What contributes to a positive outcome/guarentees a negative outcome in my studio practice?

A positive and productive studio practice happens day by day. It begins with the way I walk through the door: the earlier I arrive, the quieter the floor, the better. I feel inspired when I begin with a quiet, peaceful space, and my mood is more enthusiastic when I have a long stretch of uninterrupted studio time in front of me. There is something about an early start to the day that makes me feel ready to go again, no matter what happened the day before: good things often happen on days when I can greet my studio before the sun is fully up.
The rituals I perform upon arriving at my studio are important pieces of my practice: making a pot of coffee, starting up some music, organizing and decluttering my workspace are all signals that I have entered sacred studio space and time. One unexpected and beneficial result of straightening up has been that through the act of cleaning drawings and material sketches off my workspace and haphazardly pinning them to the wall, I have more than once discovered a new solution to something previously unresolved.
Along with my morning habits, I like to start my day with a plan. If I don’t have one when I walk into my studio, going through that familiar routine allows me the time to figure out what I need to do that day. A plan, whether it is to work on a specific project that I’ve already begun, or to simply goof off on my loom and see what happens, anchors me in my practice: without that, I feel like I’m floating in space, with no direction and no clue where to begin. A basic idea of how I will spend my time in studio, whether or not I actually adhere to it, gives me a jumping off point and a purpose, and with that I look forward to my day.
Long stretches in the studio sound so appealing at those moments when I can’t seem to get to work for even five minutes. But those wonderful, luxurious studio days only lead to productivity and true breakthrough when they are punctuated by days full of the other obligations in life that keep me away. It’s easy to hole up in the studio and become totally consumed with a project, but in order to keep my time there absolutely vital, I need the sometimes-pesky interruptions of class, artist lectures, teaching, sleeping, and the occasional bath or shower. Real life, though often inconvenient, forces me outside, and keeps me from stewing in my own juices to the point where I should in no way be trusted to make any decisions about my work. Besides, many of my “aha” moments come randomly from beyond the studio, when I’m walking down the street, listening to a guest artist, reading a wonderful book, or even in class, where I am asked to think in a different way than I think when I’m making. This away time is just as important, and with both I achieve a balance that keeps me from taking any time in studio for granted, increasing my productivity and the quality of my work.
I realize that I haven’t mentioned anything about studio visitors or critiques as contributing to a positive outcome in my studio practice. Though they are necessary to my thought and making processes, these things are only helpful to me when the previous conditions have already been met. If my mind is not right, or my routine is not right, I cannot bring something out of myself that would really benefit from outside opinions. This could seem like a weird mental block, but that’s how I work, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing, just my thing. So first, a good studio practice starts with me and only me. When things are good I am making work, being productive…and this has a snowball effect: I have things I am excited to share and get feedback on, which in turn can spur deeper understanding and resolve in the work, and things are still good.
Though a lapse in direction or struggling with work which is not working often seems like a bad, horrible, bottomless-pit-of-despair kind of situation when one is in that moment, I have come to see this emotional sinkhole as a normal cycle of my studio practice, just as the high of running with a really exciting, provocative idea is, and not a negative experience at all. I try to see both good and bad studio experiences as opportunities to learn a lesson, and often the so-called “bad” experiences are what teach me the most. A bad day is uncomfortable, and this state forces me to reevaluate my methods, to look from a new angle, and to be better than I was before. Ultimately nothing absolutely has to lead to negative outcomes in the studio: every event and every day can contribute to growth in my work and the way I think about working, if I can remember to stop, step back, and notice the bigger picture.

"How long did THAT take you?!"

Agnes Martin, The Sea, 2003. Acrylic and graphite on canvas. 60"x60"

"How long did THAT take you?!" is a question that I as a weaver am sometimes asked about my work. The topic came up during a recent meeting with my advising faculty as we were discussing a 4' x 8' woven piece that I had just completed. This particular question, when asked by a viewer in place of a reflective comment, can be a sign that your audience is having a very hard time getting beyond the obviously time consuming and laborious processes that created the object of interest. The point was up for discussion, however: rather than simply not having anything better to say, this type of inquiry might also be an expression of wonderment and an attempt to understand an unfamiliar process through something familiar and quantifiable like time. The difference in meaning lies in the quality of the work's treatment, between a surface which is overworked and one which reflects a quiet presence of hand. When I am asked how long it took to make a finished piece, I hope the question is in response to characteristics of the latter . As someone who spends an embarrassing amount of time on processes intended to be unnoticeable in a finished piece, I can recognize the thin line which separates the two reactions. I stitched over 40 feet of cloth together (twice) and touched a glue-dotted pin point to 1900 individual threads in Quietly, Quietly. These labors are completely in service of the final appearance of the piece, and somehow personally satisfying (notice that I myself was curious to quantify my actions...I would be loath to reveal such nerdy statistics to a viewer), but they add to the work only through their invisibility. When someone's imagination draws them deep into the physicality of the piece, prompting them to inquire into some measurement of your labor, you've tapped into the magic of a process which melts into the concept, enhances the idea and stands back for the in-depth investigation rather than jumping forward and announcing the labor first. I believe in slow discovery, in rewarding the viewer who looks longer and gets up close and intimate with the piece. Here process can add another layer to the experience. It's a chance to round out a concept with a subtle history of the mark making. A record of hours will never translate directly, but the fact that all those hours are somehow contained in the work can add a few lines of poetry to the piece. This is my philosophy, my justification (beyond personal compulsion and enjoyment) for the tedious actions, hidden and visible, in my work.

"Weaver as collector?"

In response to my Numbers post from a few weeks back, my Fiber studio mate Aaron left a wonderful comment that's had me thinking:

"The validity of repetition is definitely something to ponder. Knowing your work, it is a good thing for you to ponder. Your first complete work in grad school was all about some repetition, and now your second big project is all about the discreet object. Or is it? Weaving is an accumulation and organization of hundreds, thousands even, of strings of yarn. Even though they are mostly one long connected strand of yarn, their treatment is as individual threads (weft variations). Rhythm, the flow of individual parts put together, is integral to weaving. Weaver as collector?" (Aaron McIntosh)

There are so many aspects of weaving that I enjoy, the process rich in metaphor and symbolic content. My loom is a meditative space, where action is slow and rhythmic. I go there with purpose: to create a cloth structure which captures my idea or contains the qualities I desire for further manipulation off the loom. I have woven a lot of cloth. I have sat at my loom for hours at a time passing thread back and forth through the opening in the warp. The low shimmering hiss of steel, wood tapping wood, a soft friction of threads moving against each other: these sounds create the familiar score which plays each time I work. With this as my backdrop, I have had a lot of time to contemplate the significance in the action and product of my labor. It is so important to me that the woven aspect of my work is necessary to the concept, and I feel that the themes of my work in general are very much related to the metaphors I see in weaving. My work is introspective, evocative in some way of a human presence. I reference the body, figure, or spirit, playing between senses of sadness, loss, quiet strength, and hope. As I weave, I believe I infuse these elements into cloth: each pass of the shuttle records the action of my imperfect hand. Time builds cloth, thread by thread, row by row. Collecting. Time. My handwoven material becomes the collection of moments, meditations, the warp and weft like an undecipherable text, a secret, something to be sensed but not necessarily understood. If I could look at all the different cloths I have woven, would their variations tell a story? Though I have ventured off on a romantic tangent here, and do not require that these thoughts occur in the mind of someone viewing my work, they are the fuel which drives me to weave and occupies my imagination as the thread occupies my hands. A careful record, taken down slowly: weaver as collector.

(Un)Establishing some rules

Having made it over half-way through the first semester of graduate school, I am really beginning to understand a few things about myself and my artistic processes through the eyes of my peers and professors. OK, I'm not to the point of understanding, but I am developing a deeper self-awareness that goes beyond my studio practice. The concept of "rules" has come up recently, as in rules that I set for myself when I am making something. There is my process, the thoughtful procedure I develop in order to turn an idea into a work, and then there is the process of my process, the subconscious barriers that keep me thinking along specific lines, following specific patterns as I make. I really thought I had some things figured out when I started school. RULE: there must always be a set direction and plan. I thought I was ready to make make make, be an artist, produce work, etc. RULE: once a path has been established, it must be followed to the end. But I feel like I'm starting from scratch, redefining what I thought I knew, creating foundations more than work. It is very uncomfortable: I don't really feel like I've made a resolved piece yet! RULE: everything I make must be a finished and successful piece of art. But I am learning a lot, discovering many questions and NO answers. How did I let these rules establish themselves to the point where I don't even see them anymore, only feel discomfort when I push away from them? RULE: the rules cannot be broken. You ARE your rules. How deep might they go? How are they affecting my work? Which are fundamentally important and which are holding me back? This goes much deeper than artwork, unfortunately. I am a carefully constructed and regulated being. And yet, as scary as it might be to allow myself to swim out into the unprotected waters beyond my understanding, it is also very exciting. I have a feeling that the only way I will truly succeed is to just go for it, really put myself out there. First rule to break: failure is not an option.

Vitamins G-S and G.V. for my artistic soul

A wonderful thing about VCU is that while the challenges and intensity of the MFA program might weigh quite heavily on a young and idealistic art student, there are also so many opportunities to be inspired, invigorated, encouraged, and enlightened. This is why I'm in graduate school, bombarded from all sides with stuff to read and look at and listen to, discovering things I might never have found on my own. I feel like I'm in an information accelerator...this can be overwhelming and I must admit that I often feel stressed and off-balance, but maybe the high intensity serves its own purpose...a break-down of barriers, an overload of information, an escape from the comfort zone...will I leave here having grown more than I could imagine? I certainly hope so. Meanwhile, I will hang on, enjoying the ride through all of its ups and downs.
The catalyst for this warm and fuzzy graduate school moment (I must remember to read this one day at 3am when I am wondering why I thought not sleeping for 2 years would help my personal path as artist and human) was a recent lecture from art critic and VCU faculty member Gregory Volk, who was kind enough to visit my critique class and share a bit of his passion for the search of thoughtful, profound, dare I say existential contemporary art. His lecture employed the works of Francis Alys and Ayse Erkmen as examples for thinking outside the box, making art outside the studio, and moving beyond the art world into a universe of limitless opportunities for expression. Quoting Emerson, he emphasized that "art is the path of the creator to his work" and not the final product. This idea, and the connection of the visual artistic process to Emersonian principles in general, is an inspiring and empowering one. Art making is not about being serious, or serving up great profound truths to the masses below. Art is about the creative process...MY creative process...it's about respecting that journey, paying attention both inwardly and outwardly along the way. Like a walk through the woods, the joy lies not in the destination but the experience itself...the smells, the sounds, the thoughts that occur in that magical environment. This way of art making is a way of living, an embrace of wonder.
It's always so helpful when someone can illuminate an idea or value which is important to you, but might not yet be fully materialized in your own consciousness. I truly enjoyed Mr.Volk's obvious passion for literature, and the way in which it informed and enriched his experience of visual art. Though I love to read classic literature from America and elsewhere (Borges, Marques, and Lorca are among my favorites from abroad) and feel incomplete without a wonderful book on the table by my bed, I am ashamed to admit that I never consciously connected the profound beauty I experience when I read the words of these and many other authors, to their ability to teach me something about my own studio practice. And yet it is so obvious: I want to evoke the feeling I get from their words: I want to be a channel for that poetry, that profound beauty, that melancholy and ache. While listening to Mr.Volk's lecture, I realized that this connection I feel to literature is not only valid, but an important voice to listen for when walking along through the forest of my ideas, dreams, and ambitions. So it seems that 100 Years of Solitude might be an appropriate textbook for my artistic study. In addition, as Mr.Volk suggested, I will be breaking out my Emerson, my Whitman, my Dickenson, with fresh eyes and a new context. I think I will need a bigger nightstand.

Wonder and Numbers

During a recent trip to the MoMA I was able to visit the Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities exhibit, and ran across a modern cabinet of wonder by Mark Dion. This piece, called Cabinet, got me thinking about the relationship between the quantity of a certain object and its ability to interest us or inspire wonder. In Dion's cabinet, the curiosities are collected from an excavation of relatively unexciting building materials, everything from bricks to screws. But as I viewed the objects in their glass covered drawers, neatly organized in collections by item, they became more than simple materials that I understood as existing within the relm of the functinal and the everyday. The repetition of quantity, with unique variations from item to item, made these pieces worthy of display and contemplation. What is it about the repetition of a form that can inspire our curiosity? A bird floating on a current of air is something to notice. But 200 birds doing the same is something to wonder at. A lightbulb is something to appreciate, but 75,000 of them in Dr. Hugh Francis Hick's Mount Vernon Museum of Incandescent Lighting is amazing. There is a lot of interesting psychology out there about collectors: part of it is the desire for order. But it's more than that: I am not a collector, yet I am in awe of anything normal taken out of context and in great quantity. In the same way that a large quantity of things which hold little value on their own gain intersest and value when grouped, sometimes things which are seen as highly valuable on their own will lose that value in quantity. This may be pure economics, but again, that can't be the whole explanation. When value hinges on rarity, wonderful things drop in esteem when we percieve that they may not be so rare. One example are the fruit-stone carvings that, in spite of the feat of their creation, they were so plentiful that every respectable wondercabinet had one, and were dismissed more than marvelled at. In my own work, I often find myself responding to something I've made with "this would be really interesting if there were 100 more!" Fortunately for me I don't necessarily carry out this compulsion, but now I do wonder, what do I make that holds power from being unique, and what would actually benefit from quantity?

Another theory of time

I wonder how long Einstein's Dreams really could have been: how many more theories of time might Alan Lightman have floating around in his head? I came up with one myself the other day: Time exists in multiple channels. It moves at different speeds and in varying numbers of separate occurences which develop off of one central channel. This diagram of time would look something like a bathtub full of bubbles: the main channel is the water in the tub, the time experienced constantly by a person's body, and bubbles that float up from the tub are the renegade channels, short existences that occur simultaneously with the main one but are not necessarily experienced at the same speed. These bubbles float up and out, separating themselves further and further from the main body of time until they finally pop, that channel of time then disintegrating back into the big tub, leaving you in your bubble bath with a feeling of having been somewhere else. I came up with this theory while daydreaming in my bathtub: I was thinking about an event that occurred a few days before while also staring at the tile in the shower, my mind running off to ponder the color and structure. These two separate but simultaneous thoughts then seemed to pop, and I was suddenly aware that I had mentally been off in space while still physically aware of the warm water and steam around me, the smell of bath salts. Had I not read this book I might have overlooked the moment, but instead I made a new theory! In this culture which opperates on many of the not-so-poetic-and-dreamy theories of time laid out in Einstien's Dreams, I find it comforting to imagine that time does not necessarily follow the ridgid structures we impose upon it, and it upon us. Beyond illuminating these constraints specifically related to time, Einsten is an exercise of questioning what is assumed to be proven fact, an exercise in utter abandonment to the imagination and appreciation of the secrets of our minds. As a graduate student in art school, I see this book as a reminder to view my work from as many different angles as I can, to keep asking "what if", to assume nothing and try everything. As a human being in a very stressful and exciting time in my life, I see this book as a lesson in recognizing and understanding the various relationships I have with time and how they might hurt or help me in maximizing the life I have. I plan on critically rereading this book in a few years...I wonder if I might interpret it differently when I am in a new set of circumstances. Until then, I will try to remember to think less literally and more imaginatively: maybe I will document a few more time theories of my own.