Divinity in process
I have been a full time artist now for , hmm, 14 months I guess. For just over two years before that, after I had made my decision to actively pursue art as my next career, I worked a muggle job part time, and was an artist part time. And before that, for 3 decades actually, I worked full time, studied and volunteered on the side, and only occasionally had bouts of creative adventures in the margins (quilting and sewing was one of them).
When I came back to the practice of pigment play, I approached it with an end goal in mind. A finished ‘product’ - a completed painting, drawing, artwork. I valued the process, but I did not hold it with the same tenderness as the final outcome. I can see this is wholly the by-product of my own perfectionism, goal orientation, and self-worth based on productive outcome. And I know this is tied to the entrenched narrative of our society in general, those systems we are brought up in and trained into. The last year has been an untangling from that narrative. It is not easy to unweave those threads - they are not even always distinct threads, but fibres within threads, and I don’t know there is ever a complete unpicking (probably for the best since I still need to function within society!), but the loosening has revealed more than I could have expected
I've come to realise just how deeply important the process of creating is to me. I have talked about it multiple times, and I felt it before, but lately, it is visceral.
It feels like my literal purpose for being.
All of that magic, all of that pushing pigment around to honour my subject, figuring out how and why and learning from "mistakes" and experimenting and being curious and being open hearted, willing to keep trying... that's for me.
I wake up and my first thoughts are of paintbrushes and pencils, and the millions of ideas making their way to me.
As I lay down at night, turning off a brain so freaking excited to keep creating is a challenge.
The process, the unfurling, the embodiment of artistic practice is my own personal journey, my why, an intermingling of thought and feeling, coordination of sense, movement and repetition that I am not sure I will ever be able to adequately put into words. But revelling in that, letting myself completely embody that journey with delight and wonder allows me to make something beautiful and tangible and wild hearted FOR YOU.
My process is the inner journey that leads to the outer pouring of love and attention, skill development and reverence that is a final painting, and that final painting isn’t mine, it is yours. I made it for you. I made it to connect myself to you through the wild. I made it so we can share that love of the untamed. I made it for your personal delight, so that your heart feels a little fuller, so your imagination runs a little wilder, so you remember your own magic and how deeply you are rooted to this beautiful planet.
So, with giving myself that gift of process in mind, I have been diving deep into a sketchbook practice. Multiple sketchbook practices in fact.
I have one that is for studies of a particular animal per page or spread, and I will make multiple fairly detailed sketches of them in movement, in the quest to understand their nature and anatomy and exquisite beauty more.
I play with these sketches for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, and will come back and pick up where I left off the next day. There is no pressure, no expectation. I do not need to finish a particular sketch, it will wait for me the next time I am ready - I get to have conversations that last many days with just one drawing. I will choose one coloured pencil, and do the whole page or spread in that colour - monochromatic, but not the expected graphite. That choice is intentional - not only do I love the feel of coloured pencil, more buttery and less slippery than graphite, choosing a colour that is not ‘realistic’ for that creature also allows me to mitigate perfectionism, and really focus on value (darks and lights). I have learned so much already.
Then I have my painting sketchbooks. In these I am spending anywhere from 2 to 4 hours on an acrylic painting of a subject, a portrait. This is a practise for seeing in paint rather than pencil, no longer monochromatic, for seeing the effect of multiple glazes, layers, thought processes. To develop my brush skills and to build the skills I strive towards for my bigger oil paintings.
While the work in these sketchbooks is for me, I am excited to share them with you. Because I love to share my delight, my wonder at the incredible intricacy of the wild world around us. I am no different to my 4 year old nephew - I want to proclaim “look at this!” because I know, I know, that you will also be in awe of the subject I am choosing to study. I mean really, who could not be utterly gobsmacked by the incredible existence of a peregrine falcon, of a puma, of a channel-billed cuckoo. There are so many incredible creatures, I want to devote my life to studying them, to celebrating them, for us to talk about them and be amazed by them together.
So these sketchbooks, they're more than sketchbooks to me, they're my secret garden I guess, the little clearing in the woods where I can be completely at ease and just play and let myself stop where I want to without having a finished painting or product and be completely ok. Having this place, with the sort of structure I thrive in, means I get to practise, and to make even more beautiful finished paintings, artwork FOR YOU.
This is my invitation to you: If you're a creative too, I'd love to hear about what your creative process means for you. If you're a collector, or if your creativity is in something outside of art, I'd love to hear what questions you have about the artistic creative process, PLUS where it is you find your creativity, and what it means to you. We’re all creative beings, don’t forget - you are literally recreating yourself every day!
