Let's Talk Process!

What are the stages of your creative process from concept to final? 

Sometimes I start with a sketch-a split second blur of scribbles on a shit piece of paper. Sometimes it’s laying in bed and allowing my mind to wander, seeing what ideas come forth from the stranger nooks of my mind. 

Sometimes I pull out a nice sheet and just star at it until something comes out of it. I look to see what’s already there. 

Then I spend some time working out the idea on the paper, loosely mapping the form, asking it what it wants to be and what emotion it wants to evoke. The feeling desired of a piece effects the composition, so I try and figure that out first. For the kind of work I make it’s the most important part. 

Once I have the form laid out, I’ll do lots of research, figuring out what animals I want to use, if they have any symbology, what colors the piece should be, and be open to allowing the form to change if I find something interesting in my search. 

Then I begin to refine, working both from several different image references and memory. I like to mix and match. Refining can look like a lot of different things depending on how Im going to finish the piece. If it’s going to be a pencil drawing, I start light layers of shading, mapping out the dimension and form. If it’s going to be a painting, I make crisp outlines and clean the paper up so the pencil doesn’t dirty the paint. 

I build layers slowly, pushing the work a little at a time. I don’t do it the same way twice. What I love is trying to solve each piece as it’s own problem while experimenting with the process in the same time. Something about laying down the colors in a different order, or mixing materials allows my brain a kind of creative play and I also learn more about my craft as I go— sometimes discovering a new trick that opens a whole pocket of possibility.

I don’t always know when something is done. After the layers have been added, I like to hang it up for a couple weeks and just keep an eye on it. I tend to work on several pieces at once, so there’s a kind of conversation happening between the pieces, and sometimes I notice something should be added to tie it to another piece. Sometimes I ask friends to take a look at it, artists and non-artists— they all tend to notice different things and it can help offer a kind of clarity in how the piece is being understood, and if it is indeed accomplishing the task I set out for it. 

Where does the narrative of your work come from? 

My drawings in a strange way are an autobiographical journey through the questions I’m asking. They are a reflection of my current conversations, struggles, and are my way of contextualizing myself in a larger history and community. As someone with chronic pain, a lot of times my work is influenced by the reality of my body. As I learn how to move through the world differently, my realizations and perceptions work into the ideas for my piece; art tends to be the place I work out my daily reality.

Do you feel connected to your work?

My drawings are like my diary entries, incredibly personal and my way of parsing my thoughts about my life experiences. It is where I sort my health issues, my loves, my faults, my rage, my denial. It's where I sort being a woman, beauty, and letting go. The whole point of my work is that it is internally connective, both to me and to those who look upon it. 

Do you ever get bored of it? 

Sometimes by the time I get near the end of the piece it can begin to feel a bit mentally stale. I might put the piece away for a little while and bring it back out when I'm fresh, or try and find a way to create it form the beginning that avoids things I find monotonous. But I never get bored with the creation aspect -- of coming up with ideas and finding a way to breath life into them. It's a way of moving more than a way of thinking. 

What do you use for references?

Usually I have an idea of what I’m looking for before hand, a feeling I’m chasing. If I know the species I want to use, I’ll do a thorough web search and I’ll save 30 or so images of that animal from different angles. I also have a huge library of old books, and do a lot of research on the species I’m drawing beforehand. The goal is to create something new, so I’ll use the images I find more as a tool of learning how to see the subject— What is it’s form? How does it move? Where do the pieces of it fit together? What are the color variants? Sometimes when I draw I’ll use tiny portions of several images that I stitch together with a made up perception of what I think it should look like, to add that odd feeling of it not being quite right. Sometimes I draw the whole thing from memory after spending time analyzing the animal’s form. I like when things have a bit of an off kilter feel and also am very careful about not duplicating a photographer’s work (that would be stealing).

How do you deal with the discouraging parts of being an artist?

The most helpful thing for me when I’m feeling discouraged is to disconnect from the digital realm and get outside. Usually the discouragement is coming from someone else opinion or a bad system, so I need to separate from that and find space to reconnect with my inner self. Only there canI look inward and see if I trust what I’m making, what I’m curious about, and what I have to say. It is not an easy process, but because art making is entirely connected to the creator of the work, self care makes a lot of sense to me.