Pragmatically speaking of art
I am a few hours away from finishing new work for a show. Not a few hours from this moment (in this moment I am with my five-year-old daughter as she watches one of the film adaptations of How The Grinch Stole Christmas [Seuss, 1957], because is 4pm, it's hot and everyone is very ready for the summer holidays to start, I feel it most behind my eyes), but a few hours from when I next snatch a few hours in the studio.
As I sit here with her, I am compelled to write about how my creative practice fits in around the rest of my life. It isn’t a subject that I want to make work about, but it is something I think about a lot, perhaps more so than the work itself. I think it’s about me finding my way in the bigger art space, world, community - whatever you want to call it - a space that I don’t intrinsically know about and haven’t been trained in. I have worked in gallery administration, but those roles haven’t shed light on how artists are supported, selected, how they work, when they work, or what their lives are like. Perhaps it could have shown me these things, but I wasn’t paying attention, because I imagined my career path to be already set (not all that satisfactorily though).
I like to hear about how artists work and how they arrange their lives to make room for it. It is part of their story, so here I am, telling mine.
One of the many lessons I've learned this year in my practice is that making the stuff isn’t about unlimited ideas, time and resources. It is the opposite. It is absolutely restricted by the time, ideas, and resources (materials, access to facilities, money) we have available. To that I will add space, energy, community and experience.
I may have a great idea, but I don’t have the *ready cash/space/technical skill* to bring it to life today, this week or this year. I definitely have a deadline, but I don’t have the time to explore a range of ideas, or the budget to fail too many times. It is in this space that the art is made. What you experience when you enter a gallery is art with limitations, with the occasional exception, depending on which tier of gallery you are visiting.
Learning to accept your limitations, whether they are temporary or long-term, is a big pill to swallow, but once it is at home in your gut, it's helpful.
Circling back to where I began with this post, the practical decisions I made within my limitations about works for my next show were;
Budget: $50. I chose resources I already had in the studio except a new tube of paint and new brush.
Time and energy: A few hours a week. I gave myself four weeks to develop a concept, two weeks to make the things and I consciously chose not to cover new ground conceptually or practically.
Other decisions such as how the work will fit in the physical space and how it will relate to the works by my colleagues in the show, all shaped and constrained what I chose to make. It all requires mental openness and flexibility, things I thrive on when it comes to art making, it's just coming to the surface in ways I hadn't expected.
As I return to this post to finish writing it today, the work is finished. I had wanted to make an additional piece, but I've pragmatically decided that what I've got is enough and exhibition details will be coming soon!
What are your creative limitations and how do you work through them? I'd love to hear from you.
