what is your art based on?

updated thu 12 sep 02

barbara arner on tue 10 sep 02

For those who do other clayworks in addition to functionalware, how do you comeup with those ideas? Are they related to you? Expressions of you? Ideas outside your psyche? Emotional? Just wanted to hear what other people are doing.
Thanks,
Barbara

Timakia@AOL.COM on tue 10 sep 02

Barbara, much of what I do is related to my exposure in life and also to some
experiences. I believe that one should be true to yourself and not try to
work outside your experience field. That does not mean not to experiment, but
to stay with things that make you feel good. In that way, you can interpret
yourself better. Of cause it is also a growing process, because more exposure
brings new things to communicate about and to express yourself.
In order to encourage my students to develop a style, they have a scrapbook
with things that they like in it. It is not only pictures of pots, but all
different kinds of things that interest them even pieces of fabric. Also one
can collect objects that you like and put them in a container. It is
interesting to see how often these things are related to each other , eg. if
you like textures, you will go for that.
Regards.
Antoinette.

Antoinette Badenhorst
http://hometown.aol.com/timakia
105 Westwood circle
Saltillo, MS
38866

martha rosenfeld on wed 11 sep 02

Barbara Arner wrote:

>For those who do other clayworks in addition to functionalware, how do you comeup with those ideas? Are they related to you? Expressions of you? Ideas outside your psyche? Emotional? Just wanted to hear what other people are doing.

 

I used to have a huge list (can't find it just now) of sources of imagery for art, which I have used in teaching occasionally.  It wasn't exhaustive, but included things like:

 

personal memories

dreams

other media (music, movies, the news)

art history

architecture

theology

observation of nature

observation of the built environment (cities)

technology

concepts available in other languages (things we don't have words for in English)

personal emotional angst

journals - yours or somebody else's

history

physical illness

mental illness

structured design principles (geometry, the Golden Mean, etc.)

borrowing (or stealing, depending on how you do it) from other cultures

exploring your family's history and cultural background

the human body

food

myths and folklore, storytelling

advertising

conversations with your imaginary playmate

things you pick up off the ground while taking a walk

stuff that freaks you out so bad you can't talk about it any other way

physics and the origin of the universe

toys

etc.

These are just ones that come to me off the top of my head.  You get the picture: anything can be fodder for the artistic imagination.  In fact, that's part of the problem - there's so much to choose from!  A common beginner mistake in art is to try to pack too many images and ideas into one composition.  You need to narrow it down considerably, pick one set of images or issues to work with and then do a whole series based on just those parameters; otherwise you'll go crazy, and/or produce some really bad, unfocused artwork.  It's called working in series, and I would hazard a guess that most mature artists work that way whether they are conscious of it or not; jumping from one thing to another does not tend to produce depth of expression. 

 

Which gives me an opportunity to plug my website, where you can see a unified series of work based on one set of images, with a couple  images of my previous series of work:

http://martharosenfeld.womanmade.net. 

 

I would love to hear any responses to this--I bet Clayart collectively could build a helluva list of potential sources for creative imagery.

 

Martha Rosenfeld

currently in Chicago

 

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