Lars Ickenroth left a long and thoughtful comment after my last video, and I'll share it here, along with my response below:
"Probably the most important topic and video on painting. Question to Mr. Gurney: does language-based thinking versus visual thinking play a role in your processes? For me these are two identifiable modes when working: automatic (energetic) and analytic (rational). A lot of my process starts with this enthusiasm supported by a semi-automatic engine that has been cultivated over the years. But when there’s resistance - either from the mind not being focused or concrete visual problems that need solving - then I turn to asking active questions.
"That being said: I love the automatic mode where it’s all flowing, and even though ‘rational mode’ often gets better quality results, it also feels kind of less mystical/warm and more cold. I’ve been painting for about 15 years now, and drawing since I was 3/4 (35 now). And the past five years I’ve spent a lot of time doing mural projects. Especially when painting at 130ft, time, resource and energy-management become serious aspects. But I can heartily recommend it: replacing the classic brush with a roller and stick on a huge wall.
"Coming back to the process aspect, there is one thing I do struggle with a lot: when does the process end? This is why life-painting and working on walls is such a good challenge: the time constraints are often very much set. But when creating autonomous work in the studio, it is often less ‘rational’ and more ‘intuitive’, which feels indulgent and great, but always leads to an open ended process that is much less satisfying. Perhaps because without asking questions the mind can’t really decide when ‘enough is enough’?"
My answer: Lars, you've raised some powerful ideas, and I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like to be high up on scaffolding with a paint roller figuring out a painting. But you're absolutely right: there's a verbal part of my brain that mostly shuts off when I'm painting, and when I sketch next to my wife Jeanette, an hour can go by without a word. While I'm in the moment on location, my thought process often feels scrambled, like the undifferentiated bits of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly during metamorphosis. The voiceover that you hear on my videos is an attempt to rationalize and verbalize the process. But inevitably I hit a philosophical wall: How accurately can I or anyone really know what really goes on inside my mind? According to Dan Dennett in his famous Ted talk, the idea that we can accurately understand our own conscious processes is largely an illusion.
1 comment:
I've actually noticed a curious phenomenon when I really get into a drawing or painting -- I tend to have a single thought, usually a completely random sentence or bit of song looping through my head, not continuously, but repeating in short intervals from time to time over a few hours, with little verbal thought in between. I also recognize that it is happening, but as long as the automatic process is ongoing, so to speak, I can do little to affect it. I can easily snap out of it if something else absolutely demands my attention, but rarely just drift out of it.
The analytical side is also a real phenomenon and that, for me, more often feels like I'm trying to actively 'liberate' the work from my mind and onto a medium. It feels like problem solving, and oddly similar to doing a math problem, although I would not say there is a process to follow to always reach the correct solution. When in this 'mode' I might verbalize my thoughts, not quite talking to myself but at least bouncing ideas off the wall by myself. I will often do small ten second sketches from different angles to understand the shapes I am trying to present in the main work.
I suppose the non-determinative nature of both processes is one of the major things I find attractive with art; it is not merely putting my thought onto a medium (even though I just used the simile,) it is also very much about being pleasantly surprised at the result since the output is something I might not have been able to visualize in its entirety in my mind alone. Sometimes it is even retrospective; while most reviews of old work are an exercise in self-embarrassment, there are also (woefully rare) pleasant moments where I think my past self has outdone my present self by a noticeable degree, which is a bittersweet sensation. Trying to learn from oneself is humbling.
-A. Maalismaa
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