Art as Story

I tell stories with my art work. The story can be as simple as ‘This is how I see a flower’ or as deep and complex as the history of my Muscogee ancestors.
Likewise, I look to visual art – paintings, photography, sculpture, fibre art, etc; literature and poetry; film or music to hear another person’s story. Sometimes through another artist’s work, I remember or find my own stories.

Somehow it is the most personal, idiosyncratic stories in art that have the most universal appeal. Maybe because we realize how we are all connected as human beings in this life and that another person might not be so different after all.

“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.” ~ Konrad Adenauer

It’s a risk and takes guts to tell it like it is. I’ve had some good conversations about this with two of my artist friends over the past few weeks. Why is it so hard?

“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.” ~ Salvador Dali

There’s the technical/skill side of making art to be mastered, to become proficient in one’s chosen medium. But, sometimes an artist can be so focused on perfection, that they don’t show their work or destroy their work or don’t complete their work or worst of all, don’t even start making the work. Where does this addiction to perfection and fear of making a mistake come from? School, art school, a critical teacher, parent or sibling? Some or all of the above or somewhere else? Plus, so often when viewing art, we see the just finished product and aren’t privy to the blood, sweat and tears that went into the making of it or the uncertainties and false starts of the artist.

“To escape criticism – do nothing, say nothing, be nothing” ~Elbert Hubbard

I don’t have a problem with criticism and I can step back from my art work with a critical eye and can accept feedback on my technique; I just feel that a harsh, perfectionistic critique is unnecessary and can damage an emerging or fledgling artist’s confidence, whatever their age.

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself rather than a second-rate version of somebody else” ~Judy Garland

In addition to learning the technical side to art making there is ‘finding one’s voice’. Now that you know how to say it, what do you want to say? That involves a different kind of risk. Not just putting one’s technical skills to the test, but saying with the art work, ‘This is how I see it’ or opening up and revealing one’s thoughts, feelings, experience . . . one’s humanity. This is where originality comes in. It’s safe to follow in another artist’s footsteps and make something ‘in the style of . . . ‘, but the risk is to make something in your style and to say what you want to say.

“Love art, love yourself, do what you have to do and what only you can do. Utter honesty is the only path to originality.” ~ Roberta Smith

My friend Suzanne Ahmed, a painter, tells about when she used to ‘hide her art under the bed’. I can relate to that. I found my medium (fibre & textiles) about 11 years ago when I took my first quilt class. My partner and close friends, of course, knew that I was making quilts and I entered some in quilt shows, but that felt anonymous and safe. I wasn’t standing there next to my quilt!

I remember the first time I showed someone outside of my close circle my fibre art and I picked a work colleague that I could really trust and felt comfortable with. It felt like a big risk.

That was about 8 years ago and since then I’ve gradually opened up more and more to the point that I now have a blog and a website and feel fairly confident about myself as an artist in many different media – fibre, video, haiku, print making and who knows what is next? But with every new creation, there is risk.

So I want not only to show what I am making, but to share some of my process and uncertainties and false starts. It always encourages me to find out that I am not the only artist to feel unsure about trying something new and to keep going with the process of exploration, discovery, making mistakes and ultimately finding my way to telling a new story, my story.