making it and showing it

Any time in the past when I "make stuff," I get wrapped up only in the process and I love it. My favorite space is when my mind feels blank and I'm only doing the art, not thinking about anything. "The zone," some people call it. I can reach that place in writing or in art and very rarely anywhere else.

Today I was coloring with Maya. I've been thinking about a particular drawing in my head for two, three, or four weeks. Not sure when it started forming. This photo (the first one) Sal posted reminds me of what I had in mind.

Anyway, we were coloring and I realized I was ready to make this thing. I started in and did a lot of praying for patience. I prayed because, of course, Maya was full of questions. Ideally, I would have been alone. I didn't want to wreck this time with her (she's needed a lot of extra "just Mommy and Maya" time, understandably). After a little while, though, she got into her own drawing and we had a really nice time. Some singing while drawing, but no interactive thought required.

As I was doing this I realized that for the first time in my life I was thinking about what I might say about the piece if I shared it. I've never considered the possibility of an audience while making art before. Of course in art classes I knew there would be an audience in the end, but, it was never something that was a part of the process before.

Now, this may sound like some steps backward in the creative process. It isn't at all. Rather than being self-conscious I felt like I was given access to a part of my brain I'd never heard before. Always before I just made the stuff. Everything was by feel, straight from my body. This needs to have more grey just because it feels like it does, etc. That's how I'd get lost in "the zone."

Thankfully, that's all still true. I mean, it was still a physical experience, making the drawing. But at the same time I was thinking about what I might say if I was talking about the picture to someone (or sharing it with Facebook or Twitter). Again, not in a self-conscious way, but rather in an open way. The question of having interesting thoughts about what I was doing didn't remove me from the art, but instead brought me deeper into it. It was really, really cool.

I don't remember a lot of the thoughts I had that I considered sharing. Here, though, are some fragments I do remember:

• with oil pastels there's no way to fuck it up, you can always layer over it
  
  
• immediately after thinking that thought, I totally fucked up the picture and barely rescued it from the brink of not-at-all-what-I-wanted
  
  
• about 3/4 of the way through I realized something pretty huge. all along I was thinking I was doing a black & white-ish sun scene on a seriously foggy or overcast day. and, duh, all that way into making it I realized that it's actually the moon at night, not the sun in fog.
  
  
• I kept thinking that I'd wished the sun [sic] was farther over to the right. But every time I worked on it (I could have moved it, pastels are really that forgiving) it wanted to stay where it was.
  
  
• my brother gave me a mosaic from Vietnam that I realize informed this drawing. I went and looked at it after I finished the drawing and still like the mosaic, but want to push the stream of light in it over to the left now. Here's that mosaic.
  
  
• I'm not sure I've ever made a picture in one sitting. There's something really important to me about leaving it alone for a while and coming back to it. If I don't do that, I'm too close to it and almost always take it too far and lose it.
  
  
• when I come back to it the picture always starts screaming at me to attend to certain spots. I don't know why and I can't predict it, that's all a part of the "just feeling" it experience.
  
  
• I definitely thought about the fact that there's no way this can be experienced online (the picture) since the texture of the pastels is so much a part of it (or, it is for me, I should say). Also, I'm no photographer, so I have no idea how to best capture the image. (Thought a photo was better than a scan, at least.) Note added at the end: Ugh. The photos do *not* capture the drawing well. It actually looks (to me) pretty awful and different. That's too bad. My ego will have a hard time sharing it now. But, I'll get over it.
  
  
• almost all the strokes of the pastels were straight across the page (with the obvious exception of the circular blob that I ended up scratching across in the middle-ish). I did, however, find myself compelled to do squiggles and swirls at times, too. I like the idea that you may never see the swirls, but because they are there, the layers will show (even if they don't really show). I just can't get enough of layers.
  
  
• another day when I was drawing with Maya I had only access to colors I normally wouldn't choose. I decided to play around with the edges of shapes. Here's the picture I was doing when I studied that. The swirly shapes up against the straighter shapes in the same colors. I liked seeing how they made a new line or edge where they intersected, though I intentionally didn't overlap them very much. I used that experience when I was making this moon picture. Pastels are so different than markers, though, but a bunch of the edge experience was the same.
  
  
  
  
  
• I used my fingers, palms, and knuckles a lot on the moon picture. I now remember there's a tool (rolled up paper cone, maybe?) to help with this. But I will *always* prefer using my hands for things like blending colors.
  
  
• I absolutely *love* having no ability to totally control the colors. That is, the pastels get covered in goo of the other colors (as did my fingers) and pretty often there will be a surprising streak that I completely didn't intend. This is almost always an opportunity. Even when somehowthefuck a bit of red pastel got in there. (I used a bit of yellow and a bit of peach on purpose, though. And I think I used the blue once, though I'm not sure.) Again, it's one of my favorite parts of making stuff. "Mistakes" don't really exist, it's just how the picture makes itself known or gets uncovered or whatever.
  
  
• I also totally hate not having total control over the colors. But, that's only when I lose sight of the fact that it is entirely impossible for me to recreate from my mind what I see onto the paper.
  
  
• because I was using mostly all black, white, and grey, I kept feeling like I was using charcoal then being thrilled it was so smeary. That was a really odd sensation, losing sight of what I was using.
  

I don't often show things I make to people. It's not because I don't like the stuff, it's just never been a part of why I make things. I really do think that knowing there was a place I could share the picture (this blog) made the experience of making it richer. I'm relieved I didn't start making it *for* an audience, though. I think that's always been why I don't bother sharing what I make. The idea of making something knowing others would see (and, therefore, judge) it was something I assumed would alter my process in a terrible way. I assumed I'd become other-conscious and not stay in the moment. Making art is one of my favorite ways of finding The Moment. I never want to lose that.

I just wrote and have now erased a whole apology for calling this "art." It feels pretentious is why. But, screw it. I like to make things and generally think they come out as I want them to. So, I'll call it art.

All this talk about how social networking leads to disconnecting people, to shallow exchanges, and all that other bull crap... it's everywhere. Well, it's now my experience that not only do I use "social networking" really connect with other human beings, it has enriched my own life experience in ways I would have never guessed. Seriously accessing a part of my mind I didn't realize I could tap into, the "why" of the process of making art.

In this huge version, you can kind of see the textures. But, it looks very different than offline.




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