THOUGHTS
Who? self portrait 2006
What I would like to focus on is the thought process that I take to make artworks, following you will find some random thoughts about the artworks that I create.
Self portrait 11/14/2007 9AM
9AM November 14th 2007, It's always good to re-discover who you are, and how you feel every day.
Component Parts
Everything is fair game for a layer or component in a piece. I generally collect", or start with many images, drawings, patterns, textures, etc before I can start to edit down to the "right" elements that work for me during that specific creative experience. This process is never the same from day to day. Every new day and experience sharpens my editing skills to a more sophisticated level.
Vintage Photographs, Stories that stay alive
I love vintage photographs, and love to manipulate them into new contemporary pieces. I think of them as stories. I always wonder as I use the photo who and what the characters were, what were they doing, thinking, what their lifes were like. Did they have the same issues that I find to be so unique? I feel like I am somehow keeping their memories alive.
Instant inspiration. Watch the news and document the emotional reactions that you have.
It is often that I look for inspiration when I read or watch the news. We are so constantly bombared by information that we become numb to what is going on at the human level of the "story". I try to remind myself to have some reaction to the stories that I read or experience. I try to remember that these news stories are actually about people and their lives.
Art, like the artist is always criticized, but not nearly as harshly as the artist criticizes his/her own works. And not with the same criteria.
What I always tell my students is that when an artist is completely happy and satisfied with a work it is time to call it quits. We always hear sideline critical commentary about the "meaning" and "validity" of a work, but it is the artist who will be the first to criticize, and with painful honesty. The dissatisfaction with ones own work always drives the next piece. I "should have done this", "I want to do that", "next time I'll do it like this". This is the internal thought process of the creative mind. Thus when you are completely satisfied, and feel that you need not explore further, the internal conversations stop, and it is time to give it up.
What do you see in this picture? The goal of my art is to express to you how I see and how what I see makes me feel.
I often see beauty in the mundane. This for example held my interest for quite a long time before I finally mixed the oil and vinegar together. I pondered the lush sheen that these two ingredients created, and how beautiful they looked as they repelled each other. I thought that it would at some point be a good component in a piece.
