The Work Behind the Work
This journal is about building a record of my “light bulb” moments. Including the one I had about how to structure and use my blog.
What I’m after
What happens to all the thinking that never makes it into a painting? I take many different journeys conceptually and intellectually and they don’t all have a direct impact on a particular piece of art. I wanted to figure out how to use this blog to capture the moments when they journeys lead to a new understanding and direction. I want to look back and trace where I have been and how I’ve arrived at where I am. Maybe someday, it will interest other people too, but that doesn’t matter.
Where i’m coming from
I’ve never been very interested in explaining my artwork. I always say, “these aren’t editorial cartoons.” They don’t need you to “get” them for me to consider them a success. They come together in a flurry of brainstorming, free associating, and contemplation mixed in with the occasional “splash of color” just to make the composition hold together better. They don’t usually tell a neat little story. They chronicle a intellectual journey I’ve taken. And just as David Burne once said about writing about music being like dancing about architecture, if I try to verbalize about what I make too much, it just kills the magic that might happen when someone else takes a look and recognizes something unique to them.
If a painting needs a page of text to make it interesting, I’ve probably missed something. I’m not illustrating someone’s philosophy and I’m not being overly clever so dwelling on a piece too much after it’s done and snapping it’s picture is enough post mortem for me. What interests me more is documenting everything that happens before the painting exists.
- Mapping out the rabbit holes.
- Reexamining the dead end ideas.
- Exploring the paths I could have taken.
- Thanking the art gods for decisions that didn’t stick.
- Cataloging the symbols that keep showing up before I know why.
- Reliving the writings, conversations, jokes, and minced oaths that eventually become part of the work.
If not for this, most of that would disappear. This is my attempt to keep some of it around. Not because it’s important but because it’s the secret sauce that goes into making something worth painting. And it is a treasure chest to be sorted through for more inspirations and branching ideas in unanticipated directions.
What happened
I realized I don’t want to keep a regularly cadenced journal of everyday things. I want to keep a record of discoveries. Not every path I take leads to changes in how I think. Not every idea deserves an entry. But every once in a while, a light bulb illuminates brightly through the fog my ADHD addled mind. A question gets answered or is replaced by a better question.
Those moments are worth saving, and so, here I am.
What Changed here
I stopped defaulting to thinking I need to document what I do and I realized it would be more useful to me later and more likely to motivate me now if I simply documented how my ideas evolve.
This digging deeper into the dry hole of my process will capture the sparks. The paintings are only one visible part of a much longer process that ignites them.
what to forget
- Treating this like a traditional blog.
- Explaining the meaning of every painting.
- Recording conversations simply because they happened.
what to remember
Documenting the creative process as part of the artwork without becoming an explanation of it. Don’t kill the magic. Add to it.
The mission statement for this collection of thoughts will be:
Focus on the "light bulb" moments that come about after a process of exploration and discovery.
Anything more is just documenting dumb shit.
“Keep Digging” – Big Mike 🤗