May 14, 2011

Preparing for a presentation

The past week has been devoted to the preparations for my presentation at the Beaconsfield Artists Association which will be taking place on the 18th of May. While doing this I have made some surprising discoveries about myself and my work. I think I’ve mentioned before that as an artists I didn’t use to think that the stuff I was creating was a big deal. I used to say it was easy just because it feels easy by the time I have finished a piece. It’s like giving birth in a way, not that I have any experience with that but they always say that you forget all they painful nasty things about giving birth and only remember the good parts. My creative process kind of works like that in my head, at least up until the point where I started this blog because writing about my process has opened my eyes to those frustrating moments that get forgotten in the end. 

Preparing for this presentation has, like this blog, forced me to analyze my creative process. And once again I am amazed at how much more technical it is in reality. Even with the realizations I have had about my creative process in the past due to writing about it in this blog, in my mind my creative process still seems way less complicated then it is in reality. There are so many little things I do on auto pilot that I now have to analyze and explain to other people. 

It has been a very interesting journey. Because there are a couple of different phases about my creative process, I decided to create a piece that consists of three separate panels. These three panels will form one image when the piece is finished, but during my presentation they will give me the possibility to show the different stages of the process. This did mean that I had to create the entire composition upfront and get all the panels to a different stage. This has made it a lot more complicated to get this piece done because I had to think about which things I could and couldn’t do to my separate panels. I ended up taking notes during all the different steps and it has been quite a puzzle to get everything right. There are a couple of stages that require some drying time so that had to be calculated in as well, something that almost caused me some problems. Luckily I was able to get all the elements finished in time. 

When you work on a piece in your studio you have all the materials you use at your fingertips, my presentation will not be at my studio however, so I had to make a list of all the things I use during every stage of the process. This was easy when it involved the parts of the process that I had to prepare upfront. But the painting stage for example is something I cannot start upfront and since this piece is in full color I will have to decide now which colors of paint I am going to bring. Usually when I start painting I just start at whichever point feels good, now I have to think about which parts I will be painting during my presentation so I can make sure that I bring the right paints. Is there a ‘right way’ of doing this? Do I have to start at a certain point? is there a particular order in which you have to paint it? All these questions and more have crossed my mind in the past couple of weeks. 

I am not a very technical person, and I don’t do very well with ‘rules’ when I’m creating. When I cook I never ever follow the recipe to the letter, I always add something or change it somehow. This presentation has forced me to basically ‘write’ a recipe for my creative process, something that hasn’t been very easy. But it did give me a newfound appreciation for myself and my creative process. All in all it has been a very interesting journey which I think my creative process will benefit from in the future. As an artist you’re always evolving. Analyzing yourself like this once in a while, I think gives you a great insight in your creative process and will help you to keep that evolution going. 

My presentation will take place on May 18th at the Beaconsfield Artists Association. Wish me luck!

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