How does the Making Process Work?

The Chicken Throttler - ideas in mind, (and on paper.)

Where are we Coming from on this Question?

I am talking from a personal perspective, and will explore how my making process works, but it also touches on a broader creative experience.

Why do I do it?

I make things out of a sense of urgency to express something from within. As embodied creatures we operate from an experiential interaction with the world, and perhaps are able to sense things with a subtlety that escapes day-to-day speaking. I find that the ambiguity of three-dimensional visual language lends more accuracy to describe these, often amorphous and transient awarenesses, than I have access to make sense of without its help.

What is the Experience Like?

I have to make things every day – if I don’t then I can’t get to sleep, and if I continue to ignore the directive then my whole experience becomes increasingly unviable. It seems likely that I am using art to help me with systemic regulation, which, due to a variety of influences, I would otherwise not manage as well. I need to make things as part of my daily practice, and that is fine with me, as I am both driven and drawn to do it.

Living on the Left Side…

Many people talk about methods to swap one’s brain over to the “creative” way of understanding so as to be able to make art. Books like “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” first published in 1979, have helped to popularise exercises such as drawing with the non-dominant hand or with your eyes closed as ways to try to find the “non-labelling” part of the mind seemingly necessary for creativity. Actually, I don’t have any trouble in contacting this place, as it is where I reside by default. As a dyslexic person I have much more trouble with linear functioning, such as remembering spellings or determining left from right. (I also think that access to this place is actually much more available to people than society projects - but more about that in another blog. ) It is thought that the right side of the brain, corresponding to the left side of the body, is where the more creative aspects arise.

What’s it Like There?

What this means is that I find it very easy to revert to a state of visual and felt contemplation. In this place, I very easily receive images of things that I need to make. Usually this starts because I have the feeling that something pressing needs to be said, and then it is time to search around for what that is. To do the searching I allow my mind to float in the general area, and I normally get a lot of images flowing through at that point. My job is to assess by feel which is the most potent, and then ascertain what might need to be slightly adjusted to get it to the most resonant point. I think of this as being similar to walking on the ridgeway of a great mountain – at that point you are really at the crux of the matter in both directions.

What comes out of there?

By this process I arrive with a three-dimensional image in my mind’s eye, which seems like a complete vision of what I have to make. Of course, there is a difference between my vision of an object and how it needs to alter to become manifest, and I will talk about that process in my next blog.

Reference: Edwards, B. (2012) Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. New York: Penguin. https://www.drawright.com