the thing is done

It is done. The thesis has been examined and passed. And as weird as it sounds (to me at least), I am now a 'Dr'.

It's been a wonderful experience. I know not many people say that about doing a PhD. Most talk about the torture of it all, the marathon that it is. And of course there is plenty of hard work, a fair proportion of pain, and the journey is long for most, but oh how much I have learned!

My thesis is titled Creative practice, value, and the teaching of art and design in higher education. If you want to see a digital copy of the entire document click here. 

So many thank yous are needed and most have been covered in my thesis acknowledgment section. But I want to say another huge public thank you to the University of Melbourne who funded me to do the PhD through a scholarship. I am very honoured and utterly grateful.

And now for non-thesis writing weekends. And more printmaking!

just kids

I've just finished reading an extraordinary book. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the creative process and the evolution of artists. I'm talking about Just Kids, a memoir by Patti Smith focusing on her early life as a young artist finding her feet in New York City and her close relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Extraordinary in so many ways. It's hard to put words to it.

I loved many things about this book. But one thing in particular was having a detailed account of how Patti and Robert worked through the beginning years of creative development, the trials, the explorations, the self-doubt, the hunger and poverty, the small steps forward, the struggles, the sudden unexpected opportunities, and the incredible range of characters that they met along the way. All real. All amazing artists.

As well as all this Patti gives a detailed description of her and Robert's life at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Absolutely fascinating! It's really quite mind blowing to read about this period of history from a great artist who was deeply immersed in it. Patti Smith, you rock! And thank you for writing this book and recording this history for others to read.

I'm now on the pre-order list for the kindle version of Patti's latest book 'Woolgathering'. Am so looking forward to it.

And she writes so beautifully. Which I guess is to be expected from a poet and song writer of her stature. You must, must, must give it a read. Honestly.

creative mojo[ness]

I found this great TED talk today with painter Kimberly Brooks talking about an experiment she did to uncover her creative process. She talks about it boiling down to 8 stages:

1. vision
2. hope
3. diving in
4. excitement | 5. doubt | 6. clarity
7. obsession
8. resolution

later she added 9. exhibitionism
and a pre-stage: silence.

For her daydreaming is a critical part of how she gets to the 'vision' and 'hope' stages. Many artists talk about this dreamy first step in their creative process where to an outsider, it looks like nothing is going on. The trick is to know how to work through the daydreaming so that something eventually emerges and you start to 'dive in'.

Kimberly also talks about the 'bricklayer' approach to creativity - that is you need to make a start and just keep working, "discipline and faith" being key to this. Kind of similar to Elizabeth Gilbert's idea of being the mule for creativity where you "show up" and "do your job". Or the idea of persistence as I've mentioned before.

You can read a little more about Kimberly's ideas on her stages of the creative process here. Or watch the talk on TED.

Is this how your creative process works for you? Are these your steps? Or are there other aspects that help you kick your creative mojo along?

generating the spark [thoughts on creativity]

I read a lot about creativity. As someone immersed in making|designing|creating I find it an endlessly fascinating topic. And as a researcher, I do too.

There's quite a bit of information out there from psychologists that attempt to explain what creativity is, where it comes from, and how it works.

There are also a range of people immersed in teaching art or design who think about creativity from a making perspective. If you ever feel inspired to read more on this I recommend reading a book called Studio Thinking. These folk know about creativity from an insider-maker's world and that's what they focus on in their book.

The Studio Thinking people write about the 'habits of mind' that need to be developed for creativity to flourish in a studio environment:

develop craft|engage & persist| envision| express| observe| reflect| stretch & explore| understand art world

What I find interesting to think about are the kind of environments or atmospheres that encourage the possibility of creativity (and ones that don't). Creativity is about expansiveness. You can see that when you look at the habits of mind the Studio Thinking people have highlighted. So environments that encourage that expansiveness, ones that allow mental and physical space and movement, freedom, a sense of adventure, exploration and risk taking are really important when initiating and developing creative projects.

My question then, is do we have or allow enough opportunities for this? Do we have the kind of environments where this kind of creativity can spark and come to life?

These are important questions for individual artists|designers|makers, small and medium sized organisations, and also especially, I think, for large organisations and corporations to think about. And I mean organisations of any kind, not just the explicitly creative kind. Because creativity is important in all kinds of work and all kinds of projects.

I read and hear so much about large organisations being fearful of creativity and employees with a creative streak. These kinds of people scare inherently conservative folk because of their expansive natures and ways of working. There is a lot of emphasis on control in many organisations (small, medium or big ones) and, sadly, the loss is creativity. Creative folk and their thinking often freak out those who like to keep hold of the reigns. Imagine how much this impacts on creativity and innovation all over the world! And imagine how much untapped potential lies dormant because of this fear.

But things might be starting to change. 'Blue sky days' are now starting to creep into the way some innovative organisations structure their working week to enable the space for creative thinking (and doing). Google calls this their 20% time where they allow staff to spend one day a week on the dreamy, expansive thinking and doing needed for creativity to spark. There are many websites and books out there encouraging self-employed people to do the same whether they are artists|designers| makers or work in areas not traditionally connected with creativity.

Even those of us who are makers can get stuck in a rut and need to carve time out for some expansive thinking and doing. Do you have a structured way for doing this? If so, what is it and does it work for you?

moku hanga [woodblock printing] clip # 2

No matter how much I play with other printing methods, my one true love will always be moku hanga (Japanese style woodblock printing).

Ages ago I posted a link to this popular video about moku hanga. Today via Ximena's blog I found a link to this other really good moku hanga video (above). And the narration is in English. At one point you will even see someone wrapping a new bamboo leaf around their baren (circular hand press). This, as Annie will attest is a pretty difficult skill to learn. It's a good video covering the basics and you can see the way people traditionally worked this method by sitting on the floor (on zabetons) at a low printing table. In Kyoto there are still a few small workshops that continue working in this way. I was lucky enough to visit a working studio when I lived there. I am still amazed how closely they worked together on the floor with materials stacked all around them. One day I will scan my photos of this visit and post them here for you. Promise.

Why is moku hanga my one true printmaking love? I think it's due to the simplicity of the materials and yet how tricky they are to master together. The video mentions the variables - there are many to learn how to work with (and around). This is so true! Does that sound like madness?

Do you have one creative medium you keep going back to?

risk taking + creativity

How often do you take risks in your creative work? By this I mean do you find yourself mostly working in a way you're comfortable with, same method, same materials, same approach? What does it take for you to step outside your comfort zone? Are you prepared to take big or small risks in your creative work?

When I think about the way I work it's usually in quite a tight, fairly small scale way. I draw and print with quite a bit of control. But I love looking at loose, 'messy' drawings and love prints that are layered and built up in a seemingly uncontrolled (or loosely controlled) way. I try to push myself to work against the way I'm used to, not to try to consciously change my 'style', but more as a way of stepping outside my comfort zone, take a few small risks, experiment, play, see where accidents take me.

It's not easy! It can even feel a bit crazy. But it can be a lot of fun.

When I lived in Kyoto I knew a printmaker who worked in a very tight, controlled way basing his prints on intricate, finely detailed drawings. His prints were incredibly detailed and accurate. He told me he was in awe of another printmaker we both knew who worked in a very loose, organic, experimental way. She would sometimes do wild things like blow torch the surface of her woodblock to get a certain texture, or add chemical substances to the wood and then sandpaper them (or then blow torch them) all in the name of texture. She rarely worked by drawing first. She usually just approached the block and started. Her prints was quite abstract but very, very interesting. I was also in awe of this kind of risk taking. To her it was very natural to work in such a way. She probably didn't even see it as taking risks.

My point is, sometimes it's good to step away from the safe, the known, the familiar patterns of working. Sometimes happy accidents can often follow and new ways of working can open up.

What do you think? How open to risk taking are you?

how do you identify?

photo credit: Emma Byrnes

As I said a few posts ago I'm reading a whole of lot of stuff these days, most of it interesting, some of it mindblowing, and a little bit of it taking me off on small but pleasant tangents.

Recently I have been reading and thinking about artists, designers, makers and identity. Yes, that old curly chestnut. Things like where, how and when does identity form for artists and designers, and does it happen in formal situations (like an art degree) or does a lot of it happen informally (or both)? What goes on in the heads of artists and designers as we think about and form our creative identities? Does it happen quickly or evolve over time (a life time)? Does it happen in a torturous, painful manner? Or does it in fact happen with ease and confidence for some? Do key people influence this development? And does it help if there is someone mentoring us through the process of claiming of an identity as artist and/or designer? What does the support needed to claim a creative identity look like? And what are the key issues we battle with in claiming this identity (family expectations & pressures, financial pressures, popular images of artists/designers, cultural and/or gender expectations)?

Believe it or not there is hardly anything written on this topic. Lots out there about corporate identity, branding, marketing and identity, that kind of thing, but not about the stuff I've listed above.

I warned you my head has been rattling on this topic!

Anything to share on this or any answers to these questions to offer?

And in terms of your creative-maker self, how do you identify?

on creative process

silk screen prints, Kylie Budge

While sitting in my doctor's waiting room recently I was flicking through a 1996 edition of World Interiors and came across an article about the English modernist potter Edmund de Waal. His work is deeply beautiful, simple and clean, and very influenced by Asian aesthetics. A simple sentence from the article struck me as being quite significant. To paraphrase (no, though tempted, I didn't take the mag home with me) de Waal is known for rigorous critiques of his work, which means that he destroys about half of what he makes after it is fired.

I find this fact about his process very interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, at the time of the article de Waal was working with an expensive kind of porcelain but nevertheless he wasn't afraid to destroy something he created. Perhaps he could afford to be this ruthless, perhaps not. Secondly, he focuses on releasing the best of what he can make (or what he considers to be the best), and nothing less. So quality is clearly important to him. And third, there is something deeply thrilling to me about the idea of letting go of the 'lesser pieces', the work that hasn't quite resolved itself (to use an art-y term), and being ok about that. Not tearing yourself up about it but just letting it go and accepting that it is part of the process of developing and creating.

Does anything from this ring a bell for you in terms of your process?

work comes from work

seed pod, illustration, Kylie Budge

One really nice thing about doing a PhD is I get to do a lot of reading. I mean this is how I'm supposed to be spending my time for the next 3 years, right?

A recent find has been a collection of essays in a book called Learning Mind, Experience into Art by folk connected to the School of Art Institute of Chicago. There's some very thought-provoking stuff in there about art, art schools, the art market, galleries, and the like.

One piece by Jerry Saltz (art critic for NY Magazine) called What Art is and What Artists Do has this great bit about persistence.

"Work comes from work," Bruce Nauman said. Artists: the number one thing is work. You have to work in times of doubt, in good times, bad times - work. In a way, you don't do your work. Can you pick your style? It partly picks you. There are certain things you decide, but certain things you don't. In a way, art is working through you. In a sense, you don't exist; your art exists. So you have to get out of its way and work. (p 30)

Now ain't that the truth? I think about the need for persistence a lot. It's a hard, but oh-so-pleasurable grind, the creative gig. When I'm having a difficult patch I get out the pencils or inks or whatever and just try to play. No pressure. No end product required. Just pure play. Some good music on, a pot of tea nearby and some time to just see where the ink takes me.

Any strategies you use to 'get out of the way' of creativity and 'let it work'?

PS. something amazingingly honest on this topic I discovered the other night in twitter-ville.

persistence

These gorgeous old Japanese medical prints made me smile after discovering them via print interesting the other day. Just look at that detail!

I've been pondering creative matters at length in the last little while. For work and for pleasure and now somehow they've become beautifully entwined. I've been particularly focussed on how creativity is fostered and nurtured for creative folk, particularly those in art and design. If you too enjoy thinking about these things check out Elizabeth Gilbert's wonderful podcast on TED about nurturing creativity. It's 19 minutes of your life that will be well spent. I have watched it a number of times in the last year and each time I come away thinking about something new. Today it was about the importance of persistence. Now ain't that the truth?

Is there something about persistence and your creative process that you'd like to share? Do you have any magical methods/approaches/routines that work for you?