sweet auburn | 2019 volume ii
Along with line , shade , and the illusion of depth , when I sketch I aim to include other attributes such as a subject ’ s power , its ideology , and its longevity . Including these helps me see how the subject was meaningful to people in the past , so I can make creative decisions that resonate with people today .
Now , let me adjust our image of the artist at work . We ’ ve given her a great view , cool air to heighten her senses , paper and pencil , along with a digital pass — the internet — to a museum without walls that has images of every artwork ever made . Assuming she can walk through the doors of a great library nearby like Widener , or that she ’ s got WiFi and knows how to use Google effectively , she can borrow from a limitless archive of written information too . Add to these a working knowledge of the humanities at large . Altogether , we ’ ve given her a tool-box for art-historical analysis , expert scholarship , and interdisciplinary approaches .
These are just three of the innumerable ways that contemporary artists like me work today . If the process also involves reading — as mine does — you will often hear artists refer to what they do as “ research-based .” If the process occurs less in the mind and more in the body , or with a focus on senses other than sight , it may be called “ embodied ” or “ body-based .” If the process of making the artwork is particularly long , or the effects of speed or time upon the artist are a subject of the work , it is referred to as “ durational .” And so on , until these various processes accrue into a method of working that is both consistent and unique , at which point it is claimed as the sum of its parts : the artist ’ s “ practice .” ( It should be noted that anyone can adopt a process . Practices , however , are a way of life .)
I try to refrain from calling what I do research-based , because I am not actually doing research , I ’ m just organizing my thoughts . I select the important bits , then arrange them until they make a “ kind of sense ,” as Freud said about dreams and parapraxes . Making artwork in this way — especially when I make drawings — ends up looking a lot like collage , or like the beautiful transfer prints made in the 1960s by the artist Robert Rauschenberg .
In the past , I kept my sketches private . I wanted viewers to see only the finished work on display but none of the effort — “ you make it look easy ” being high praise . At this time when we are all separated — or perhaps now that I ’ m old enough to know that it ’ s rarely “ easy ”— it feels important to remember that we ’ re in this together , effort and all .
29