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- That haunted feeling
That haunted feeling
Each stage — the imagining, judging, and shaping — is important
Allie Lehman
October 20, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
A quick summary: It’s Sunday and today we’re exploring:
The fact that thinking is a huge part of making
Three ideas for an offline recess (with time estimates)
Why I felt like Miranda Hobbs this week
I did not have anyone edit this so if you see a typo, be relieved that I’m a human and not a robot.
Intersections
things that are connecting during my recess
I used to assume that pre-thinking (or overthinking) about the art, photography, and design that I was trying to create was a bad thing. At its most intense, I call it “being haunted.” I could list all of the work that has haunted me — projects, personal art pieces, and commissions. It feels tortuous. For me, it’s hard to even have a deep conversation with someone while the artistic challenge sits inside of my brain like the biggest elephant you’ve ever seen. As I’ve taken time to read about the artwork that I love and admire, I now know that this isn’t unique to me.
I grew up watching Bob Ross. I’m sure a lot of you did too. He would just be yappin’ away in his gentle voice making the most hyper realistic painting (while also being recorded by a full crew). I thought that that’s what making art was supposed to be like. Sit down, create from nothing, and talk through it without a pause or hesitation. Sure, no mistakes. Just happy accidents. But I never saw him destroy the piece with rage and start over. While that maybe was never something he did, it’s what a lot of artists do. We slice, paint over, burn, and throw things away.
But that’s because he had already figured it out. “The first [painting] was painted prior to taping and sat on an easel off-camera during filming, where Ross used it as a reference to create the second copy which viewers actually watched him paint.”
This is not to undermine Bob’s talent or take away from everything that he inspired. But the THINKING work takes up a lot of time and is often not shown to the general public.
I’ve been keeping a running list of excerpts from artists relating to this thinking work. The thinking work almost always translates to making lots of connections, big and small:
“There are these tunnels constantly being made that connect things”
“You're kind of a distiller yourself. You have to take all of this information, those impulses and…it just has to fuse into one thing.”
“A cascading series of associations”
“Each stage — the imagining, judging, and shaping — is important”
“Art requires access to the imagination, a notoriously difficult place to visit. The imagination fuels an idea. The artist acts urgently, often impulsively, on that idea but brings conscious rigor to the evaluation of what the imagination has spewed.”
“Where does the art assert itself? The art followed the research project.”
Before I draw or paint or design, I spend a lot of time thinking about it. I research, I try to imagine it. And, finally, at the age of 37, I feel much more comforted by the haunting. It means I’m a part of something that has plagued artists before me, and will continue to until the end of time. But I also have a feeling that we can’t “out think” art.
“The discovery of the [art] is thrilling. The period of waiting is not. I am despondent and tormented. And I feel doomed. It's terrible. But I don't react to those feelings by trying to eliminate them through diligence or intelligence, because what's needed is not diligence or intelligence. What's needed is an intervention of something outside yourself,* better than yourself, but with access to yourself.”
*Next week, let’s talk about what’s outside of ourselves. Or as Louise called it “otherworldly.”
Take A Break
things we could do this week for our offline recess
10 minutes: Walk around while you eat a snack (inspired by my niece).
30 minutes: Stop by an art gallery. Even if you only stay for 10 minutes.
~1 hour: Listen to an entire album.
Happen Upon
things I re/discover offline, outside of the algorithm
I tend to reflect on the past week when I finalize this email. And at first, I thought “I didn’t do a great job of taking a daily offline recess.” But that isn’t true. I might not have been as social or carefree as I wanted to, but I made an effort to see family, walk, practice yoga, and read. But, generally, my week looked a lot like this:
Me walking while I’m in work mode. I would wear my ugly Hokas with every outfit and lug around 2-3 books if I were my most authentic self.
A lot of work. But I did discover 070 Shake’s new song “Winter Baby/New Jersey Blues” - feels nostalgic and fuzzy and vintage.
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