I've been trying to puzzle something out for a while and I think I now know what the answer is...
but I'm getting ahead of myself as I've not yet stated what the puzzling was all about
there's a lot of chatter online from people wanting to find their artistic voice and those who think they can provide assistance
I've never put much stock in any of that as I already know what I like and what I don't and I am fairly confident that there is a distinctive quality to my work that makes it mine and for people that are all familiar with me, easily recognizable
what I have struggled with is finding a process for my work, especially when it comes to anything conceptual
where to begin?
what to do next?
then what?
figuring that out has never come easy - there are tried and true ways of working through initial inspiration and ideas but I can get bogged down with them and they become the work
Sometimes I want sketchbooks to work in, not sketchbooks that are the work
and then there's all the thinking... I like thinking and I do a lot of it, every day, but again... the ideas tumble in and through and around and sometimes that's fine but it's not always what I want
sometimes I want to just do something!
with my latest desire to explore the people and landscape of the Klondike GoldRush, I decided fairly quickly on that I didn't want to get bogged down with any of that
I just wanted to look at an image or two and do something spurred on by it
first with the mountain-inspired paper and cloth collages, then the clothing inspired small textile pieces and today it was images of water and trees
the image on the right is a heavily edited crop from a photo of the Yukon River taken in 2018, printed on clear acetate and on the left is a tracing paper print of trees at Marsh Lake taken in 2022
overlaid like this, the branches of one connecting with the other
I decided to do some small ink studies in the same kind of blackened blue as the trees, looking to get some similar lines and shapes as well
with a dip pen I scrawled lines from one of Robert Service's poems across Bristol board and then sprayed water onto the wet ink
the water droplets hit the ink and dots of colour exploded from the lines - they reminded me of the skinny trees in the photo above
a few squirts more, in an effort to create even more skinny tree-like shapes and I had ruined the whole effect with what were now large splotches of faded colour
hmmm...
round two would be on a better quality mixed media paper but I had the idea to paint some watercolour on first, to reference the water
once that was dry, more expressive words by Mr. Service with the same Payne's Grey ink and this time a gentler touch with the spray bottle
much better!
laid next to the images, the correlation is distinct and yet somewhat abstracted
exactly what I was hoping for
doing, not planning
rather than swatching the colours, making something with them
start with what I know and see what comes next
at any point along the way I can stop and do formal explorations and investigations but for now, just trying things out feels like a better way... almost like falling right in to the work rather than testing the waters first
these wise words I discovered today say it best:
"I am still thinking, and my thoughts are guiding my choices... But I am out of my head and thinking with my hands."
Helen Terry
2014
4 comments:
Ah, yes, concepts. Elusive and hard to pin down. Reading through your post, I was nodding my head. I feel what you feel... and I am never happier than when I cut through the muddle of something too deep to get my head round and just start doing. I think constantly too and that is good but it is not until my hands take over that I begin to work my way through something. All the deep and the meaning and the concept generally follows, albeit doggedly, but eventually it all merges into what I want to express without me forcing it. When I look at your images here (and in whatever you do actually in whatever style) I recognise the work as yours. Like handwriting. We can write about all kinds of subjects but the handwriting is the constant.
Here, I can see a series of thoughts and concepts which you have captured as they occur before they flit away again. More will come, some will escape and maybe come around again, some will be caught and anchored down. And piece by piece your concept will materialise.
I like that image of "thinking through my hands" - very useful explainer for the more improvisatory among us to explain ourselves to the planners!
You've created something that talks to the inspiration while being clearly a new thing, and it has the inflection of your mind behind it. I think I would recognise it as yours easily if I saw it in a line up!
Dear Jillayne:
I love what you're creating! It brings so many wonderful things to mind...nature, my grandfather and dad who loved Canada and further west to Alaska...
I can't wait to see where your muse carries you next.
xoxo
Donna
I think I've said this before, but I wish I could be a fly on the wall and watch you create. I would love to feel the textures and, oddly, that goes for what obviously here are done with paint and paper. I know they aren't overly textural but they beg to be touched all the same. Your colour palette is always inspiring and one day I'd like to emulate that in one of my landscapes. Not sure how to go about it but the idea is tumbling around. Perhaps I'll do some playing with the shaving cream technique and change my normal colourway to something more evocative of what I consider 'your' colours. Hmmm.....
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