Red Shoe Artist

Art is an alchemical process. It transforms us just as much as it transforms the world. We cannot make art without changing ourselves, and some of the changes are our likes and dislikes. Suddenly, I wake up and decide I want to put a desk in my bedroom so I can paint and create more – and guess what? I have created and painted more since doing that than I have in years. My environment has become of piece of art in itself, shifting and changing like I do. All of a sudden, I start collecting things or throwing things away because I am not that person anymore. My space can go from a Zen tranquil space to an op-shop bazaar. The point is, my taste will change and I always need to change my externals to match my internal world.

I’m not sure my life can thrive on minimalism. If a living space is too ‘zen’ I fear it doesn’t contain the correct amount of life in it to spark any imagination for an artist. It’s the things that have a backstory that can help spark an idea – ideas don’t always come from an empty room, unless you are writing or painting about an empty room. I have been working at my craft everyday even before the desk set up. I have learned that I don’t need to be in a creative mood to make some. I also learned that even bad writing, or a bad drawing was necessary as long as I did writing or drawing. Just write. Just draw. Just paint. Replace ‘Am I a real artist?’ with, ‘did I make art today?’. Also, don’t allow your moods to be dictators of your daily practise. Moods are unreliable and hard to pin down. Negative moods will shit all over anything you create, while positive moods will justify even the shittiest poem. Probably a great advocate for why you should never tear up or destroy your work. We tend to make permanent decisions based on temporary problems.. oh the dramatics!! Everything is leading us somewhere. Even dead-end streets and garbage bins have some creative value. When you crumple up that piece of paper with all the terrible scratchings on it, it might contain some great future ideas. If we were to visit these great failures on another day, when we are in a calmer frame of mind, we might unlock the secrets of the universe. We don’t know. So focus on the process and less on the product. I know we live in a product-dense world but sometimes the process can be a beautiful thing by itself. I know people want final drafts, not rough drafts and fair enough too, but what happens is we the artist, don’t stop to think about the process. We watch a Youtube video of someone doing their 15 minutes of fame work, a watercolour painting, or a digital sketch on Procreate (have I told you about my obsession with Procreate? Oh, another blog post coming then), and we watch them do it seamlessly and with such precision. What we don’t think about is what the process really was without the editing. They could’ve done fifteen versions of the same thing then picked the best parts making us believe they are flawless artists. Do we like their art or do we like their process more? We ask ‘is this any good?’ instead of ‘is this interesting to me?’ We are asking the wrong questions and we are expecting our lives to be an automatically edited version. It just doesn’t work like that.
Making art takes guts. Choosing to be exposed is a risky venture, but the reward is worth it. Do moods make or break art making? If I’m not in the mood to make art, I need to ask myself, ‘what has mood got to do with making art?’. Any mood can be a driving force to create art. Bored? Make art about it. Sad? Make art about it. Agitated? Make art about it – and so on…
Don’t wait for inspiration because inspiration often happens when you are right in the thick of creating. Silence the inner critic because it always wants to meddle and we don’t like meddlers. Just write/paint/draw/embroider/etch, whatever is your rain song, it’s all about quantity. Something will appear in and amongst it all – like a small sketchbook that holds really big ideas. Give me something to write and I can always write it, unless I am trying to write it well.

I always thought I needed a studio space dedicated to the mess that is art, but on further inspection, I just need any space. So, I made a makeshift one and I couldn’t be happier that it might become a permanent thing. It’s there everyday like a faithful friend. All this time I thought I needed ‘outer’ space but all I needed was some more ‘inner’ expansion. Studios are expensive and I really don’t need another expensive project to derail this amazingly, fun journey I have embarked on. All this time I associated being an artist with having a real studio space. I had a studio space but I hardly went in there because it was cold and isolating and way too quiet. I am amazed at the shananigans our ego can put us up to. My claustrophobia and feeling of being stifled may just mean I need creative freedom, not studio space. Yes, a lot of art gets made in studio space but a lot of art doesn’t get made there too. I make some beautiful stuff on the $70 trestle table I bought from Mitre 10 that is currently situated at the end of my bed, filled with art supplies and writing tools.
How do I know that art and writing are my rain song???? Time doesn’t exist when I am at my craft.
What’s your rain song?