Working styles

Everyone has one, what's yours?

I ask the question because I've been thinking about mine lately. That, and routines, plans and systems.

I've been fairly busy (not a bad thing) and haven't gotten to the blog in time to be fairly lucid, or awake. I've been down in my shop making stuff, this round of it finished, packed and mailed today, before I thought to adequately document it. The making's the thing with me you know...anyways, I've been stuck lately on the fact that I rarely have an original thought in the things I make or write, and that was kind of bugging me. But then I went back thru my short list of favorite artists/makers, looked at pictures of their studios, looked at my notes on their work habits, and sure enough, I discovered a trend.

It seems the examples I most appreciate generally start off with a pile of stuff, junk, concepts, ideas, clippings, notes, recordings, whatever; then they compose something from the pile. I work much like that: a blank canvas, screen, page, clean work table, empty refrigerator, clean workbench usually leaves me staring into space for hours on end, empty headed. But give me some stuff, and I can see 1000 different things I could do to/make with it. I'm not one of those types of people that come up with an idea, make a list, get the stuff, and assemble it logically (unless I'm building a building, in which case I'm really good at that way of working). I need a phrase, an image, a piece of metal, ripped out articles, a clip of a video or a recording, a line from a song, a piece of charcoal, a crayon, a print or painting...I need a place to start, a point of departure, then I'm off to the races. And it has to come to me, usually obliquely. If I seek it out or chase it, the idea or concept runs and hides.

So, I gained some insight, made some peace with my lack of originality (which fits nicely with one of my life observations: "nothing's new, everything is a variation on a theme...") and made some stuff. And it was fun.



Wow. It sort of looks like the inside of my mind...



A detail, because I didn't think to take a picture of the finished piece...

And now we end on a high note, because I have a topic embedded in here for a future post: Plans, Routines, and Systems.

Hope everyone has a great evening! Are you in a holiday mood yet?