After 2 hours of singing with the Girls Garage Band this morning ( still working on our Maroon 5 and Michael Jackson songs), I am back in the studio after lunch trying to switch gears into art-making. I am not having a lot of success, I would so much rather curl up in bed and read a good book.. It's that kind of wintery day... Speaking of books, opening the mail today I received this; one of my favorite little books on artmaking,
While not quite what I had in mind, ( I was thinking of a steamy historical romance. ala Gabaldon...) I nevertheless cracked it open and re-acquainted myself with this very useful little gem. I have read this book several times in whole, and in part, and even aloud to students who would not do it for themselves. But wherever I randomly choose to open it, it never fails to deliver just that I need to hear. Today it happened to be this;
"One of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is even the failed pieces are essential.... the point is that you learn to make your work by making your work"
And just as importantly , " Control apparently is not the answer. ..What's needed is nothing more than a broad sense of what you are looking for, some strategy for how to find it, and an overriding willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the way. Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding."
When I was in grad school one of my teachers told me I had to allow myself to make bad work. How difficult that was! Why would I want to make duds? It was embarrassing and I would only get slammed at the next group critique and have to cry all the way home on the bus up to Nederland. But those early pieces forced me to investigate my ideas, to cross a lot of them off my list, and finally to arrive at a body of work that really sang. Without them my MFA thesis would have been impossible.
Years later with students of my own at the local community college, I noticed how many of them dropped my class after the first meeting or two. Was it too demanding? Was ceramics to messy for them? Were they reluctant to cut off all of their fancy fingernails? All of the above as it turns out, but what was really dampening their enthusiasm and had them running for the door, was what David and Ted just explained in the preceding quote; "uncertainty is essential.. and a tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite for succeeding." What I realized after a few semesters of low enrollment is that many of my students had an intolerance for mistakes and surprises, the lack of certainty inherit in the ceramic process was just too much. The mystery of the kiln firings, the way clay can slump, crack, blow up, glazes that bubble and boil or simply fall off, it was just too, well, uncertain for them. Most I think ended up in the adjacent painting studio where red was red and it certainly stayed where you put it.
In my on-going challenge to craft a living out of this crazy art-form, I had forgotten how much I need those bad pieces, how important it is to allow the kiln to take its toll, that for me the uncertainty is the juicy part. I love not quite knowing what is coming out of the kiln. Many a dark night I can be found flash light in hand peering into the just cracked open kiln. I feel like I 'm 6, it's Christmas morning and I finally get to open all my presents. Thanks David and Ted, I forgot how important letting go can be....
No comments:
Post a Comment