Saturday, January 21, 2012

The mind of a child can truly hold the key...

 I recently watched a bit of an artist lecture that Kerry James Marshall which I found quite intriguing.  In the brief clip that I saw, he talked about getting to a point that his work was where he wanted it to be.  When he got to that point he was older than I am right now, which for me gave me useful insight into where I am and where I am going in my own work.  I am always worried about when I'll reach the moment when I feel my work is really clicking.  Every year when we turn the calendar year, it seems like I am going to myself; "This is the year".  I think I get too caught up in the "...it's now or never" to see that I can't try and force the work.  When I try doing that I end up getting to caught up in over think and over analyzing my work, which leads me to be overly critical and eventually abandoning a concept that has been good for me up to that point.  

I need to focus more on finishing the work and not wondering too much on whether or not I have made that piece that will make or break me as an artist.  Most artist will know what I mean when I say this but "I need to get in a childlike mindset" when creating work.  For those of you who might not understand that statement, kids when creating art tend to make work that makes them happy or they make work where they don't fuss to much over details or getting everything perfect.  For them it's all about making something that they can be proud of or something that they can take home and hang on the fridge for all to see.  Kids are great at creating things more out of love because they haven't got that handle on color schemes and juxtaposing images and/or marks yet.  To them any mark they make is a work of art and they are pleased with it.  Having that great childlike innocence is something that helps them to stay honest in their magical little creations. It's something that a lot of us artist try to maintain as we learn and become more self-aware as artists.  It's so easy to get caught up in over thinking and analyzing our work, that we get lost in why we started creating in the first place.

The more I try to get back to basics in my work, the more I feel like I am letting the work resolve itself.  And that makes for good art-making...

 

-Namaste

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