May 10, 2011

Isn't that giving away your secret?

A couple of weeks back I was invited to talk about my work to a group of about 50-60 artists at the Beaconsfield Artists Association on the 18th of May. In the weeks leading up to this I have had a lot of comments about this, the most common one being; “isn’t that going to give away your secrets?” I understand where that question is coming from but I do not agree with it. The technique I use in my work is not this big secret I’ve been developing for years and years. It is a technique that can be found in books or online, I myself learned it at a course I took last year. Granted, I worked on it to fit it to my needs and I am endlessly grateful to the man who taught it to me but it is not a secret. The thing that makes my work special is me, I am the one who takes the pictures, I am the one who chooses which pictures to use and I am the one who decides where everything needs to go. It’s not the technique that makes the work, it’s the way I bring everything together that is unique and I don’t think that is something you can teach, or steal for that matter.

When I was in art school I was in a class of about 20 people who at times all got the same assignment and it always surprised me how many different solutions there were, even when working with the same materials or techniques. Afterwards we would all display our work together and discuss it and there would always be pieces that I would envy; if only I had thought of that! But that’s how you learn as an artist, the next time you would consider that idea or technique and run with it. That didn’t mean that you would copy the work of your classmate or steal his idea though. Because a technique is just that, a technique, a means to an end. It’s what you yourself do with it that is going to make it into art. 

Does that mean that I’m not the slightest bit worried? well no. I am worried, I think as an artist you always are, a little bit. But if you are afraid that people will copy you then you should  lock yourself away in your studio and avoid contact with the outside world at all times. Don’t post any of your work online, don’t talk about it, write about it, definitely don’t blog about it and most of all don’t show it to anybody. When you let your work go into the world there’s always a chance that someone will copy it so you might as well not worry about it and if it happens deal with it when it comes or consider it an honor, if people think your work is worth copying it must be really good right?

I see a lot of works by other artists, I go to museums, browse art online, read artist blogs and work together with other artists when doing courses or group activities and I get a lot of ideas from that. It is a very inspiring experience that I wouldn’t be able to do without as an artist, I take away a lot of ideas from that. But I use those ideas in my own way. The artist is like a filter, you can only experience the world in your own way and therefore only create your own artwork. This is something that is especially true for my work, because I show places that I have visited and experienced and I choose to show the elements that were most important to me.

That’s why I will gladly talk about the way I work on May 18th at the Beaconsfield Artists Association and I hope I will inspire a lot of artists to run with my ideas in their own way, wouldn’t you?

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