One thing I took away with me was the idea that I must be the laziest artist ever. Ideas and concepts for pieces come to me like a dime a dozen, but the development on those pieces often ends after the innitial idea. I probably dozens of sketch books filled with ideas, mostly in text format and then I rarely alter the idea, add to it or develop it at all. When I make time to actually work on said pieces, I often try to crank it out as fast as possible so that I can have the finished product in front of me. A lot of time when I am working on pieces I find myself feeling like I am in a race to hurry and get it done. This occurs even when I am spinning wool, I notice so many times that I am cranking it as fast as it can go. I think this occurs because I have a lot of inspirational drive but very little “stick-to-it-ivness”. So if I can’t get a piece out before my interest wanes then it is dead. A lot of times this happens before I even have a chance to begin on a piece. Okay, this is bringing me back to a quote I remember from “Art & Fear” that I quoted several months ago:
“Designer Charles Eames, arguably the quintessential Renaissance Man of the twentieth century, used to complain good-naturedly that he devoted only about one percent of his energy to conceiving a design – and the remaining ninety-nine percent to holding onto it as a project ran its course. Small surprise. After all, your imagination is free to race a hundred works ahead, conceiving pieces you could and perhaps should and maybe one day will execute – but not today, not in the piece at hand. All you can work on today is directly in front of you. Your job is to develop an imagination of the possible.”
Another thing I took away is that I just how much I love small artwork. I knew my own artwork has the tendency to be small, but it had never occured to me until later reflection after walking through SOFA how my eyes glazed over at the galleries with large work and that I was magnetically drawn to the galleries with small intimate work that needs to be viewed at from inches away. That is where I get really excited and inspired. And speaking of small work, I was shocked to find that the above piece by Melanie Bilenker is actually very-very-very miniature. It is actually only 1 1/16″ x 1/2 ” in size, incredible.
The train ride home was fun as well, we day dreamed about when we get a studio space to share. Someday, someday.
