Ideal materials

I love kit. The smell of new pencil case is one of my most cherished, indelibly associated with the approach of September, still summer nights ripe with anticipation, and the limitless but often short-lived potential heralded by the new school year.

The aisles are full with pop up display stands, overflowing with seasonal stationery, there appears to be no limit to the availability of materials from an ever increasing number of online suppliers, and few, indeed, are the things that could resist the invitation of a resourceful artist, to serve as his or her materials. 

With so much on offer, what are the criteria by which materials are selected? And what light does this shed on the work? Here, and in no particular order, are the factors which have influenced the selection of materials for the series I am currently working on. The headings remain fairly stable, but the values will tend to shift, as new issues are brought into consideration.  The whole is listed for insight, with potential for inspiration.

Versatility / Limitations:

How many ways can I think of to use this material? How can its limitations be exploited?

Stability / Volatility:

Are the colours fugitive? What stresses will the the picture be subject to? Are the materials chemically compatible? Or antagonistic? 

Familiarity / Novelty:

Are these materials already known, trusted and loved? Or do they open up new avenues?

Availability / Rarity: 

Do I have them to hand? are they easily procured? or only as the result of a lengthy quest?

Practicality, Applicability:

Given this size, and these working conditions, is this material it workable? Laboured or elegant? A battle or a blessing? 

Price, Value:

What are the factors governing it's market value? Can I disentangle intrinsic from extrinsic value? Would this material be extravagant or miserly, or somewhere in-between?

Associative significance, personal, cultural & potential:

What do these materials mean to me? Where and how and by whom have they been used before? What associations do they call to mind? And what significance are they still capable of conferring?

Ethical / political significance:

Does this material bear any hidden costs? What is its provenance? Is it sustainably resourced? Does this matter or could it in some way add to the work?

Subject relevance:

What relationship does this material have with the subject of the work? What quality in one suggested the other? Is the resemblance superficial? Self referential?, a pun, a rhyme? Or the common ground of a firm friendship?

Issues raised by this list of considerations will be taken up in the next post. 

Roughly concerned with method and materials. 

Roughly.

Why bother?

Those are dangerous, words with which to open any venture, artistic or otherwise. Dangerous but necessary, as without an underscoring of doubt, what ground does certainty stand to gain? 

In asking fundamental questions, in this first post, I'm trying to establish the both the validity and trajectory of this blog. Why inflict more words upon the world? What do I hope to achieve with this blog? and What might you stand to gain from reading it? 

As an artist, I value critical reflection, openness, and above all, insight.  

I struggle with words. The endless eddies of possible linguistic permutations offer a fearsome prospect, but what seas were charted from land alone? 

I appreciate the clarity and economy of thought gained by attempts to communicate, much as you can't explain what you haven't understood (Feynman), it's through attempting to explain that we can better understand.

In the Early 20th Century, the Slade bore, austerely, as it's motto, 'Drawing is the explanation of form.' Among the many other things that drawing is or can be, It's an invitation to understanding, a restless, searching understanding, and an invitation that's hard to refuse.

Words offer the potential to pinpoint specific things, which in a picture might not be wholly apparent, questions wrestled with in the making of a picture can be brought to light: What's the significance of this material? What relevance does it have to its subject? What determines the size of the picture?, What qualities, if any, were actively being pursued?

More than a thousand words, a picture is worth a thousand choices. Many are often implicit and insulated from consideration having been enshrined in a working method inherited wholesale, or assembled intuitively over a lifetimes worth of experience. 

It's just such choices; the questions encountered in the production of pictures which this blog hopes to reveal. In an attempt to make the daily internal narrative a little more accountable, in pursuit of clarity, to seize on ideas and events as they occur, and to contribute and communicate, with countless curious others. Such then are the aims of this blog at the outset. I might put the odd picture up too.