No End in Conscious Sight

Art isn't always about getting exactly what you want, especially in those instances when it's impossible to get what you want, or those instances when you're not quite sure what you want. When we can't get it exactly as we want it, we have to decide that close enough is good enough. Or we can give up all of that control of the future (and being controlled by the future) and instead work as evolutionists rather than creators.

Work need to start somewhere, but when we've less of an idea where we are going, it seems to matter less where we come from, so beginning doesn't have to be labored: ultimately how we begin matters less than when we begin, and we should make a decision, and begin right away.

Let ideas accumulate, let them stick when they stick, let them fall away when they fall away. The work begins to grow, and as patterns emerge so will themes and counter-themes. You'll make more decisions based on what emerges, and the work to a great extent builds itself with your help.

When you feel the need to make something firm, then by all means do that, and feel free (although not without regret) to abandon that which had previously been thought firm in pursuit of something else. There is an ebb and flow to the process of which you become a part. Be a part but not the only part, and be a peer to the work , not it's sole creator, but rather a co-creator, or the mechanism of its own evolution.

Don't settle when there is no deadline, but when there is, make your last decisions and have done with it. If it needs to be revisited then by all means do that, but finish once before the deadline and then finish again later.

Each decision, and element added, is an opportunity to learn about the work and where it is going. In this regard, art is a true science, a true experiment, not like what we do in science classes in school. In school, we conduct experiments to learn a process and about the properties of the elements, we confirm the laws by which we understand the world to operate. But true science is an experiment with a result we may or may not expect. It's not a confirmation of what we know, it is something new to ponder. This is how you approach art: with no conscious end in sight.

But, perhaps we entered into the process with a vague idea of what we wanted to say or make, a sliver of a notion as to what the viewer should find in the work. It seems to me we always have a vague idea of something when we do anything — some small expectation we hold in head. Often, then, we're surprised at the end to see that idea manifested, and in a rich manner.

Don't confuse composing music with building a piano. Don't confuse painting with grinding paint. Don't confuse carving with planing down a door. Don't confuse a poem with travel directions.