might mean for how artists and designers think about their artist/designer identities.

More soon once I've finished the writing and (hopefully) get it published.

In the meantime, I'd be happy to hear any thoughts you have on this topic.

hearing feedback: crits and creative process

Work of Art (Season 1) contestant Abdi (left) during a work in progress studio crit with Simon de Pury.

How do you respond to feedback on your work?

It's a curly question that one, most probably generating even curlier responses depending on your view.

Let me give you some context. I've been engrossed in watching Work of Art: the Next Great Artist on SBS, a reality series from the US about artists and their creative work in a competition environment. You can read more about the series here on wikipedia. Spoiler alert: do not go to the official Bravo site to read about this series if you want to keep the mystery of who wins alive to the end. They have winner information plastered all over their front page at the moment (for season 2).

Have you been watching Work of Art too? If so, I'd be really keen to hear your take on it. There's so much that can be said about this show from many different angles - the competition, the participants, the judges, the studio environment, the nature of the briefs, the personalities (!!!), the made for TV formula, but...I'd like to dwell on the crits for a moment in this post if I may. Because boy, are they lively!

Crits (or critiques), as many people familiar with art or design school environments will know, are one of the most important places that an artist (or designer) receives feedback on their creative work, either the work in progress or the finished work. For a very thorough run down on crits and their role and place in art school education you might like to read this post by Kurt Ralske. A fellow tweeter and colleague, Megan McPherson (@meganjmcpherson) is doing her PhD on the student experience of the crit in the art school studio. She will no doubt have much to say on this topic as her study finishes so stay tuned!

If you haven't seen them, the crits on Work of Art are brutal. They're honest and hard hitting and the whole time I watch that part of the show I sit on the edge of my seat and my heart beats faster. I swear. This may sound odd but I feel some of the pain for the participants. Why? Because feedback is hard. It's hard to hear especially when the feedback is critical or negative and you've been working like a demon to produce something you feel is worthwhile. It's hard to hear feedback in the most normal of crit environments but on tv in a reality show with cameras and viewers all over the world, well that is something else! Sure, it could be argued that the partipants knew that this would be the case, that their crits would be uber public and that's the 'game' they entered into when they agreed to be part of the show. Yes. But all the same, they're creating work in very short time frames while being filmed. And then on top of it all they endure very public feedback on their work via a gallery show and then the crits. To actually hear the feedback, own it, take it in and process it, and then act on it takes a great deal of openness for artists, and I would suggest especially in the kind of environment on Work of Art. 

But I'm keen to hear what you think. Go watch the show. Come back and leave comments. Or just tell me what you think from your own experience of crits. Is feedback hard for you? Do you have any special ways of dealing with it?

on rabbit holes and creative process

Inside a Japanese woodblock print studio. Total immersion in the process. Photo by Kylie Budge (circa 2003)

 A fellow researcher, Melonie Fullick (@qui_oui) and I have been chatting about rabbit holes and the PhD process on Twitter lately. This is because we both feel like we travel down somewhere deep in apsects of our research work, and it feels like a solo place where we can't think about other things. We just have to tunnel down like a rabbit and do our thing there for a while until we're ready to come back up. Melonie even wrote a blog post about it yesterday. She describes the process and feeling well, I think.

As I read her post this morning over breakfast it got me thinking about the creative process and how it has similar rabbit hole qualities. You know that feeling, when things are going well with a project and you forget to eat and can't bear to stop. Hours and hours can pass by without you noticing. Psychologists call this 'flow', the idea where immersion in creating is so deep that time seems to stop for the person involved. They also talk about it being a single-minded immersion. Which led me to the rabbit hole analogy. It's a similar idea.

I was thinking about this quality of single-mindedness the other night as I watched Jennifer Byrne interview Elizabeth Gilbert on the ABC. Elizabeth was talking about the process of writing and creating her new work of fiction, The Signature of all Things, a massive 512 page story set in the early 1800s. When she spoke about writing this book and bringing the story to life I was struck by the details, the collecting and sorting and researching and weaving of all the tiny minutiae that make up a fantastic story (and if Jennifer's reading of it is anything to go by, it will be great. The book will be released next week). Surely creating something like this requires at least one rabbit hole? Maybe more?

And yesterday I read Lucy Feagins interview with the Sydney artist Cressida Campbell on The Design Files. I've always admired Cressida's prints so was really excited to see this interview. In it she talks about her process. One thing that struck me is she said that while a small work can take her 2 weeks to make, a larger work can take up to 4 months. And Cressida admitted she usually only works on creating one print at a time. A great example of the rabbit hole! Check out the article with Sean Fennessy's beauitful photography showcasing Cressida's studio.

I wonder, do you experience the rabbit hole feeling when creating? Or something else entirely?

studio practices

Hello. It's been a while. Summer is here and the days have been warm and delicious. The beach has been calling.

But there has been a little studio activity. Hurrah!

At the moment I'm playing with colour and trying to work up some sketches that I can use for a new series of etchings. Today felt fairly productive.

I've been observing a few things about my practice which some people find unusual. But really, I think anyone who uses social media (like blogs, instagram, twitter, flickr, tumblr) and has a creative practice won't be too surprised by my observations. What I've noticed is I've been increasingly using and finding support in a virtual side to my practice. That is, like many artists and designers I know (but not all, as I've learned when I try to explain this to some) I might work alone at home on studio work but while I'm working I document my practice and share what's happening (messy process, end results, inspirations - all find their way in). Sometimes I ask questions about colour or composition or tools or any number of things. This happens mostly on instagram and twitter, but in the past also a lot on flickr. And also here too, on this blog. Using hash tags like #printmaking #studio #illustration etc are great because you can find all kinds of people popping by to look and sometimes comment.

It sometimes gets tricky when I'm printing. Inky hands and the camera/phone don't make happy companions.

It's all very virtual and yet also very social.

Any yet it's different from when I'm printing or working alongside other printmakers in the same physical studio. I still document my work and share it digitally while I'm there. Yet what I experience with the virtual practices I've just described is different from the way I spend time, move around, practice, and observe others at work in a shared physical studio space.

And I'm trying to work out what is different and why I might experience it that way. 

I haven't joined all the dots together yet.

What about you? Any thoughts you'd like to share on the matter? What kind of digital/virtual studio practices do you use?

studio thoughts

2 plate etching

succulent blossom in sepia

etching press

APW studio

my work area - blood bath!

studio buddy's work area

drying rack

I've made my first use of the Australian Print Workshop's (APW) beautiful print studio. What a fun day! For me it was mostly about process and practice, and getting a better feel for the intaglio experience. As a relief printer and screen printer, intaglio is opening up a whole new, delicious world for me in printmaking. At the moment I'm just producing drypoint etchings. I have not worked up the courage to go near the acid bath and do anything that tricky.

Working in a communal print studio like APW's is a pretty wonderful experience. There was a collective buzz about the place as people went about their printing business, but also plenty of conversation and friendly advice for me when I asked questions. Mid morning an art tour group came through and watched us work. While that was a bit nerve-wracking it was also really good to talk to people who wanted to know more about printmaking.

One woman in the tour group asked me if working in a communal print studio had any benefits to working alone. Without a doubt I said yes. For example, yesterday I worked next to a monoprinter. I haven't done mono prints since high school, so for me to work next to my studio buddy all day was a wonderful way to revisit that process. And boy could she produce fantastic Goya-esque monoprints! There were other etching artists working there too so I was able to bug them with questions throughout the day about materials and process. And I got to see their prints together with mine on the drying boards. It was a lot of fun to see what concepts people are working with and how they resolve into prints.

One special treat I had was to work with an ancient etching press [pic 3 above] all day. What a beauty that old lady is! She's hard work to pull a print through but in many ways working like that is also very satisfying.

As you can see by the prints I made above I'm still working with botanical images, specifically succulent flowers. I'm a bit obsessed with the process and evolution of life at the moment and botanicals is the way I want to communicate the ideas I have about this. So there will be more to come!

just kids

I've just finished reading an extraordinary book. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the creative process and the evolution of artists. I'm talking about Just Kids, a memoir by Patti Smith focusing on her early life as a young artist finding her feet in New York City and her close relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Extraordinary in so many ways. It's hard to put words to it.

I loved many things about this book. But one thing in particular was having a detailed account of how Patti and Robert worked through the beginning years of creative development, the trials, the explorations, the self-doubt, the hunger and poverty, the small steps forward, the struggles, the sudden unexpected opportunities, and the incredible range of characters that they met along the way. All real. All amazing artists.

As well as all this Patti gives a detailed description of her and Robert's life at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Absolutely fascinating! It's really quite mind blowing to read about this period of history from a great artist who was deeply immersed in it. Patti Smith, you rock! And thank you for writing this book and recording this history for others to read.

I'm now on the pre-order list for the kindle version of Patti's latest book 'Woolgathering'. Am so looking forward to it.

And she writes so beautifully. Which I guess is to be expected from a poet and song writer of her stature. You must, must, must give it a read. Honestly.

creative mojo[ness]

I found this great TED talk today with painter Kimberly Brooks talking about an experiment she did to uncover her creative process. She talks about it boiling down to 8 stages:

1. vision
2. hope
3. diving in
4. excitement | 5. doubt | 6. clarity
7. obsession
8. resolution

later she added 9. exhibitionism
and a pre-stage: silence.

For her daydreaming is a critical part of how she gets to the 'vision' and 'hope' stages. Many artists talk about this dreamy first step in their creative process where to an outsider, it looks like nothing is going on. The trick is to know how to work through the daydreaming so that something eventually emerges and you start to 'dive in'.

Kimberly also talks about the 'bricklayer' approach to creativity - that is you need to make a start and just keep working, "discipline and faith" being key to this. Kind of similar to Elizabeth Gilbert's idea of being the mule for creativity where you "show up" and "do your job". Or the idea of persistence as I've mentioned before.

You can read a little more about Kimberly's ideas on her stages of the creative process here. Or watch the talk on TED.

Is this how your creative process works for you? Are these your steps? Or are there other aspects that help you kick your creative mojo along?

generating the spark [thoughts on creativity]

I read a lot about creativity. As someone immersed in making|designing|creating I find it an endlessly fascinating topic. And as a researcher, I do too.

There's quite a bit of information out there from psychologists that attempt to explain what creativity is, where it comes from, and how it works.

There are also a range of people immersed in teaching art or design who think about creativity from a making perspective. If you ever feel inspired to read more on this I recommend reading a book called Studio Thinking. These folk know about creativity from an insider-maker's world and that's what they focus on in their book.

The Studio Thinking people write about the 'habits of mind' that need to be developed for creativity to flourish in a studio environment:

develop craft|engage & persist| envision| express| observe| reflect| stretch & explore| understand art world

What I find interesting to think about are the kind of environments or atmospheres that encourage the possibility of creativity (and ones that don't). Creativity is about expansiveness. You can see that when you look at the habits of mind the Studio Thinking people have highlighted. So environments that encourage that expansiveness, ones that allow mental and physical space and movement, freedom, a sense of adventure, exploration and risk taking are really important when initiating and developing creative projects.

My question then, is do we have or allow enough opportunities for this? Do we have the kind of environments where this kind of creativity can spark and come to life?

These are important questions for individual artists|designers|makers, small and medium sized organisations, and also especially, I think, for large organisations and corporations to think about. And I mean organisations of any kind, not just the explicitly creative kind. Because creativity is important in all kinds of work and all kinds of projects.

I read and hear so much about large organisations being fearful of creativity and employees with a creative streak. These kinds of people scare inherently conservative folk because of their expansive natures and ways of working. There is a lot of emphasis on control in many organisations (small, medium or big ones) and, sadly, the loss is creativity. Creative folk and their thinking often freak out those who like to keep hold of the reigns. Imagine how much this impacts on creativity and innovation all over the world! And imagine how much untapped potential lies dormant because of this fear.

But things might be starting to change. 'Blue sky days' are now starting to creep into the way some innovative organisations structure their working week to enable the space for creative thinking (and doing). Google calls this their 20% time where they allow staff to spend one day a week on the dreamy, expansive thinking and doing needed for creativity to spark. There are many websites and books out there encouraging self-employed people to do the same whether they are artists|designers| makers or work in areas not traditionally connected with creativity.

Even those of us who are makers can get stuck in a rut and need to carve time out for some expansive thinking and doing. Do you have a structured way for doing this? If so, what is it and does it work for you?

risk taking + creativity

How often do you take risks in your creative work? By this I mean do you find yourself mostly working in a way you're comfortable with, same method, same materials, same approach? What does it take for you to step outside your comfort zone? Are you prepared to take big or small risks in your creative work?

When I think about the way I work it's usually in quite a tight, fairly small scale way. I draw and print with quite a bit of control. But I love looking at loose, 'messy' drawings and love prints that are layered and built up in a seemingly uncontrolled (or loosely controlled) way. I try to push myself to work against the way I'm used to, not to try to consciously change my 'style', but more as a way of stepping outside my comfort zone, take a few small risks, experiment, play, see where accidents take me.

It's not easy! It can even feel a bit crazy. But it can be a lot of fun.

When I lived in Kyoto I knew a printmaker who worked in a very tight, controlled way basing his prints on intricate, finely detailed drawings. His prints were incredibly detailed and accurate. He told me he was in awe of another printmaker we both knew who worked in a very loose, organic, experimental way. She would sometimes do wild things like blow torch the surface of her woodblock to get a certain texture, or add chemical substances to the wood and then sandpaper them (or then blow torch them) all in the name of texture. She rarely worked by drawing first. She usually just approached the block and started. Her prints was quite abstract but very, very interesting. I was also in awe of this kind of risk taking. To her it was very natural to work in such a way. She probably didn't even see it as taking risks.

My point is, sometimes it's good to step away from the safe, the known, the familiar patterns of working. Sometimes happy accidents can often follow and new ways of working can open up.

What do you think? How open to risk taking are you?

what are you working on?

For me it's been this new giclee print in the last few days. And I'm happy to say I've been practicing a bit of letting go in honour of those words in that last post. I had an earlier version of this that I was almost happy with. But not quite. So I got tough on myself and culled it. Not easy to do but I do think it has to be done from time to time.

What are you working on? Experiencing any bumpy bits?

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.

persistence

These gorgeous old Japanese medical prints made me smile after discovering them via print interesting the other day. Just look at that detail!

I've been pondering creative matters at length in the last little while. For work and for pleasure and now somehow they've become beautifully entwined. I've been particularly focussed on how creativity is fostered and nurtured for creative folk, particularly those in art and design. If you too enjoy thinking about these things check out Elizabeth Gilbert's wonderful podcast on TED about nurturing creativity. It's 19 minutes of your life that will be well spent. I have watched it a number of times in the last year and each time I come away thinking about something new. Today it was about the importance of persistence. Now ain't that the truth?

Is there something about persistence and your creative process that you'd like to share? Do you have any magical methods/approaches/routines that work for you?