“Impossible to have found so little a thing, in so great a clutter of thick, and deep grass.” Nathaniel Fairfax, 1674.
Research is an untangling of a cluttered, clotted mass of coagulated knowledge. I have so many questions about culture, the self and the nature of existence that research is obligatory. The more I research, the more I know; the more I know, the more I recognize that we do NOT know. Supposition is great; the factual is minimal. That we are missing the obvious seems apparent and it weighs on me. So I dredge the archives of theory on human development, object relations, social constructionism, cultural materialism, and my faith.
This research becomes critical to my making. The work is a vehicle for my ideas, my understanding or lack there of. I hunger for research (consumption) and art making (production). One without the other would make the remainder useless and of no value to me. I require them to be conjoined, equal in value when paired, worthless when separated.
I like to believe my work begins with this research, but this is not the case. There is significant play in idea/image/object development between the research, the collective critical analysis, visceral making, the found object, and writing. Each piece of work is an amalgamation of these processes. Research is critical and I thrive in its flow.
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Consumption and production
Is that the difference between the artists and the audience?
In this culture of consumption, we all consume. However, the artist reuses that which is consumed to produce a work of art, which is to be consumed.
Is the process of making art regurgitation?
Is it re-production?
Is it re-presentation?
When working with found materials or materials that are not strictly art supplies (oil paint, prestretched canvases, modeling clay, etc.) does the artist re-create the material? To use christian metaphorical language, does the artist resurrect the material? It that a political act? a poetic act? or a practical act?
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