Why Does This Artist Make Art?

I woke up with great plans to go to the Art Institute this morning to see the “Picasso in Chicago” exhibit.  But, I woke up to a very rainy and windy day. Try as I might, I could not get my self motivated to step out of the apartment.  So, I would not say that my “ART” day fell apart completely at that point; it just had to be quickly restructured a bit differently.  So instead the focus turned to clearing out the “Art Closet”. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to become reacquainted with some of the objects that I have been collecting and storing for future art projects.  It was a great way for me to get the creative juices flowing and to forget that the original goal of what I was really doing was “cleaning”.

 

But with this newly acquired downtime to explore random objects. I started to think about why I feel so strongly about making art. Why am I sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by all of this “stuff”?  What is my motivation for collecting all of these things for art making?  The best explanation that I could come up with that seemed concise and not a rambling discourse, “I make art to help me make sense of the world that I live in”. I take in all the ideas, visuals, conversations and everything thing else that I am exposed to… good, bad and the indifferent and all of this gets processed in my head. The art that I create is my response to what has mentally and emotionally move through me.

 

It is with this information that I am given the raw material to build a foundation for the artwork.  Often the ideas or concepts will race through my mind as a natural progression of word associations that from an outsider’s perception would be view as nothing more than randomness. These are then mixed with feelings and emotions that have been stimulated during the process.  The journey of the making of the art moves me forward along this path. Sometime this is a path that is well organized and goes through the best part of the neighborhoods and other time this path is a little more scary, lets just say a little more primal and less refined, as I have said many times before, “The brighter the light, the darker the shadow”. You just need to have a strong conviction and push your way through to the other side. All of these things mixed together define why I make Art. It is what fills my life with purpose and meaning.

 

So at the end of my day, I have a clean and organized art storage space and a table in the studio that is covered with things to inspire me. So all in all it was a good day. If there is one thing I have learned that helps me, as an artist. In order for me to make art and maintain some level of sanity. I need to be able to adapt and become fluid in the course of the day. At any given moment, things may seem to crumble and start falling apart. It is helpful to have the ability to be able to “switch to damage control” and redirect your creative energy.  This is the preferred goal, but I must admit it is one that I am not always able to achieve.

 

So next Monday, I will try to see the exhibit and go forward from there.