 |
| Just in Time 16" x 16" collage on paper/painted papers |
The title of the piece is twofold: it refers to the fact that as I was taking this photo, it was starting to rain (again). I got the photo and got inside in the nick of time. The title also refers to what I have learned about editing and why it really is an important skill in art making (and life in general). I nearly overdid the piece with details but stopped myself (I hope) from doing so just in time.
I only have my own experience here to draw on so I can just say this about editing: it's personal and it is internal and it is essential. Everyone has their own tolerances for just how much and what they can stand in a piece of art. Too little here, too much there and someone gets upset. It's why I dislike and don't agree with group critiques. It's not that you shouldn't listen to others but while doing so, you should keep in mind that they are just giving an opinion. It isn't the gospel.
Over time, I have come to understand that my own view of editing is just that, my own view. I can apply it to someone else's work but it hardly matters. It's their work. Only they can decide. (This doesn't mean I have to like the work however. I can still say what I want about it but not force that idea onto the other person.) I have also come to believe (and rely on) my own intuition. My little voice tells me when there is too much detail, when I am adding a bunch of separate and unrelated shapes, when the piece is crowded or too austere, when it isn't zesty and it is just too flat. I always ask myself why I am adding one shape or detail and I try to be honest about it. And I try to not be married to one move so that just in case, should I have to abandon that move, I can do so with impunity. You have to be ready to destroy the piece and start over.
To me, learning to edit on my own terms, even if I developed those terms through listening to someone else, is essential. It's the only thing that brings the piece to fruition. Yes, editing can help others to understand the work or see it clearly or enjoy it I guess. But at the end of the day, editing give you a kind of energy to bring the piece forth. It gives a specific direction when there wasn't a direction before. Editing leads the piece where it needs to go and it allows the piece to tell you, the maker, what it wants. I can't make decisions about what to do next unless I can ask questions and see what is in front of me. You really do need to be ruthless.
And the irony here of course is that even as I write this post, I am editing but not quite sure I am getting my ideas across! Have I said what I wanted to say in as few words as possible? Maybe just in time.
Thanks for reading and commenting,
Libby
Thanks for sharing this, Libby, along with your editing thoughts. It gives me two feelings, which I'll share just as a matter of interest, because as we both know, viewers bring their own experience when responding to a work of art. At first I felt (and perhaps because of the title) that it was somehow a fanciful inner workings of a time piece. But the more I looked at it the more I felt that I was seeing a close up of the inner workings of a ship. Now, I've never been on any ships except for the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor, so I have no experience of that. Maybe it comes somehow from my reading, or simply my imagination. But the key words of both responses are "inner workings." And I think that is what making art is all about. One must be in tune with one's inner thoughts to make an abstract work of art, along, of course with attention to principles of good composition, which you illustrate here so beautifully.
ReplyDeleteCarol,
DeleteI really like that you saw the inner working of a watch and then a ship. Funny that neither of us have been on a big ship except for a military vessel (I went on the USS Hornet docked at the defunct Alameda shipyard years ago).
I like too that you had some internal references that you were drawing on. You mentioned your reading or simply your imagination. I don't know about anything really that is mechanical but I am attracted to images that I perceive as being from a machine. I couldn't say why either. And mostly I just make things up as I go but there must be something there that I am drawing on.
As you said though, being in touch with your internal thoughts is key-for anything really-but especially for making art.
Always happy with your observations. I appreciate them!
Libby