There is something truly magical about creating, about making things. It makes me feel like a conjuror, summoning up an object from an idea. Of course between the inspiration and the manifestations can be ages of sometimes fun, sometimes grueling work.
My conjuring concept is the illusion that makes me believe an envisioned idea is doable enough to jump in and begin the task. If I realistically paid attention to how long a work of art will take to create, I'd probably never start anything.
I find simple ideas and designs utterly boring. Everything I do is wildly complex and takes days, weeks, and months (sometimes years) to complete no matter how I might kid myself to the contrary at an artwork's inception.
Picasso said, "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Alas, I've known too many adults who have no problem behaving like children.- Some might even include Picasso in that group. - The challenge of making a living as an artist is really about balancing the fundamental need for freedom in all of us to openly engage in child-like imagination and play, while harnessing the adult in us to be savvy about how to feed, clothe, and shelter us in the process.
Perhaps that's why I knowingly cling to my innate naïveté about how long a work of art will take me to complete. It's an unspoken negotiation between my inner child and that adult who stares back at me in the mirror and answers to the name, "Mom."
Back to my 39th hour on an illuminated work on calfskin vellum... It seemed like such a fun idea when I dreamed it up. Stay tuned for photos.
.
*The title is a line from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and is also the title of a one-of-a-kind artist book on which I'm currently working... And yes, it's taking a really really long time...
My conjuring concept is the illusion that makes me believe an envisioned idea is doable enough to jump in and begin the task. If I realistically paid attention to how long a work of art will take to create, I'd probably never start anything.
I find simple ideas and designs utterly boring. Everything I do is wildly complex and takes days, weeks, and months (sometimes years) to complete no matter how I might kid myself to the contrary at an artwork's inception.
Picasso said, "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Alas, I've known too many adults who have no problem behaving like children.- Some might even include Picasso in that group. - The challenge of making a living as an artist is really about balancing the fundamental need for freedom in all of us to openly engage in child-like imagination and play, while harnessing the adult in us to be savvy about how to feed, clothe, and shelter us in the process.
Perhaps that's why I knowingly cling to my innate naïveté about how long a work of art will take me to complete. It's an unspoken negotiation between my inner child and that adult who stares back at me in the mirror and answers to the name, "Mom."
Back to my 39th hour on an illuminated work on calfskin vellum... It seemed like such a fun idea when I dreamed it up. Stay tuned for photos.
.
*The title is a line from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and is also the title of a one-of-a-kind artist book on which I'm currently working... And yes, it's taking a really really long time...
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