It’s confession time, although I don’t think this will come as much of a surprise: I like process. I like the rituals set by a particular method and the freedom to make up my own rules. But I wonder to what extent I then fall back on process as a way of making. In the past I have unpicked and re-sewn large patches of canvas, as in Das Ziel shown on my website. In these works, once I had decided on the concept, and made initial choices about size and material, there were few opportunities to respond in the actual act of destruction and (re)creation, a repetitive process. I don’t think that process is a bad thing in the act of creation but it came to dominate my work, becoming the subject matter.
Process is, I think, related to the concept of Flow proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. I first came across it as part of my day job, but have since read about flow in relation to craftspeople and artists - who achieve a sense of total absorption once they are skilled in their craft and engaged in tasks which are still individually challenging. This latter stage, the challenge, has I think been lacking in my formal unpicked and re-sewn works. After the trial of the first couple such works, in which I did not know what the outcome would look like, the act has become routine. It may explain why it has taken me so long to finish the small patch of linen woven into cotton that I was working on when I started writing this blog in August. It’s done now, but I am unsatisfied with it and have started to paint on it (see below) as I would any other piece of canvas, making the effort of unpicking and re-sewing potentially futile.
Process is, I think, related to the concept of Flow proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. I first came across it as part of my day job, but have since read about flow in relation to craftspeople and artists - who achieve a sense of total absorption once they are skilled in their craft and engaged in tasks which are still individually challenging. This latter stage, the challenge, has I think been lacking in my formal unpicked and re-sewn works. After the trial of the first couple such works, in which I did not know what the outcome would look like, the act has become routine. It may explain why it has taken me so long to finish the small patch of linen woven into cotton that I was working on when I started writing this blog in August. It’s done now, but I am unsatisfied with it and have started to paint on it (see below) as I would any other piece of canvas, making the effort of unpicking and re-sewing potentially futile.
Work in progress, still. Saffron dyed threads sewn into cotton duck, with charcoal, dye, ink and make-up. Photograph: Bridget H Jackson
I have expanded my processes recently. My works go through several stages: I have added drawing, dyeing, painting and collaging to unpicking and re-sewing, in various orders. These processes completely absorb me, though I am not sure that I would describe them as flow. I tend to go on something of an emotional rollercoaster when I am working. I am excited about the possibilities that are open to me when I first start drawing and painting. I work slowly, stopping to reflect on what I have done and think about what to do next. Because I grind my own paints, from pigments, I add one colour at a time. My anxiety tends to increase as a painting develops, with a fear of messing it up, which can be quite crippling. There will usually be a point when I feel that the painting doesn’t work, and then it is a case of attempting to retrieve it, through collage or unpicking or more painting.
Nonetheless a part of me is still concerned that I am overly reliant on a method for creation, albeit an expanded one. I am concerned that I add paint to a drawing, or collage a painting, because that is what I have decided my formula is for making art. And in doing so that I am not responding to the individual tensions in a work so that it develops in its own individual way. So, what I have decided to do for the rest of this blog post is to show – to you, but mostly myself - how individual works have developed since my post September's drawings. Through this I hope to see how what I have done has developed the work and whether it is resulted in more complete images. I think I need a few days to properly reflect, and will add a post script with my response to these images in a few days time, but I can see that in each work has developed and evolved, even those with which I have struggled to reach a satisfactory end point.
Nonetheless a part of me is still concerned that I am overly reliant on a method for creation, albeit an expanded one. I am concerned that I add paint to a drawing, or collage a painting, because that is what I have decided my formula is for making art. And in doing so that I am not responding to the individual tensions in a work so that it develops in its own individual way. So, what I have decided to do for the rest of this blog post is to show – to you, but mostly myself - how individual works have developed since my post September's drawings. Through this I hope to see how what I have done has developed the work and whether it is resulted in more complete images. I think I need a few days to properly reflect, and will add a post script with my response to these images in a few days time, but I can see that in each work has developed and evolved, even those with which I have struggled to reach a satisfactory end point.
All photographs: Bridget H Jackson
Post script: I write this having had a good painting day, when I am pleased with the progress I have made with a number of works, and I know where to take others. The thing that has struck me the most in seeing how individual works have developed is the extent to which I idealise earlier stages of a work in my mind. In my mind the drawings were much stronger than the early photographs bear witness to. I have spent a decade or so making minimalist work so maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise to me that I am still drawn to the simplicity of a work at its start. And yet, although I am not entirely happy with the end point of each, I am pleased that each work has improved through evolution, the illusion of each image breaking down.
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