It's been a while since I have had time to sit in a coffee shop but that's what's happening this morning. Pretty day with Jane's Addiction in the ear phones. Several days ago I wrote a blog I guess to introduce the idea of me starting a blog but I kept having trouble posting it so i got really frustrated and walked away. So here goes again.
Last week I went to an opening at the Front Gallery here in Chattanooga for Savanna artist Jerome Meadows. I walked in with him giving a talk about his work and I gotta say I really dig his work and his approach to creating. He came over to my studio the next day and we talked about our different experiences in Africa ( his in the Ivory Coast, mine in Morocco and Mali), and of course about our different processes with creating and why we make stuff. We had a little drum jam in the mixx of all this. Needless to say, I had a blast. One thing thing that really stuck with me from his talk was him saying that he tries to imbue each of his pieces with it's own since of spirituality. Not in any religious since but as a root of spirit. Not only could see that clearly in his work but it articulated one of my approaches to my sculpture so beautifully. I so strongly related and up to that point I haven't found the words to describe this particular approach to work.
I'm not sure if this sounds obvious or not. The source and content of my work is something that I ponder quite a bit. It's just interesting and also important to question. For me, making is a diverse experience. I could say that I made a piece and that that piece is to communicate about the idea of community. But also involved in that one piece are all of the experiments with balancing forms to give an object with great mass a since of weightlessness. Play with how geometric and organic forms interact. A love of materials and how far they can be pushed without them just falling apart. Then under that all of the subconscious decisions that go into the work that are the totality of my life experiences up to this point.
When I start a piece it generally happens in three different ways. Sometimes, I have a complete sketch and intension of what is to be communicated. Sometimes it is a partial idea; play with form relationships that are experimented with as I work. Then at times I just start and develop a relationship with the material with the intent of, as Jerome described, giving it it's own spirit.
I hope everybody has a great day!
Last week I went to an opening at the Front Gallery here in Chattanooga for Savanna artist Jerome Meadows. I walked in with him giving a talk about his work and I gotta say I really dig his work and his approach to creating. He came over to my studio the next day and we talked about our different experiences in Africa ( his in the Ivory Coast, mine in Morocco and Mali), and of course about our different processes with creating and why we make stuff. We had a little drum jam in the mixx of all this. Needless to say, I had a blast. One thing thing that really stuck with me from his talk was him saying that he tries to imbue each of his pieces with it's own since of spirituality. Not in any religious since but as a root of spirit. Not only could see that clearly in his work but it articulated one of my approaches to my sculpture so beautifully. I so strongly related and up to that point I haven't found the words to describe this particular approach to work.
I'm not sure if this sounds obvious or not. The source and content of my work is something that I ponder quite a bit. It's just interesting and also important to question. For me, making is a diverse experience. I could say that I made a piece and that that piece is to communicate about the idea of community. But also involved in that one piece are all of the experiments with balancing forms to give an object with great mass a since of weightlessness. Play with how geometric and organic forms interact. A love of materials and how far they can be pushed without them just falling apart. Then under that all of the subconscious decisions that go into the work that are the totality of my life experiences up to this point.
When I start a piece it generally happens in three different ways. Sometimes, I have a complete sketch and intension of what is to be communicated. Sometimes it is a partial idea; play with form relationships that are experimented with as I work. Then at times I just start and develop a relationship with the material with the intent of, as Jerome described, giving it it's own spirit.
I hope everybody has a great day!
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