Trade Secrets, part 2

I wish I could figure out how to activate the comments section 

of this blog without making folks “join” anything. 

The response to my question last week about which secrets you share, 

and which you protect, was informative and thoughtful...

and definitely the most I’ve ever received on one post.  

I’ll try to hit some highlights:

In general artists replied that they are a sharing group: they recognize that sharing leads to an exchange of information that is mutually beneficial in the long run.  Self confident artists have no desire to exactly copy some one else’s work and good teachers realize that the signature of their own work has taken years to develop and can’t really be duplicated.  (That said, I do know that there are “copy factories” in China where artists are paid to replicate perfectly the works of well known, translate to very expensive, artists in an attempt to cash in.  Not a lot of us fall in that category.)

by Cindy Michaud Art

There was definitely a parting of the ways when an artist considered their work more of a “product” than a one-off design.  For instance, after my buddy who makes candles perfected a method to guarantee a longer than common burn time (having invested hours of time and loads of money in the testing) she was reluctant, understandably, to broadcast the formula.  Meanwhile she was happy to share ingredient sources, label methods etc with fellow “competitors.” But the “sets it apart” factor was her distinction and she shouldn’t feel guilty about not sharing it.

Ditto, for a specific pattern that can be duplicated....I’ve read stories of several ETSY craftsmen who worked hard to make a niche product only to find the exact same thing (again, mass produced in China) for sale in Target the next year.  Sad.  But a fact of life.

One reader opined that wood turners were not a very sharing group, I cannot attest to experience there; another recalled a family story about an excellent baker who happily shared recipes but always left out a crucial ingredient....thus protecting her status as “the best.” Or totally ruining it, you chose!

by Weathered and Worn

So, as usual, there are two sides to every issue.   Austin Kleon’s original question asked us to think about this, personally, from both sides (what is shared, what is not) and evaluate the outcome of each. Perhaps my presentation was a bit more judgmental in tone.

The internet has changed the art game on so many levels.  Just as it makes it easy to research technique it also risks passing off unreliable methods or incomplete formulas.  While many craftsmen depend on the WWW to sell their products, it also exposes them to being copied and undersold.  Several experts in the art business even believe that the internet is responsible for many independently owned galleries closing their doors, seen as the “middle man” their services are needed less and less.  

So where does this discussion bring us? At the risk of putting words in anyone’s mouth I will verbalize my own thoughts: I believe artists and craftsmen need to have a sharing attitude, they need to trade thoughts, ideas, formulas and techniques.  It creates energy, it generates new ideas, it becomes a network of support and mutual admiration.  It is give and take. Here is a new-ish clip of Kleon at SBSW in an interview repeating his "share philosophy." Go all four minutes, he uses b-b-q as an example!

pottery by AmyH

HOWEVER,  I also believe that everyone of us needs to recognize the existence of proprietary information...I can respect that.  If you have spent years developing your signature color (glaze, paint, finish etc) and you only smile when I ask how you mixed that, I need to understand that it is "back to the drawing board" for me...to find my own special, secret ingredient.  If it’s already on the internet, well, why not strike up a conversation and make a new friend? Let's not be rude in our artist conversations.

Here's to sharing art: philosophies, ideas and yes, a few secrets! 

Cindy

What's in your Spark File??

"Before you can think

out of the box,

you have to start with a 

box."

Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit

Wandering a bookstore recently I picked up What Do You Do with an Idea by Kobi Yamada.  It's a beautifully illustrated (by Mae Besom) children's book with an adult story.  And since January has always been my month of introspection and direction adjustment, I was intrigued by the notion that we could teach youngsters how to handle "ideas."

And (stay with me here) that led me to think about all the ways adults deal with "ideas" and could I freshen up my methods.  Most of us have zillions of thoughts pass through our brains daily.  But precisely because there are a zillion, most don't take up residence. I have heard many a peer claim "well, I had a brilliant idea but I forgot it."  

I keep a file of inspiration photos in my studio.  When I began they were systematically ordered into folders labeled "mtn landscapes, still life flowers, animals, water" and so on.  Then I could pull the folder and be ready to paint.  Last week I had a student who needed a reference photo to work from. I pulled out the files and discovered, horrors, that any sense of order had long ago given over to a random stash and dash method.  I was so embarrassed....why?  

As I vowed to set aside a day to bring the folders back to order I began coming across additional information that talked about our need to harness and store "ideas."  Call them hunches, projects, titles, shapes, questions, topics, or the recently coined "sparks".... each of us needs a method that keeps a check on all those wacky thoughts that pass through the brain as possible "to-do's." Here is some of what I captured:

ORDER:  maybe that's good for some folks, but, apparently it is not the best method for all. In one of his blogs Austin Kleon  talks about "finding what you didn't know you were looking for."  A- Ha moment: "I am trying to find a waterfall but o-my-gosh here is that killer photo of a sunset over the ocean I meant to paint and its perfect for the next....."  I love those moments.  Takes me no time to do a 180 and run in a new direction.  

RECORD:  I knew a man who always had 3 x 5 cards in his front pocket.  He might whip one out, jot something down and never miss a beat in a conversation.  Even after computers and cell phones he carried those cards.  Artists claim they have sketch books but are they tiny enough to fit into a pocket? Austin Kleon (can you tell he inspires me) swears by a pocket sized moleskin and a G-2 pilot pen.

In her wonderful book, The Creative Habit, Learn it and use it for life, Twyla Tharp explains in chapter 5 that each of her dances or projects starts with a box from Staples.  She labels it and tosses in all manner of memorabilia possibly related to her idea....thoughts, newspaper clippings, photos, anything goes!  This becomes her tangible spark file and resource guide.

RETAIN:  My lack of order seems to be applied to my numerous sketchbooks, not just my photo files!  my habit is to have them handy (like kleenex on every table) so I don't waste time hunting for one (ideas don't stay as long as they used to).  The other day I was gathering them up to see if any blank pages remained and I became engrossed in reviewing them.  Wow....in one I might have jotted down an idea dated 2011 and the next entry is a line drawing done in 2014.  Then I glued in a beer label.  Next entry was 2015, pages and pages for a blog.  But it was all there!  I now could cherry pick what spoke to me and flesh it out.  Even fleeting, wacky notions had been retained and, upon having marinated, might prove worthy!  Where do you keep your box, your 3 x 5's, your moleskins or your sketchbooks?  

REFLECT: Silence is the most under-valued element in our lives today.  It's been proven that multi-tasking is debilitating to all tasks and that our brain really needs some down time.  My best thoughts (and apparently I am one of many) have come a) in the shower or b) alone in the car without a radio on.  Why?  Because then we give freedom to our thoughts to play together, mix up, cross pollinate and associate. We are able to remix old ideas.  The point is, ideas come from other ideas as Leo Babuta explains, whether they are business ideas, fundraising ideas, hobby ideas.....

So.  What's in your Spark File?  Better yet: WHERE IS your spark file?

I've decided my personal methods are just fine.  What I need to vow to do is to REVIEW these files more often.  Maybe before a long drive (or a long shower) I need to read back over whatever sketchbook is nearest, sift through the mixed up inspiration photos or clear off the pile of bits and pieces of stuff on my desk.  There might be an unpolished diamond in the mix.

Now.  What is your method?  Teachers, professionals, mothers, artists, cooks and musicians....all of us need to harness our creative thoughts. Do share.

Sparking color fully,

Cindy

p.s. I chuckled at the times I found my grocery lists or follow up reminders in my books!  But according to the experts this is super fine.  Who knows when "fresh tomatoes, farmers market and dry cleaning" might all blend for the perfect theme of a painting series?  

Collage Therapy

Its been an exhausting, draining, demoralizing election season.

I have friends and family who made excellent arguments

for both (all) sides of the equation.  It was brutal.

While I am always optimistic, just processing the

last several months has taken so much energy.

And with depleted reserves I wasn't sure what I could concentrate on in the studio.  Voila!  I picked up an old favorite, Steal Like an Artist Journal,  and opened it up to this page:

So I had a plan to keep my hands busy while my mind wandered wherever it wanted to go.  I dug around and put the trash out on my table:

Then I got busy ripping, cutting and gluing....all therapeutic activities while waiting for the creativity muse to come by.

I turned this around by 90 degrees several times but clearly, it was too soon to get any real direction.

I kept pasting, sometimes aware of great frustration and other times mindlessly tacking things on.  I felt protective of the bee but realized that sort of defeated my original, freewheeling intention.

partial detail

I kept plodding along and then a word came to me - bam- just like that!  The word was "obfuscation."  Bingo.

Thats how I had felt all these months - obfuscated - and that was the confusing feeling I was getting right this minute from my unplanned collage.  The art was unclear, the paths were misleading and everything was made complex and disjointed.  Suddenly I had a bit of clarity.  I added my last piece, swept the remaining goodies back into the trash and stood up feeling much, much better.  This was no work of art but the block got moved, the feeling verbalized (or art-itized) and I am now ready to move forward.

Obfuscation

trash collage, 7.75" x 7.75"

Whether the election went your way or not, I hope you agree with me that we should all be motivated to do what we can to improve the quality of life for each other and to continue to work on those issues we deem important.  Here's to no more obfuscation!

Thank you Austin Kleon,

Cindy

p.s.  Click on his name for an interesting TED talk by him.

Umbria

In Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon reminds us

that the world is full of ideas just waiting to be

remade (stolen) in another form.  

My summer play dates have given me permission to

do just that.

Remember when I wrote about the marvelous clay technique of Patti Conner-Greene and her dreamscapes?  Click here for a reminder.  Abandoning her pottery wheel briefly, she started playing with layers of design and texture, building a scene without regard to a realistic perspective.  They are beautiful pieces of art.  So, I have become a thief...herewith my confession:

My visits to Italy always result in a ton of photos featuring the beautiful patchworked countryside of olive trees, vineyards and other produce.  The rolling hills, the colors from striped plantings, the mountainous background....such classic views of Italy.  (sigh) Painting that perspective however continued to throw me a curve ball.  One day I decided to just enjoy the effort and paint as if I were in Patti's sandbox rolling out clay and stamping it with crazy texture.

Umbria, detail

I laid down texture, I played with color, I mixed up patterns and I threw caution to the wind where realistic perspective was concerned.  I wanted to capture that feeling I always had gotten of seeing the countryside as a beautiful, freeform quilt of flowing pattern.

detail 2

Of course it had to have the classic Italian cypress in the foreground.  And a low hanging sky.

Umbria, oil, 36 x 24, framed

available, Crossnore Gallery of Fine Art

Done!  Thank you Austin Kleon for permission to be a klepto and to Patti Conner-Greene, of Linville River Pottery for the inspiration.  Oh, and grazie to artist Kelly Medford whom I was traveling with when we stopped to paint at Arte Umbria for an entire week! Much inspiration came from all these folks....my gratitude is endless.

Shameless,

Cindy

Coloring Books = Tension Relief?

Remember the joy of a new coloring book?  An untouched box of crayons?  Kinda gets my heart beating faster just remembering the smell of those crayons.  And then of course as children we learned about "outlining" and eventually heard those teacher cautions "to color within the lines?"  Talk about a visceral memory.

web found coloring image for adults

Well apparently some brave souls (or entrepreneurs) have come forth to admit that the same thrill we received as kids is readily available to adults via the promotion of Adult Coloring Pages.  Who knew?

One of my fav blogs is put out by Austin Kleon, and not long ago he wrote a piece on the phenomenon of adult coloring books.  This post covers the two top selling books now on Amazon. 

Secret Garden by Johanna Basford has already sold 1.4 million copies.

Why do adults want to color within the lines?  Readers and advocates tout the zen-like meditation that comes over someone who is slowly, methodically applying color to a design.  With the hardest decision being what color to use, the adult can leave the cares and concerns of the work day behind and re-enter a place of joy and relaxation.  For those who find it hard to unwind at the end of the day this certainly sounds like a much healthier approach than scotch or pills.

Paging through my April edition of The Atlantic I came across another article that caught my eye: "Big in France: Coloring Books for Existential Angst."  "My breathing becomes calmer," the article quotes one advocate to claim.  "Relaxation support" was the promise the first books published in France offered, and boom, 2 million copies later many other publishers are jumping on the bandwagon.  One attractive feature for publishers and "readers" alike is that the coloring books don't have to be printed in a specific language for them to have world-wide appeal.  Materials can range from crayons to colored pencils, pens and some even with watercolor.  With no prior experience and no needed instruction, adults can plunge in and reap the healthy benefits for very little investment.  I say, don't knock it til you've tried it.

The end of the article notes that in a study on depression in 2011 the United States ranked second.  Perhaps we should lobby congress to issue coloring sheets with all government communications and encourage local governments to insert such in tax notices etc.  I mean, it can't hurt, right?  and then think of all the starving artists that could offer their designs for use?  Wow...I'm on to something.

Meanwhile, if you want to take a gander, here is a site that offers free downloadables, perhaps you can borrow your kids tools and take a try.

I know that those of us who paint daily really enjoy the zone we find ourselves in on a really good day...try it, you may like it!  let me know.

Coloring Always,
Cindy