Week 11 Artistic Thinking Preferences for art making.

Week 11

My personal working preferences are dependent on the medium and intention. I often get sudden visions and insights (often at inconvenient times, such as three AM or in the middle of a dinner with friends)  I will try and scribble down the thoughts and insights for later but often the moment is gone.  Even when I plan out something,  an image or idea I want to manifest, by the time I actually start a piece I surrender to the process and find myself creating something that feels like what I want but doesn't look like what I thought it would look like.

If I am working in my glass studio... Glass starts out (sometimes) organized, and my tools (usually) are where I can see them, but that lasts the first twenty minutes...., I have music on but after a few minutes the concentration is so profound I often don't hear it and its off with out me knowing.  The glass requires an all intensive concentration that does not allow wandering thoughts or even for me to get up and take a break much until the piece I am working on is done.  I often feel like an alchemist when I am working with glass because I am changing the physical state of a material completely.  From solid to liquid and back again.  I am also pushing the medium in ways that are unusual because I can not afford the actual glass set up Id like there fore have adapted and created ways of achieving things I want in unconventional ways.

If I am drawing, (another room, not my glass studio) I also have music on, OFTEN LOUD and I often, have a lovely bottle of red wine breathing as I draw. (yes, I drink  it along the way) I find in general, art making is a solitary process for me.  Its always been that way as most of my work is about something deeply personal. The drawings evolve over time, most of them taking 3 to 6 months.  I will work intensely for awhile and then stop, letting it breathe too. If I am interrupted with the glass or the large drawings the process is abruptly halted for that time.  I get very irritated if I am texted or called. Sadly, my iPod is also my phone.... Will work on changing that I think...Because that is the case I spent three years getting up at 4 AM to work in my glass studio.  (No, there is no wine there) I had two younger kids and it was the only way I could work.

      I feel like my art is not limited to the intentional pieces I create.  That everything I touch and do is a creation. (Even my thoughts) Art or rather, creating, is not limited to the visual, but My home, my children, my relationships and my teaching even.  I create projects along with the students at school more often than not.  While these projects are somewhat edited (since some topics and imagery is not appropriate for school) they are sincere and unite me with my students in ways that are difficult to articulate. 

Creating is a heart process that I surrender too. There is very little concrete thinking once it has begun.  It a process of complete surrender to the deep flow of the universe. (Did I just say that???  good grief) I really could talk about this for a long time.... but Im already at 600 words..