WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID my brother sat me down and played the album Aladdin Sane for me and I was hooked. The music was good, the lyrics intrigued, and of course the album art was fascinating.
Later I came to admire his adventurousness in his ever-changing music, but also acting on stage and film, producing other artists, not to mention his visionary take on the internet (he was one of the first to understand the possibilities). His broad creativity appeals to me very deeply.
I want to try everything!
I want to try printmaking and I often find myself wanting to do something 3-dimensional—either sculpture or as an extension of my paintings. I want to return to collage work, maybe with some new paper types and monotype prints. Suminagashi (Japanese paper marbling) is a technique I’m very keen to try. I’d like to bring metals into my work (I gilded walnuts for my Christmas tree and I’ve been thinking about it ever since). I could go on…
Creativity begets more creativity. I feel that in the studio—the more time I spend painting, the more ideas I have. It’s like a gas that just keeps expanding!
Gas seems like a good choice of words because there’s an element of hot air to all these ideas. Dreaming can take the place of action if I’m not careful. I’ve noticed my desire to try new things becomes particularly irresistible when I’m in the messy middle of a group of paintings—procrastination disguised as productivity.
What I really want is to stick with painting, to stick with the series I’m working on. To go deep. To pull a thread to the end, rather than keep tugging on new threads.
There’s nothing wrong with experimentation. I love it. It’s the lifeblood of art. But I don’t want to skip about like a dilettante. Having found a point of application, a way of working, I want to take it as far as it will go.
I got some good advice on this conundrum from the American painter Robert Szot a couple of years ago. He suggested I gather my experimental energy and direct it at the painting I’m working on.
That struck me as excellent advice, and at that moment it was what I needed to do. I also see that energy naturally collects and diffuses. I see in it myself, in animals and plants, in the land—periods of productivity and rest, endings, beginnings, renewal. When is it helpful to fight my impulse to wander off, and when is something new needed?
Clearly I have more questions than answers, but this is what I’ve been pondering this summer. How much newness or novelty do I need to stay fresh creatively? At what point is a desire to try everything just procrastination or a mindless greed? What is needed to go deep and keep that work feeling new and experimental?
Where is the balance between refinement and exploration? Big questions and the only way to engage with them is to keep painting.
Top image: some of my well worn Bowie albums: Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Heroes.
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