I like to talk. Generally, I do not find it scary. But this weekend on DeLand’ Studio Art Tour, I re-discovered some wonderful things that happen when talking specifically about my own artmaking.
Clarification. Refining. Deepening.
In addition to friendly chats and welcomes to my studio, I had the chance to engage in some great conversations about the series I am beginning now: the meanings of home, as represented by shapes of houses. I have done a lot of thinking abut this already, as part of my own personal journey. But, as I answered questions and described the processes (both the technical how-to processes and the sketch-to-art thinking process,) I was able to enrich my own thoughts. The very experience of the talking deepened and improved my own understanding.
Poet William Stafford describes poetry in a similar way, and I love this:
'A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.'"
Things I would not have thought of till I started to make art about them.
The creative process is an experience with many levels. One of the great realizations about this discovery is that we don’t have to have everything all figured out before beginning. We can begin. We can listen to the work. We can talk about the work. And all of that becomes part of our own understanding.