This week making work for British Craft Trade Fair in Harrogate (see events page of my website if you are interested). I am dyeing and printing strips of cloth for scarves. I have done this for nearly 30 years and it is still a huge pleasure. Energy and ideas flow so easily, the delight in using liquid dye in brilliant transparent colours (unlike sticky expensive paint!), the smell of the alginate thickening paste and the freshly washed fabric - all a delight.I know, however, that I can only enjoy this because I have other projects going on, projects which are more challenging and even threatening for me, but let's face it, more interesting. When it comes to making "art" of whatever variety, the whole process is different from dyeing the fabrics. The purpose of the work is different, so is its ultimate use. I totally cannot work in the same free way.
The only way in which I can recapture the play and delight and freedom is through long long processes of intellectual work or some other form of extreme rigour. This seems to shut my guilty and intrusive left brain (which says making art is somehow "wrong") down (or up), and allows the free energy to flow. Hurrah!
Professor Norman Crowe in his book "Visual Notes for for Architects and Designers" describes how the process of looking and of drawing has the same effect. It silences the logical mind somehow and allows the artist or architect to go beyond the observations and create his or her own interpretation.
I thought of all this the other night while watching a live performance of a wonderful group of musicians from Senegal, Les Freres Guisse. The drummer in particular was a true artist, creating intricate sounds and rhythms in a way that felt very free and natural. But each of them was brilliant. The sounds of this group are soft, rhythmic and poetic but really dynamic and complex too. Very special.
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