A page from the brochure of an artist residency in Kicevo, Macedonia, 2005
When I look at this picture, I see a very different artist. She's me alright; but I've come to realize how much I've grown since 2005 when this picture was taken. This may sound like the same nostalgic musings of anyone reminiscing the past and internalizing the myriad ways in which one has matured and developed a whole new, much "improved", sense of their place in the world. But it's more than that: I've also learned to venture into my own direction; make my own path; establish my own sets of goals; create in my own way.
I was the second youngest artist in this residency they called the Kicevo Art Colony. There were over a dozen artists from other countries to work and live together for two weeks in the beautiful mountains of Kicevo, a few hours from the capital, Skopje. I had just graduated from university and was about to enter grad school after the summer. I was hopeful in my pursuit to become both an artist and a professional overseas development worker (my masters degree was in Development Studies). Little did I know back then the magnitude of the task I put myself to. One dream was invariably going to suffer a little for the other.
There was an older painter from China who set up his workspace close to mine. His work was intricate and the rate in which he completed them was impressive. He had gone through five canvasses when the rest of us were still working on our first or second. Come to think of it, he went through his gin at about the same speed. He also took it upon himself to act as my "mentor", unbeknownst to me. I had no qualms since I felt inexperienced and not quite up to par with the the other more accomplished artists. The problem was, I did not know how to filter his advice. And under the influence of his precious gin, he felt right at home on my canvasses, adding bits he thought it needed, and color that wasn't there before (this caused quite a scene with another artist who thought he was crossing the line, and a fight broke out by my easel--probably the only action that village had seen in a while).
Soaking it in with another artist from the residency
The difference now is that I too have advice to give; a perspective to offer. I am becoming my own painter, slowly but surely. The training wheels have only really just come off, so I am still fresh blood to the pack of more established artists who have spent the larger chunk of their lives expressing themselves through their work. But me, I've only just begun.
Sometime last week I tweeted that, "if I don't fail at least a few times, it will mean I didn't try hard enough". This was actually a direct quote from an interview with BOOOOOOOM's founder, Jeff Hamada in the SF Magazine. It hit me hard, in a good way, and right when I was in the middle of a series of paintings that felt more like a dead end. Failure can be a good thing; when it is a means to an end. Multiple failures might even be better. Trial and error, right? The greatest inventions have come from accidents, we all know this. So why can't some of my greatest work come from mistakes that have made me almost tear all my hair out?
Anyway, so my mum read this tweet and as a gesture of support sent me an email with a funny list of strategies for anyone trying to accomplish anything. Turns out this list came from the website of Bruce Mau Design, a well-known design firm based in Toronto and Chicago. Bruce Mau calls this list his Incomplete Manifesto For Growth. And here it is in full:Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations. Collectively, they are how we approach every project.
1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to
be there.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas
to applications.
12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
14. Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas
of others.
18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
20. Be careful to take risks .
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
22. Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
23. Stand on someone’s shoulders.
You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
24. Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.
25. Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
26. Don’t enter awards competitions.
Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
27. Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
28. Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
29. Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
30. Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
31. Don’t borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea – I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
35. Imitate.
Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
36. Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
38. Explore the other edge.
Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces – what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference – the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals – but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
40. Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
41. Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
42. Remember.
Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
43. Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.
I've been preoccupied with some of my side gigs lately; most recently, a job helping create some rough sketches for a local shoe designer. I've also been working on a series of illustrations that I will make available as digital prints from my online etsy store, as soon as I feel I have enough of them. So basically, I've been working on the down low, trying to get stuff together before showing them off.
I've gotten into a groove with my work schedule in the studio; and I must say, so much of it requires a penchant for solitude--which I have, thankfully. Otherwise, it might just drive you crazy: the isolation. I get a nod and a smile every now and again when a fellow artist walks past my space (I have an open studio layout). Sometimes we'll chat. Most times we don't. But I like it this way because my work space must be true to the work. I lack the walls, therefore I must somehow imagine them and have others do the same. This is the tacit agreement artists make with one another when it comes to an open floor plan. So far, I haven't encountered any problems with pesky neighbors or rude and demanding colleagues. My studio has become an open space factory and I'm so far pleased with the work I'm churning out. Isolation has not failed me yet.
watch the mountain grow, 2011
In a previous post, I talked about the new direction my work was taking in relation to the abstract expressionist foundation I worked from with my earlier paintings. I realize how important it was that I went through a stage of large scale action-painting, so that I could break it down into the kinds of detail I am only now able to express in a different way. I've shifted my lens and have zoomed in a bit. The result is a new expressive format comprised of the same raw material I've always used (acrylics, gouache, water color, inks) but manipulated and abstracted in a different way. As a friend just told me this morning over a skype conversation, "you can tell it's the same technician behind the wheel, but with very different results".
You can see two other pieces from this series I'm calling All That My Eyes Can See on my website. I plan to upload more in the next few weeks, but for now I'm letting myself marinate a bit longer in this new beginning.
I've had a bit of a love affair with monochromatic grays. I wanted to add to my fun illustrations a color scheme that would provide more nuance than the standard b&w without having to fuss over too much color. I started off using only india ink and gouache on paper and clay board on panel, but decided to also have a go with pens (above). I thought that maybe it wouldn't take quite as long with pens, but I was proven wrong. I decided that if I were to continue with these doodles, I would have to use only inks and paint for a brighter and finer polish. I like my little tarsier, but I think the colors are a little duller than the little portrait of my cat, Isis (below).
In between paintings or drawings--especially when I have to wait for paint to dry--I find that making collages helps keep me in orbit. If I don't keep focus, I drift. Drifters like me rely on concentration techniques (not always a guarantee for success) to keep us anchored into the task at hand. I don't like to think about a composition for too long so I do look forward to some respite, but I also know that I have to remain within the particular head space from which the composition came from. Basically, I have to stay "active", or I risk loosing touch of my creative flow.
Collage is a great exercise for me. I absolutely love it. It has a soothing effect, and keeps me generating ideas as I mindlessly cut and paste bits of magazine paper together. The results are always satisfying, and the process as efficient as it can get. They can become incredibly sophisticated as well. One my favorite artists who delved into some serious collaging techniques with prints and cut paper is Frank Stella.
Frank Stella, detail, "Severinda," mixed media on Fiberglas, 1995
In my previous post, I briefly wrote about my frustrations with a series of abstract compositions that I couldn't decide whether I liked or not; or where it was going. But I refused to give up. Like the Energizer Bunny, I kept going and going and going.....Turns out the hours spent in the studio finally paid of. The image above is one of the four pieces I completed, which has taken me down an unprecedented path in my painting.
There was no magic trick or short cut. It just literally took time and attention. I eventually overcame the crippling effect the original compositions had on me, and was able to navigate my way through them. Why be fearful of your own creation? Well, it mostly had to do with a big fat question mark of where to go from there. Sometimes, I edit myself to the point where moving forward seems like the option for doom. Move forward and you'll wreck whatever you started. This is a common trap for me, which leaves many of my pieces prematurely born. No good, if your intention is to push boundaries and most importantly, experiment. This is not a competition for "prettiest piece"--it's no beauty pageant. This is a quest to disarm oneself in such a way that new ideas are born out of unabated creative hunger.
A page from the brochure of an artist residency in Kicevo, Macedonia, 2005
Soaking it in with another artist from the residency
