Artmaking Process
I have been thinking about what is art, with regard to what I do with it. How do I define it? How do I look at it? What is it that I do, and the process of how I do it? It is something that I want to write about, and I think it’s difficult for me to write it. I mostly do the process of making art.
You do the creating.
Yes, that’s what I prefer, what I like to do.
Even the writing can be creative, if you’re not worried so much about impressing or proving something about yourself, if you’re just exploring.
I think I see my art as a connection to my inner self and expressing feelings through it.
How do you see the world when you look at it?
In terms of art?
No, in terms of seeing. How are you aware of your surroundings? Are you looking at light? Are you looking at form, at color?
I am. Frequently I’m looking with a photographic eye, always noticing the lighting, colors, and right next to that in my thinking process is how it feels to be within it.
Well maybe that’s your starting point; all the different ways of seeing and looking that you go through in a given day. The differences in the seeing that you’re doing when you’re walking down the street, or looking out a window, or daydreaming, and how it’s different to your painting.
I think it is different, because when I am painting I’m usually indoors in an enclosed space. It’s very… it’s a different process.
Right. But what I’m suggesting is do them both. Recognize all of them as equally interesting and equally intriguing as part of your artistic process, because they all impinge upon, or feed, what happens when you go in the studio.
So, it all adds up.
It’s ‘about’ ways of seeing, and ‘how’ ways of seeing, including internal seeing and feeling. So you can make a connection between seeing and feeling, but if you just start with feeling… meaning that… for most people, art – visual art – is going to be related to perception; personal perception. Now, it’s extremely valuable to discover, not to fix it, not to figure it all out, but to inform this connection that you feel about your inner emotional state and your process of art, including talking about some of the times you’ve described painting without seeing, without light, or with your eyes closed. So, that’s really fascinating, within the context.
I try to put those things together in the process I’m involved in, in making art – feelings combined with that process of what I see in the world.
You don’t have to connect them. You can begin by saying I have expressed myself through many forms of art – painting, photography, drawing, filmmaking… what else… music, performance – these have brought up in me different modes of perception and process. And then you can talk about, for example what happens when you walk down the street and your photographer eyes come up, and what it feels like, and what it looks like, and how you’re noticing, or objectifying, or making correlations, or perceiving things in a – whatever the rectangle of a photograph lens is – however you want to speak about that. Whatever is true.
So then in the studio I’m doing a combination of things.
And then you can talk about how ‘over time’ you have developed a new way of painting, internally a new process that relies less and less immediately on what you see externally, and more and more on something internal that you may not have words for yet. And then you give the example of when you draw in darkness.
Looking for words is a challenge. I don’t have a good way to describe it.
Well, you are asking more of yourself than is necessary. Do your best describing it simply. Don’t worry about big exciting words yet.
© David Ronce 2011
I have been thinking about what is art, with regard to what I do with it. How do I define it? How do I look at it? What is it that I do, and the process of how I do it? It is something that I want to write about, and I think it’s difficult for me to write it. I mostly do the process of making art.
You do the creating.
Yes, that’s what I prefer, what I like to do.
Even the writing can be creative, if you’re not worried so much about impressing or proving something about yourself, if you’re just exploring.
I think I see my art as a connection to my inner self and expressing feelings through it.
How do you see the world when you look at it?
In terms of art?
No, in terms of seeing. How are you aware of your surroundings? Are you looking at light? Are you looking at form, at color?
I am. Frequently I’m looking with a photographic eye, always noticing the lighting, colors, and right next to that in my thinking process is how it feels to be within it.
Well maybe that’s your starting point; all the different ways of seeing and looking that you go through in a given day. The differences in the seeing that you’re doing when you’re walking down the street, or looking out a window, or daydreaming, and how it’s different to your painting.
I think it is different, because when I am painting I’m usually indoors in an enclosed space. It’s very… it’s a different process.
Right. But what I’m suggesting is do them both. Recognize all of them as equally interesting and equally intriguing as part of your artistic process, because they all impinge upon, or feed, what happens when you go in the studio.
So, it all adds up.
It’s ‘about’ ways of seeing, and ‘how’ ways of seeing, including internal seeing and feeling. So you can make a connection between seeing and feeling, but if you just start with feeling… meaning that… for most people, art – visual art – is going to be related to perception; personal perception. Now, it’s extremely valuable to discover, not to fix it, not to figure it all out, but to inform this connection that you feel about your inner emotional state and your process of art, including talking about some of the times you’ve described painting without seeing, without light, or with your eyes closed. So, that’s really fascinating, within the context.
I try to put those things together in the process I’m involved in, in making art – feelings combined with that process of what I see in the world.
You don’t have to connect them. You can begin by saying I have expressed myself through many forms of art – painting, photography, drawing, filmmaking… what else… music, performance – these have brought up in me different modes of perception and process. And then you can talk about, for example what happens when you walk down the street and your photographer eyes come up, and what it feels like, and what it looks like, and how you’re noticing, or objectifying, or making correlations, or perceiving things in a – whatever the rectangle of a photograph lens is – however you want to speak about that. Whatever is true.
So then in the studio I’m doing a combination of things.
And then you can talk about how ‘over time’ you have developed a new way of painting, internally a new process that relies less and less immediately on what you see externally, and more and more on something internal that you may not have words for yet. And then you give the example of when you draw in darkness.
Looking for words is a challenge. I don’t have a good way to describe it.
Well, you are asking more of yourself than is necessary. Do your best describing it simply. Don’t worry about big exciting words yet.
© David Ronce 2011
all works herein © copyright David Ronce 2009 - 2015