An artist’s job differs from a regular 9 to 5 job in that it requires what I call “artistic incubation.” An artist can be disciplined and work a certain schedule, but an artist’s creative endeavor is not a linear process.
Our culture values business, whether the business is actually productive or not. Our culture does not value the internal process that must take place to create a work of art, which might look to an outsider to be laziness, but actually takes a great deal of hard work, and is vital to the creative process. The actual getting down to write, draw, paint, sculpt, dance, act cannot be adequately achieved without it.
If someone were to spend time with me they would find me wandering around my studio, sitting and staring at my paintings, pacing back and forth. All of that is part of my own “artistic incubation.”
I almost always get to a place in a painting where I don’t know what to do next. I’ve learned over time to just leave the painting alone, that great phrase, “when you don’t know what to do, do nothing” echoing in my head. And there comes a point, maybe days, weeks and even years later when I then know exactly what to do. Without that period of “artistic incubation” the painting would be overworked and ruined.
Sylvia White has written an article where she addresses this issue. In the article she has this to say:
” It wasn’t until I really understood the process of making a painting that I realized how much of the work is in just looking…thinking…imagining what it would be like to do this or that. Mental activity that to the lay person looks like relaxation. I could accept the fact that slathering paint around was work…but, sitting and staring, that was hard for me. What I came to learn was that the “looking,” is the hardest part. It was kind of like hearing about the way Mozart wrote music. He wouldn’t write anything down until he could hear it all in his head first, then he would write it out perfectly in a matter of minutes.”
Please visit Sylvia White at her website, www.artadvice.com. Sylvia White has also graciously allowed me to reprint her article on my website Mary Baker Art.
Mary Baker