I had a really interesting conversation with my friend yesterday, I was saying how reading is really important for my work, it is what really inspires me and I was saying that sometimes I find what I am reading really affects what I am making, say I am reading about a certain theorist… suddenly I find myself making work that somehow incorporates what I am reading about and then get frustrated because I realise I don’t even fully agree with their opinion!
He is a writer and was saying it is exactly the same, reading books and then realising that his style of writing has changed somewhat from being influenced by another author… or just from being in a different mood, the way it is written changes and he has to go back over it.
It is to same for my practice, depending on my mood, what I have been reading and what I am thinking about the work can be totally different, I suppose every artist has that? I have been reading about Carl Andre, he seems like quite an interesting person and I have always enjoyed his work… he said in a Frieze article in January ‘an idea in the head is not a work of art. A work of art is out in the world, is a tangible reality’.. I think that is something I really need to hold on to, I tend to go through large periods of not making a great deal but thinking incessantly and then at the last minute just making something spontaneous.
My friend and I were also discussing how important it is to question what you do, we realised that we question the world, who we are, why things are the way they are etc etc and the same for our work, I often wonder if my work suffers for this constant questioning but I am inclined to think that it doesn’t… I make a sculpture and then I think ‘is this really any good?’ ‘Is this really worthy?’ ‘Is this something I would like to add to the world?’ fairly often the answer is no and I take great pleasure in painting over things, planing wood etc and starting from scratch… this often leaves me feeling like I have little tangible evidence of my growing understanding of my practice but I suppose this way of working is just evidence of my indecisiveness and constant questioning…
Occasionally however, I ask those question and I think actually, yes these things are valid, these are interesting ideas and actually this does work….. which is often replaced a few days later by different questions, not necessarily better.. like… Do I even like how it looks? (Do I need to!!?) Is it interesting? (How does it need to be interesting to?) BUT REALLY… IT’S A BIT OF WOOD WITH PAINT ON.
And on it goes…
