Susie Monday

Artist, maker, teacher, author, head cook and bottlewasher.

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The art I make is the result of a life-long love of pattern, texture and color. How I teach is a skill honed by experience (I started teaching creative arts to younger kids when I was 12). After earning a B.A. in Studio Arts from Trinity University, I helped lead an internationally recognized educational foundation, designed curriculum exhibits for schools and other institutions, wrote and edited for a major daily newspaper, opened the San Antonio Children's Museum and then, a dozen years ago, took the scary but essential (for me) leap to become a fulltime artist and art teacher.

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This weblog is about the maker's life. The teacher's path. The stitching and dyeing and printing of the craft of art cloth and art quilt. The stumbling around and the soaring, the way the words and the pictures come together. Poetry on the page and in the piecing of bright scraps together. The inner work and the outer journeys to and from. Practicalities and flights of fancy and fearful grandeur, trivial pursuits and tactile amusements. Expect new postings two or three times a week, unless you hear otherwise. 

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    « Under the Big Quilt | Main | Hearts and Journals »
    Friday
    Feb082008

    Finding your Voice, part 2

    artforblog.JPG

    About time for part 2. Actually, it's about content. The second stage of finding one's voice as a visual artist has to do with content and themes.

    Many artists who are just starting out jump around from one topic to another, one genre to another, one influential teacher to the next -- this is an important stage in  learning to be oneself. Sooner or later the time comes to get beyond the surface of a topic or interest, whether it is rural landscapes or flowers or political activism or portraiture. Committing to solving the same problem different ways earns a potent benefit in the process of finding one’s voice. How do you pick?  Start with something that holds some passion for you – something with enough personal interest that you might have a chance of making it interesting to someone else.

    Sometimes the content of one’s work is directly related to “formal” interests (for example, an artist interested in rhythm, might find a study of African mudcloth patterns particularly inspiring and influential, or maybe exploring the visual idea of windows would appeal to an artist who likes spatial concepts.) For others, a theme or content is something important because of experience, story and memory – journaling can help you identify these kinds of themes. Themes and content lead one to develop personal imagery, ways of handling materials and tools, narrative content sometimes.

    Working in series is at the heart of finding content. Some artists resist this -- the "lists" are full of dialogue about those who defend their right NOT to work in series -- and sometimes the arguments can be convincing. But I challenge you to find any artist  (in any medium, even) who has achieved a measure of creative (or professional or financial or even popular) success who has not come to grips with working in series. Yes, a body of work might travel through a universe of themes in its breadth, even a galaxy of styles, but within that space travel, the artist finds herself or himself treading some familiar paths over and over, if only to find new ways to solve compelling problems. Series work does not have to be exclusive or linear. I have several series all going at once -- but I do return over and over again to address and to identify certain key images, shapes, icons and themes. One visit just won't do the trick.

    I do allow myself to wander around between the roads. One needs  to stray, to play, to meander -- just where do you think those series are born? So the artist's life seems to me this seesaw -- pushing out from what is known, tackling the next turn around a known arena and, on the downside, dashing out into dangerous traffic.

    There are times (and I happen to be herein) when one can't stand the idea of doing anything that looks anything like what one has done before. That's scary. One little inner voice says: You have worked hard to establish this content as your own. This IS your style. And the devil on the other shoulder argues, Tsk, tsk, repeating yourself again are you? This teetertotter can be paralyzing. My advice (to myself, mostly) keep the momentum. See what happens. Do the new. Punch it up next to the more familiar and see what happens.

    What do you do? Where do you dance with content? How do you own your work?
     

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    Reader Comments (6)

    i work in series until i exhaust the topic, it's almost a physical feeling so i know when it reaches the " ya esta" stage.

    great post! thanks

    neki desu
    February 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterneki rivera
    thanks again Susie- when will you write your book on creativity? I actually understand what you are saying- most books on creativity are not so precise for me. L.
    February 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterLinda Rael
    Niki -- I know exactly what you mean by "ya esta"

    Linda -- a version of the book , but for parents, is on its way pretty soon. Someday soon I want to do the grownup for working artists version. I think if I start my "coaching" service, that may help me get there.
    Thanks for your comments
    February 9, 2008 | Registered CommenterSusie Monday
    Great post, Susie. I am again at that crossroads of what's next after doing a couple small series. The other day I was so overthinking it, until a small distant voice muttered...get out of your own way! I do feel so close to having my own voice. A lot of it is stilling the mind to be able to hear it.
    February 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commentercarol larson
    Carol -- you are so right about stilling the mind. Strangely enough, sometimes I have to put on the dratted HGTV station in the studio to provide an alternative line of chatter to that in the brain. I am not sure this is an actual mindfulness recommendation!
    February 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterSusie
    Lovely image at the top of this post Susie -- it's delicious!!

    And I enjoyed your thoughtful post about series and content. Before I did work in a series, I didn't really understand and thought the advice was rather snobby. But now that I've been working steady on not only a series of connected visual imagery, but series based in related media, I can't hardly go to website that has the "art technique super buffet" without being turned off. I don't ask that people do the same thing every day, but I do wish they would organize their work thematically so visually it's not so disorienting. Have I become a snob??
    February 11, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterPaMdora

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