'We make things so that they in turn remake us'

1/9/2018

Here we are at the start of Block_1. James and I have never met. We are presented with this quotation from Elaine Scarry to give us something to build from. Where this process will lead us and what might develop is all uncharted territory - like the virgin sand on an uninhabited shore.
Why do we make things? Is it so that they in turn remake us? For me, it doesn't feel that way. Making things doesn't feel like a form of 'recreation'. It is more like struggle, or an affliction. It is testing and teasing an idea into some form of expression of a thing that might bear some resemblance to what I hoped it could be.

I'm working this week on a woodblock print which will be presented as part of Reading's Holocaust Memorial Day event. I am therefore on a tight deadline to finish cutting and printing it. I will speak at the event and try to avoid explaining the work too literally. The work will use the language of populist xenophobia from contemporary tabloids and politicians and contrast it with the idea of common humanity...in a woodcut.
Making it is about pressure and struggle - struggling with the materials, struggling with the idea, trying to bring them together and knowing that it will fail on many levels. It has to fail because of the enormity of the subject and my inadequacy to comprehend it. I will still make the thing as testament to my inability.

What are you 'making' at the moment James?

2 Comments

Maija

1/9/2018 09:16:16 pm

That's interesting, I didn't think of re-making being any form of returning to or redoing, but a re-forming.

(In the act of making, we are changed, in touching the material in a way that makes an impression on its form, the material touches back.) - thats what I was thinking.

Your notion of testing and teasing / grappling and struggling, and doing it regardless of the outcome is very compelling to me.

Without such endurance one wouldn't make a start, and no ideas would be tested!

Karen link

1/19/2018 05:04:36 pm

This is the second read of your first entry Peter and since the first read Maija has added a comment. I find through making my work I am continually testing the original idea which is not a finished outcome. I start off with an idea but know it will go somewhere or divert off onto a path of its own both of which are produced from the doing and evolution of the artwork whether it be a drawing collage print painting or installation. For example when I draw on the street I may draw 10 separate drawings and one or none might be successful. If none are then I keep drawing in my studio until something happens and I will know it is happening from looking and looking at what I am drawing or putting it aside then relooking and often editing back to the bare structural essentials. I think of this as part my process not a redoing more evolving from. This for me is my creative process and yes it involves a struggle but for me that is the positive otherworldliness of the moment when we are creating.

'We make things so that they in turn remake us'

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