Words that guide me

Whilst it’s true to say that I spend most of my time as an artist thinking in images, it’s also the case that words have become central to my creative practice. 

I’ve always been a reader and enjoy a wide spectrum of writing, so I naturally sought out the wisdom of books to guide my drawing and feed my ideas.  But the problem is that this wisdom is cocooned in so much paper and my memory just isn’t up to the job of remembering the best bits and knitting them into something coherent that helps me.  I realised that I needed to see all these words and be constantly reminded of them, so I repurposed some old business cards and started copying out quotes.

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Some of the best or most striking have ended up on my studio wall, along with photocopies and little sketches, in a sort of giant mind map that I refer to whenever I come to a pause in my work.  Some of them have sparked a new direction in a particular drawing, some an entire project, while others act as a sort of constant safety net to support me through the doubt and indecision that bubbles up whilst in the middle of making a drawing.  It’s perhaps a bit like having your favourite art school tutor always on hand to both encourage and criticise where needed.

On one of my internet wanderings I discovered that not only does Brian Eno make fantastic music, but in 1975 he created something called ‘Oblique strategies’ with Peter Schmidt.  They put together a set of cards with words and phrases intended to stimulate, change, redirect, challenge the creative process and overcome creative blocks.  Brilliant!

So, building on the ‘wise words on the wall’ concept, I shamelessly copied the concept and wrote my own cards…

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Here are some of them, mixed in with quotes from books like Juliette Aristides’ Lessons in Classical Drawing, and Stapleton Kearns blog, which is packed full of cleverness.  When I’m starting a series of drawings, I’ll choose some cards which seem to be relevant and stick them up on the board so they are there, gently nagging me, while I work.  And not so gently if I drift off the task!

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Their purpose is to point me in a direction if I get a bit lost, rather than specify exactly what I should be doing – that would be far too rigid and bossy.  I can honestly say they’ve worked really well so far.

Perhaps the wisest of wise words that I remember from my very early days at college are “expect to keep about 10% of what you do this year” – that most of what I make will be rubbish, some will be ok and only a very small proportion will be good. It was both a shocking and liberating thing to hear at the age of 18 and has stuck with me, so I was pleased to see it echoed in Austin Kleon‘s newest book ‘Show your work’.  He has lot’s of words to guide you if you are an artist, writer or any other creator and his pictures are spot on too…

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