Loss Creation.
I’ve been thinking lately of how disparate influences get diffused or consolidated within us, and help in spitting work out.
I try not to delve too far into the process, rather, just let it do its thing. That said, it’s hard not to have a poke around sometimes, especially when there’s something enticingly lurking, behind Curtain No.3.
I read somewhere the other day, Donald Rumsfeld talking about the variations of ‘knowing’.
“…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
The one that’s stuck in my head, like peanut butter in braces, are the “unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Rather than feeling a sense of a void filled, I’ve been feeling engulfed with a sense of loss over my ignorance on something in particular.
This something in particular also makes me want to be able to time travel even more than ever. So I’m doing the next best thing; raiding every available resource and leaving the flapping cupboards bare.
I’m always fascinated when a back-story, or a bleeding-in-story comes to light about someone’s work, whatever their Medium.
I find myself jumping in to view the work with the other stuff hanging off of it, only to jump back to view it standing on its own few feet, without the personal scaffolding.
It’s made me think further about the assumptions we hold of people, of things, of time periods, whatever it may be. How we conveniently fill in our own blanks, often with little regard to actual thinking. To catch oneself in mid-flight, can be humbling at best, and downright horrifying at worst.
Not knowing can be a creative blessing. For instance when you’re full-steam working on something, running blind, trusting in where you’ll end up, and when you do finish, you end up somewhere you never expected to, but perfectly in the right place.
In any case, I’m still banging around with why on earth Laundry is called Laundry when it’s a bundle of dirty clothes, Laundry when it’s clean and needs folding and putting away, but back to being called clothing again, once it is put away.
Soil, wash, and repeat.
January 5, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Yes, its important for creative people to continually question what they know, because the moment they stop is when they create a formula for their work. This leads to stagnant art and they don’t really “grow.” Maybe ceasing to question is ok once you have created a masterpiece… Usually this happens with age. I welcome the approach (in artmaking) of not knowing what you are dong while you are dong it. It’s best to create intuitively and maybe reflect after the act. Great post!
January 6, 2009 at 3:18 am
Nathan, so good to hear the questions put so eloquently,almost Tom Robbinesquely…agree with going full steam ahead not knowing where you’re going and ending up just where you should be…
love the image of catching yourself in mid-flight, it reminded me of a cartoon with wiley coyote realizing he was about to fall.
keep writing, i’ll keep reading…
and boris, i always question, even more so as i’ve aged…i used to think i knew something, then i got older and felt i knew nothing, it’s like starting all over again
ps
like the provocative photo too
January 6, 2009 at 3:30 am
good Rumsfeld quote, though it caught quite a bit of media flack when he first said it, if i remember correctly. i believe some of the most puzzling, poignant musings are generated from political inanities.
remember y’all, the future will be better tomorrow!
January 6, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Creative intuition works for awhile but is ultimately frustrating, and destructive on the psyche. The advantage of conception before the act is obvious. A belief that “formula” leads to stagnation is a “judgment of taste.” A clear process results in better art than a “kitchen sink” approach.
And Rummy’s foggy remembrance of epistemology is sad grandstanding – he should be imprisoned, not quoted.
January 7, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Mark, is to say creative intuition is destructive to the psyche is to call all improvisers self abusers? Some do, I guess. “Better art” is ultimately a judgment made by History. Chops are chops and they become manifest in artists’ work whether they’re composing a fugue, improvising to a jazz chart, composing an aleatory symphony, or dumbly following an algorithm.
Foraging for and grazing upon found material is not a “kitchen sink” approach unless the creator applies no judgment/filtering and, that, only if there is no conceptual basis for the resulting assemblage. Depending on the artist, pieces can pounce out, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, fully formed, or be painstakingly gestated by iterative internal and external processes and revisions over time.
Finally, not to quote from, and even learn from, despicable characters is a bit rigid. To wit, let me paraphrase Roy Cohn, Don’t show me the law, show me the judge.
January 8, 2009 at 4:23 pm
i like the rummy quotes. but what about the things we think we know that we really don’t, and the things we think we don’t know but we really do?
January 8, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Mark when you say that creative intuition is ultimately frustrating and destructive on the psyche, is this from personal experience or an observation about intuitive artists?
Alberto I appreciate your statement about judgement/filtering.
and also your way of connecting the intuitive and the conceptual.
This conversation reminds me of seeing Sean Scully’s art at the Phillips a few years ago. He had a concept and a formula and he stuck with it. for what seemed like forever. I remember my reaction,
“Okay…now how about something different?” At the time of the exhibit, in my quest to understand, I printed out an interview with Sean Scully. It must have been over 20 pages and made me wonder, is it the conversation that makes the art interesting?
On the other side think about Klee exhibit, concept plus exploration= interesting images. Is exploration maybe another word for kitchen sink=intuition?
I’d much rather own a Klee than a Scully any day.