What to think about when making art? Last week’s post brought some valuable insights. First, Jay helped to refine the question. “Depends upon where in the project you are,” he wrote. “If you’re making aesthetic and structural decisions, then you will concentrate on the task at hand.” Steve agreed that there are different stages of work, adding that he finds satisfaction “in consciously working out ‘problems'” in making art.
I agree that the “problem-solving” aspects of art, thought-consuming like puzzles, can be satisfying. So let me clarify: that’s not the part of art-making I’m referring to. I am asking, what should one think about during those hours of art-making when the work seems to flow of its own initiative, when conscious thought seems unnecessary. Does it matter?
For Kay it does. She wrote, “When I work on a piece I always think of the inspiration for the piece. Whether it is a thought a feeling or a specific image that came to mind.”
For other artists, not thinking verbally works well. Jeffrey commented that “I Don’t think while working. Is that odd? I just get so focused and determined that sometimes, I don’t even breathe…!” But this not in a quiet studio. Jeffrey writes: “I always crank up the electronic music while I work.” Music could be seen as a way to distract thought, or even as something to contribute to the work itself. MJ Illingworth commented, “When I paint I’d say my mind totally merges with the music… For me the music opens the doorway to my artistic thoughts so that they emerge on the canvas.”
What about thinking about something like global warming? Or any other non-art issue? Would these be harmful to the work? When I work in a quiet studio, all kinds of thoughts can come time mind. What I’ve found is that the most distracting, thought-provoking topics (worrying about global warming is a perfect example) can take up volumes of words in my mind without it harming the flow of the work in the least. In fact, the more distracting the topic, the better. It’s almost as though I forget about what I’m painting, but this seems to bring excellent results. I found this surprising when I realized it. So I decided to try an experiment: listen to a book on CDs. I chose a Dutch book that I had already read so that I wouldn’t be too distracted. I found that worked as well as thinking about global warming, but was a lot more enjoyable!
Are you ever occupied by off-topic thoughts during art-making? Do they get in the way of the work, or paradoxically help it? If you listen to music when working, what do you think would happen if you worked in silence?
Art-making, photography division – I ‘think’ about nothing when I am in the moment of picturing.
Instead, I try my best to ‘listen’, not so much to ‘voice’ of the object of my one-eyed gazed, but to my intuitive inner voice. The one that says, “You have a connection to this. Don’t think about it now, just picture it ‘intuitively’. Let everything go and react only to the unthought known.”
For me, outside interuptions that trigger other response ‘voices’ only get in the way of the intuitively exploring the connection between me and my subject.
Karl:
This is a core question. I can imagine this thread going on forever.
Tonight it was the child next door, who sees me as her playmate, and who was trying to secure my undivided attention with the garden hose. Talk about a concentration buster.
In that case I was in worry mode as it took awhile to teach the kid to wear shoes when on the premises and not to mess around with the equipment. As something of an obsessive compulsive, the press of daily problems and responsibilities has always sapped my attention. So, I would say it’s not so much the relative influence of an atmospheric as it is and has been a competition for my hands and mind. Real productivity began with retirement and an empty nest. Sunil, please step up to the mike.
I love the phrase “the unthought known,” but I also typically have plenty of thoughts that, well, I can’t help thinking about. But whereas Mark — correct me if I’m wrong — has a fairly well-honed processing routine, in my case a lot of decisions happen during that relatively long time at the computer. (I’ll be posting something related to this on Tuesday.) A lot of photographers like to listen to music in the darkroom, and this may carry over to the digital darkroom, but I prefer no distractions. I can’t imagine listening to a recorded book, like Karl, but I’m sure others do. It’s only dumb stuff like matting and framing that I can do in front of company or a movie.
I think as I might have described before, my thoughts are undistracted during the painting process. I am in a “meditation” on the music and the canvas, with my mind in single pointed concentration; there is no room to think about anything else. I fact I do not want to think about anything else, this is my purpose.
If however I have been thinking about something such as global warming outside of a painting session, I may go on to chose music that invokes an aspect of compassion (because of my thoughts on global warming) for example because I want to display the emotion of compassion in a painting.
Back in the painting process, if for any reason my mind wanders, my purpose is to bring the mind back to the music, to the canvas and to letting the art unfold – even if I have to do this over and over again.
Outside of my “meditation” or painting process, I may give more thought to global warming for example, and this can deepen my insight into the feeling of compassion in readiness for when I return to the music and the canvas; this is what I think of as my active contemplation followed by meditation.
So for me, the broader thinking goes on outside of the painting process, and the single pointed concentration on the mood, feeling emotion etc. is what I focus on during the actual painting process.
Cezanne, quoted by Erle Loran
Birgit:
I wonder if Cezanne’s comment has a sports analogy. After years of drill and practice where moves progress from strange to natural, an athlete will have what some will describe as body awareness: a situation comes up and the athlete responds without contemplation.
I can imagine a sort of “holding” in Cezanne’s case: there’s the motif out there, the canvas, the paints and brushes. Everything is balanced like a house of cards
and any errant breeze blowing through his mind will cause it to fall down. It’s not time for him to think about his wife or the hole in the roof, but to keep the whole thing balanced on an effervescent knife’s edge until he has written it down safely in paint. It all happens as it has so often before and no “intervention” is called for.
I work feverishly after I start the painting (although it takes a long time to make that first stroke – sometimes two weeks) and I think about finishing up the painting to see the end result. I know that is kind of strange, and you are supposed to enjoy the journey and the individual strokes and all that but this is me…