“Hours of being in my world followed with pieces scattered all over my table much like the debris in a construction site or puzzle pieces on a coffee table. I am building compositions by placing physical pieces together.“
For a number of months, I found myself resisting going to my studio. Normally, my process of making involved maintaining a regular studio schedule; the studio was a place where time disappeared or slipped away and I entered another world. Once there I was emersed in a world of shapes, colour, texture.
As for many others the bleak world issues have buffeted me; additionally for twenty months I had been a caregiver for my older sister during an illness and her ultimate death. Combined with providing support for my younger sister and her family whilst she too coped with long-term illness and then a life altering surgery. All the issues have combined to create irregular studio hours, less creativity, isolation and overall exhaustion, ultimately fostering a place of doubt.
A short time ago we had a massive windstorm that came up suddenly in the afternoon. As I drove to my physiotherapy appointment, I regretted being out on the roads amongst falling tree limbs and questioned the wisdom of my choice. The storm with all its fury rearranged my plans of returning to the studio; the wind took a tree down on our road and we had no power for the rest of day and evening. The small momentum I had disappeared with the wind. As I took out lanterns and started the fire, I reflected on these months of turmoil and liken them to being battered by a wind storm. Sitting in the quiet darkness that evening post storm I asked myself as I had frequently during the period following my older sister’s death, “How amongst this unpredictability do I find my way, where is the path to my creative practice?”
Books and the library have continually provided insights, often an escape and at times solace; a friend when I needed one. As anyone who visits my home or studio will attest books feature large; I often think of them as companions surrounding me. So, when seeking support, I found myself perusing my bookshelf and Twyla Tharp’s book “The Creative Habit” jumped out. Lying in bed with my lantern on, allowing Twyla’s words to draw a map back to the place of making.
Twyla Tharp states “in order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative….It’s vital to establish some rituals, automatic but decisive patterns of behaviour at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up…”
Reading on Twyla describes her ritual and how once begun she is committed like it or not. I considered my practice, what was the missing ritual? I had injured my leg and my morning walks had become inconsistent. It seems rather mundane to suggest that simply by walking each morning I would return to a regular creative practice. But being that I had little to lose I began that night by laying my shoes at our front door. Next morning slipping out the door into the quiet I walked our rural road marvelling at the changes. As I walked, I became enchanted by the qualities of the fleeting morning light and considered the previous morning walks. I realized upon my return I had always walked back through our gate directly to the studio. There was no computer, laundry or other distractions until I came to the house for lunch. So that morning, I walked through the garden gate and went directly to the studio.
Hours of being in my world followed with pieces scattered all over my table much like the debris in a construction site or puzzle pieces on a coffee table. I am building compositions by placing physical pieces together. Another artist visited my studio recently and commented they couldn’t work in the chaos. The process is a way of thinking with my hands, rather than being in my head. I love to draw and do so extensively, but I do not have a formal technical drawing or plan that I execute; following a sensation of how the piece should feel.
As I have been analyzing my creative process, I recognize I work in a method similar to collage placing shapes I’ve cut from paper or metal. Shapes which I’ve made new, some discards from other pieces, bits of wire, natural materials, coloured enamels remaking and taking them apart. I photograph the compositions at different stages to document them. This process often continues throughout the making of a piece. Once I begin to make the pieces evolve, they grow they change, sort of like life does. I think the pieces have life, or a spirit of their own, a form of animism almost. At times I lose the piece and it either sits on the table top waiting to speak or it’s taken apart and used in the construction process of other pieces. I frequently make multiples or variations of a concept. It’s not indecisiveness rather I believe there are multiple answers. I regularly work in series; I feel the pieces speak to one another or create a tension when together.
My way back to making has been one of getting lost along the way, finding a safe harbour in the storm of doubt, and recognizing the importance of rituals.
