A sound becomes a Song

The concept and commitment of creativity has been on my mind quite a bit recently. Being an artists seems harder than many "professions" as there is no obvious ladder or path to follow. Sure we all know of very famous artists- but how does one get from the their first work to there? it is not really reproduceable.

There are several paths to follow in art that seem obvious: one is the "make it in the studio and sell it at the craft fair", the other is the "create a body of work and shop it to galleries".

I have been all over the place with my art for the past few years in these different modalities and I feel like I have a better vision now of where I am naturally headed. Not that I know what the destination looks like; I just have a better idea of what the path in front of me should look like.

The idea of creating art for sale is a terrible idea and a disservice to the path of creativity. It seems a dream for an artist like myself to be able to create something and have it leave the studio and disappear into the world and I receive the money for it. After all- the work is not so special to me once it is done as it is the manifestation of a creative process and once that process concludes I am done with it.

The problem lies with the feedback loop of sales. Until an artist reaches a certain point in his career where his reputation overshadows all else, people want to buy the work based on the merits of the work- and rightly so.. I could create work just for the purpose of selling and if I did that my work would be different than it is today. I have had several pieces that are fantastic sellers and of course the temptation is to leave the path of pure creativity to make more of these. Several pieces that I recognized were accessibly beautiful I made into a series and the sales of those works rolls into materials for less accessible works that are on my path.

I am now entering a time of inquiry where I am working with materials that I don't think will be popular sellers but I am very interested in the dialog that the work will explore. I am designing a set of sculptures made of 1/2 inch thick neoprene rubber. This is not a foam or neoprene fabric like wet suit material but a heavy and thick rubber used for making industrial gaskets in power plants and paper mills.

I have been building structures and frames now for a long time and building them in steel and wood creates a rigid and pathway of strength in the work. I am continuing to work with these frameworks forms but instead will use soft and flexible materials that will deform to some point under the weight of the work.

I guess that these pieces are more museum works than gallery and I am assuming that someday there will be a point where I can exhibit them and the will be presented in the context that they were created. The material and process of cutting it is relatively expensive and I am spending the last bit of money I made on the sale of one of the 5 "vessel for Calm water" series. A smart business person would roll that money into the design and materials for more work that would be easy to sell. If I were feeding my family from my art business I would do that. Fortunately our other businesses supplement out income enough that I am free to ride out the path of exploration.

I know artists who have fed their families and work on the sales that have made over long and hard careers. I also know that they recognize that they have lost the ability to really follow the creative flow as their time and energy is spent making money in way that is similar to being creative- using arts materials- but not able to really follow the path. The buyers want a particular type of work from them. It might have been a type that they first created 25 years ago and has been making ever since. The friend I am speaking of recently got a job driving a bus and is happier than he has been in years as he has plenty of time to think, be with people, and now his art is his own again.

One artist that I feel is really on the path for all its ups and downs is Paul Simon. He often mentions the process of listening for the creativity and not knowing when and where it will come.

I find that his sharing of the struggle is really helpful to me. He mentions it in interviews and also in his songs.

"Somewhere in a burst of glory, a sound becomes a song"


I hope to have the rubber parts in my studio by the end of the year. I will post photos of the process.

Also I am looking for my camera. As soon as I find it I will post some small works here.

J