Transcription
Artists from Cityside gather to talk through their process of art-making and reflection during Lent as part of the Desert Files Easter Art sequence at Cityside.
A panel discussion between Sandra Atkins (facilitator) and three of the more experienced artists at Cityside: Jenny De Leon; Kristin Herman; and Lance Pearce.
Rough transcription: Andrew Rockell.
Sandra Atkins: I’d like to begin by asking you how you make the shift from the Saying you’ve chosen [one of the Seven Last Words from the Cross] to the art piece you’re making. Do you begin with the saying? Or do you have an idea and then look for the statement to fit?
Jenny De Leon: I started with the saying. I began with a complete blank. In my first exhibition [here] I did a video with Duncan [Philps] and Gwen [Strickland]. They filmed me doing a dance and set up a video loop [in the installation]. This time, I’m using still photos, and with all of them laid out in sequence I’m turning the photos into dance. I chose my saying without having any idea of what to do with it. But then I had a shaft of inspiration with a second saying, from elsewhere, that ties it all together. I don’t want to say what the second saying is, at the moment. I want that to be a surprise.
Kristin Herman: When I went to choose a saying, there were only two sayings left [on the list of options]. I picked the one I was really puzzled by. And doing that was part of my process of trying to let go of ‘control’ [in my art]. I feel like my art has ended up really lacking spontaneity. In the past, I’ve often had the idea, and then picked the saying [or station] to suit. This time it was different. I picked the saying, and then read the scripture quite a few times. Some people think about it until the last few days and then paint, like [Cityside artist] Ali [Kitchen]. I just tend to jump right in.
I have lots of found objects in my studio. This time I chose four elements. I’m trying to free [the process] up. I don’t know if I’m going to pull it off. Generally, it all tends to come together. At the moment, it’s a form of drawing. Drawing with objects. Drawing in a three-dimensional kind of way. I didn’t sit with the scripture as long as I’d like.
Sandra: I’d like to come back to this issue of ‘time-frame’, the limit on how long with something like this [the Easter Art exhibitions] you’ve got to do something. But, first, Lance?
Lance Pearce: I selected the same Saying as last year – “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” I’m really interested in the idea of ‘shelter.’ And notions of why people live in the places they live in, and with the people they live with. And ‘paradise’ as a concept, is impossible to describe. There are limits on our ability to present it in human language.
The other idea I’m interested in is human kindness. Like Jesus’ offer to the thief.
I choose objects because I’m interested in grounding the verse [of the Saying] in earthly things to make it more accessible.
Lance: One idea I had was a school desk. Like an old-fashioned school desk with a lid. I was going to tape a book to the desk and the desk to the floor. It was about how these things can’t ‘reach’ the idea of ‘paradise.’ Our inability to express it.
Jenny: I have no stuff for a medium. Just my body. [By virtue of being a dancer]. Something suddenly comes upon me, something for my dances or poems. A shaft of an idea. For this one [exhibition] it was for “Father forgive them” – that it could be outside. Away from everything. I’m stripping away from ‘collecting.’
Jenny: “Yes. There was this other shaft … The Saying I want to use at the end. I did two photo-shoots. The first one we took around 70 photos. The second, we took 70 – 90 photos. Then I’ll select 12 – 15. Out of the 180, I’ll drop most of them.
Kristin: Heaps of art is about the editing. I had a tutor at art school who said “One artwork doesn’t have to say everything. One piece can say one thing.”
Jenny: Leaving space for the viewer to contribute. The artwork will change according to the watcher. Each watcher will change the artwork.
Sandra: Kristin, was it challenging to work the other way around? [i.e. starting with the Saying]
Kristin: I’m more naturally suited to doing it this way around. I’d basically painted myself into a dead end. I’m going back to my first mode. The mode I started painting with at the beginning. Where there was nothing to lose. I just became more and more concerned about the results. Things got tighter and tighter.
Kristin: Yeah, product-focused. I ended up using raw tarpaulin, couldn’t paint out. I had to have it all worked out. I’d painted myself in. Literally.
Kristin. It was driven. Driven to ruin sometimes. I’m interested that I did that to myself. Now, I really need to have fun. Do a small, unambitious, fun piece.
Sandra: Without a complete view of where you’re going – how do you sense that the piece is working?
Kristin: I need to discipline myself to sit and look at it for a few hours. I’ll do nothing and just look at it. It’s very, very easy just to keep on making. Rather than think about what I’m doing, Like ‘what decision do I need to make?’ I can keep on working without thinking about decisions. I found out that the saying I was working with doesn’t exist. I had it in my head. Thought it might be in one of the versions. But then I went onto the Cityside website [to the Desert Files Meditation page – Week Two] and saw that line “your life is hidden with Christ in God.” One of my favourite scriptures. So that’s working alongside it. Frees up the words. Doesn’t have to be exact.
Lance: I’ve been doing the Lent process on the website. But I can’t make a direct connection with the art. Feels like a separate process.
Lance: Just a lot of thinking. Going from the concept to the object. Sometimes the traditional drawing process. Sketching things out. Mostly just putting things together in my head.
Sandra: How does the time factor influence? Someone else thought the shorter time frame would make things more difficult.
Lance: I’m the opposite to Kristin. I think for a long time, and then make something towards the deadline. No sense of pressure. I’ve got one or two ideas, and then it’s just a matter of getting the materials.
Lance: If I go with the desk piece or with the light box, it’s just a matter of getting them and putting a frame around them.
Lance: Or which idea I’m drawn to. [in this case] human kindness or an intellectual idea of just how limited human words are to explain a spiritual notion.
Kristin: I started thinking about it before Christmas, so it’s been in my consciousness since then. It’s taken the last five months or so to break the sense of ‘control.’ So, New Year’s was a really good time. But I’m going overseas as well, so I won’t be here at Easter. I just wasn’t aware of when Easter was.
Jenny: If I have longer with the idea I’ll just keep going. The idea of this Saying [“Father, forgive them . . .”] though has been in me, as a permanently potent saying, since the age of six. So, doing this Saying is not dawning on me as an unusual thing to do. Some of the positions [that I tried out] in the park have been with me for years. I hope that they’ll come together. The second photo shoot in the mark was at eight in the morning. The ground was dampish. It got really cold. I have faith that in the end it kind of comes together and that in the end it’ll be good enough. I could spend the next forty-five years perfecting. Things could always be better. I am learning the discipline of having say “good enough.” But if I did not, I’d be immobilised.
Kristin: Takes the fun out of it. And it takes to much energy to make one piece of work [like that]. [The perfectionism] takes over completely. Not much productivity in it.
Lance: I do have that going on. I think it’s a common trait with creative types.
Sandra: Jenny, how does it feel, with things you’ve held onto a long time, to finally do it?
Jenny: I love making myself a goal. Like this photo-dance. It energises me. And fuels me to think of other things.
Are you focused on one thing? Or do you find that one idea generates another?
Kristin: We were kind of taught at art-school to work in a series. But you end up with a one-off piece, generally. Like a mid-term goal of one or two years, and bethinking of a series of six paintings all going together. But this one, there are four elements linked. I’m hanging them together on the wall. I found that if I focused on one piece [at a time] and then put it up, and it doesn’t really go. Kind of like [working in] a series. [But] they’ve all got to be in my sight [at the same time].
Jenny: Several at once. But they’ve all got the same theme. They’re all feeding into each other.
Lance: My art making has always been very sporadic. Just when inspiration hits. I’m looking forward to art making at school, what art practice involves.
Jenny [to Sandra]: Are you not doing a piece?
Sandra: Fear stops me. I have a tendency to have too big an idea. Up till last year I was too busy with children. Also, there was no space.
Kristin: I always have an idea in mind, and I end up with something quite different. But quite often better.
Jenny: I really believe God invests. You put in this much, [and] God tops it up.
Kristin [to Sandra]: What kind of medium are you using?
Sandra: Tactile. Fabric. I like in the creative process that it does come out different.
Sandra: Things break down before they come together . . . I’d like to practise in other media.
Kristin: This [Easter Art at Cityside] is a good thing to start with. It’s small, everyone’s really nice about it, but there is this deadline.
Sandra: I like this idea of evolving art, with not having to say everything. I [usually] have to have control. So, [learning to] leave gaps . . .
Kristin: Less is definitely more. I heard this interview on radio. This writer, he wrote Be My Knife. A written relationship between a man and a woman. And two weeks out from the publishing date he woke up – and realised he had to cut out one character. Edit his work by fifty-per cent. Really good story about how you have to edit. He said it was like chopping off his arm.
Kristin: One exhibition a year not so conducive to that. If I make a work too complicated it just doesn’t work. You can’t see what’s there. Becomes a mish-mash.
Lance: I don’t have any input. I might talk about an idea but not in a way [that] I’m looking for input. It’s a solitary endeavour.
Kristin: Same. But I’d like to have that relationship with somebody. It’d really have to be someone you trust.
Kristin: I’d like to make work with someone else. Some painters work together.
Kristin: You really have to trust them. I’d be giving them the thing that really mattered most to me. I’d have to trust that they would value that.
Kristin: I guess you’d have to communicate. You can’t be too obscure. [Although] there’s a lot more art in the culture now, since I came out of [art] school. People are getting used to reading work. And people a re working lots and lots of media. It’s really exploding. It’s an amazing movement.
Sandra: I wonder what changes in a culture to promote a greater value for artistic expression and interpreting the arts? I don’t know looking at contemporary society what would make that change.
Kristin: I feel like heaps of people are doing like what I’m doing. Same materials, same ideas. Doesn’t feel particularly obscure or anything.
Kirstin: Nowadays people are encouraged to be who they are. What your possibilities are. People listen you. Not [the case with] my generation. Unless you had exceptional, really aware parents.
…………… [transcription interrupted]
Lance: I think it’s usually rewarding. If I produce a piece, I’m happy with it. People’s responses are gratifying. I enjoy it. It boils down to communication. One of the ways I communicate best is visual communication.
Kristin: Part of the letting go process is letting go of what other people are going to think about it. Takes you right back to square one. Just doing it. I was always focused on the perfect exhibition, which never actually happened. People are the barometer really. I fin that more with [live] story-telling. People respond if there’s the x-factor, in a more immediate way. With painting, its more a matter of taste.
Sandra: I heard something from someone who collects New Zealand artists, that artists can develop themes – maybe it’s that working-n-series thing – that an artist actually has only one thing to say. I found that fascinating. I thought that as the artist grew that they’d change their stuff. I’ve often incubated on that.
Kristin: Mark Rothko probably did with one theme, but he did it in a very expansive way. Then there’s Karl Maughan. Does those big, flowery garden things. Always paints in midday. Very bright light. Very cool. But – 30 years on, his art hasn’t shifted. I do quite like that you’ve got one theme. Very disciplined. It can get larger or smaller.
Lance: I don’t have an overarching theme. I’m reading a book about Sean Scully, who was influenced by Rothko. He does paintings of rectangles, that’s his theme. He wants his painting to have a sense of morality about it. He’s against contemporary art trends. Hates art ‘tricks’. Like someone’s ‘shtick.’ But he’s one of those artists who has a sense of morality, not a ‘trick’. I find the idea of that interesting.
Lance: Scully’s got his rectangles, but he has variations – colour, opaqueness versus transparency; different canvasses going together to make the one painting, but at core, it’s unchanged.
Kristin: Having a measure of success really kills art. The culture wants art to be successful. Luke Maughan. Successful art – really loses its punch. You see that with music quite a bit. Success is only about how a superficial culture measures it. A ridiculous kind of standard, really . . . [I like] artists who go on to have success later on, with a well-developed body of work. Has to maintain a sense of intent. Basically, you’re dealing with a system that doesn’t have integrity. Do you think that?
Lance: If an artist has a kind of success, the temptation is there to compromise. An artist has to have enough sense of self to produce honest work.
[And so on. Transcript interrupted here…]
For more, come to the next Artist Workshop, Saturday 10:30 am 15 March, 2008 at Cityside.