"There's some mysterious process at work here, which I don't even want to understand."
- Philip Guston
I am an
archivist and a documenter by nature. I collect shells and stones and
eggs and pods (and shot glasses). I have journals that date back to
seventh grade and agenda's which range from little black Hermes books
in high school through a full blown Filofax system (that grew to 5
books). On entering the digital age, I constructed a database
that tracks symbols used in my work based on my emotional state and "Process
as Product" which is a collection of virtual projects
documenting various aspects of my work.
Some of
these projects (WIP Project, Starting
With a Line) function as virtual flipbooks, allowing the viewer
to follow the development of a painting. Other projects
document an interactive process (ArtPals,
Left Hand/Right Hand) and deal with a
communication between entities. There are also the 5 journals
(and Ocean View)
that I paint in daily which comprise my visual diaries, the beach
paintings which are about returning to something again and again
because you love it so much, and a piece documenting a usually
discarded aspect of studio life (Core
Samples). In bringing these pieces together, I hope to
create a fuller understanding of process in general, to engage the
viewer in the leaps and crashes of the creative journey, to bring
focus to the voyage as opposed to the destination and to strengthen
an awareness of the collective (as I am sure many will recognize
pieces of themselves in the motivation behind projects).
Process
and product are inextricably linked. The human experience has
always involved searching for answers, delving into the mysteries,
asking why? Along the way come startling discoveries,
individual gems that represent a truth at that time. When we
study civilization this is what we examine: how the questions were
asked, the pitfalls that were encountered along the way and the
individual discoveries that continue to hold resonance for us.
Some of us do this through religion, others through science and
others through the arts.
Immersing
oneself in the process brings an understanding of the development of
culture and how we got to where we are today. Experiencing a
single work allows us to contemplate beauty, genius, truth and their
counterparts. Reading a book, for example gives us a slice of
life, creating a window into another world, into another thought
structure. Reading the complete works of an author allows one
to experience the whole creative process, to see how ideas develop,
it gives us an understanding of individual nuance and we feel the
cycles of successful exploration and embarking on failed
avenues. Both experiences are valuable for the different
answers they reveal.
In
painting, we see this when we explore a body of work vs. focus on a
individual image. The single painting can launch any number of
experiences: it can be a leaping off point for reverie, bring a
moment or a lifetime of pleasure, provide a respite from the
world, it can reveal good or evil, it can expose one to
another way of seeing that can be brought into daily life.
Process
can be experienced through a visit to an artist's studio, a
retrospective exhibition or through periodic documentation as
presented here. Immersion in an artist's process allows one to
swim in the sea of human development, to witness first-hand how ideas
grow and change; the ebb and flow mimicking the cycles of
nature. By examining process we witness a microcosm of the
birth and development of civilization, we can go down the false
paths, we witness inevitable frustrations and experience the
seemingly unsalvageable transformed into the transcendent.
Some are
more tuned towards the singular, the one, the goal, the
ultimate. Others are spurred forward by the journey, the
development, the evolution, the quest. Neither is more
important, nor do they exist without the other. When one
(person or culture) asks questions, answers are found. Along
this continual journey truths are discovered, but truths change the
deeper one delves, hence the journey never ends nor does the making
of images, the writing of books, or the technological
breakthroughs. Some search to find the answers; some to
experience the journey, when the journey itself is viewed as a
complete experience it can be called: process as product.