“I say we find out what we will do by knowing what we will not do.”
-Arno Minkkinen
A blinking cursor, the blank page, the stillness before movement, a new space, a fresh notebook, a white canvas, the expanse of an artist residency… all full of potential. That moment before beginning, the moment when anything is possible is both exciting and unnerving. Exciting because anything is possible, and unnerving because anything is possible.
Making art is often associated with unlimited possibility and freedom, unfettered by rules or limits. While that is the nature of beginning, the way that creative work actually gets done is by working within constraints. What do I mean by rules, limits, and constraints? I simply mean making choices. As artists, we are constantly making choices! Each time we use a certain tool, choose a color, settle on a subject, write a sentence, pick one material over another, or choose this location and not the other, we are creating constraints for ourselves. Sometimes these choices are made moment to moment, and sometimes they are made ahead of time, such as when we plan a project. For example, if I am preparing for an artist residency, I will decide ahead of time what materials I am going to work with, my general subject, and my method for approaching my work. In fact, an artist residency application often requires a statement of purpose and/or project description. At my last residency, what I was not doing defined my purpose: I was not going to work on my established work. I only brought new, emerging work with me, and though that work was still vague in my mind, it was well defined by what it wasn’t: comfortable. I knew that I needed a challenge and chose discomfort and disorientation as two of my constraints!
When we define something like this, we are saying, “This, not that.” We find a foothold, something to push off from. We choose, we move forward, we make an adjustment, make another choice. Each choice builds a piece of the scaffold that supports the work. In this way, every artwork, every project, can be seen as a set of choices made corporeal. Our work takes form through our choices.
An interesting aspect of this is the shadow of the choice: the things not chosen. They are the negative space of our making, and just as important compositionally. They are the silence that defines the sound, the mark we do not make, the direction we do not choose, and the option we decline so that we may say yes to another. The things we don’t do are as valuable and purposeful as the things we do.
What happens when we refuse to make choices? The work does not take substantial form; it dissipates and changes direction, lured by infinite possibilities. Its quality suffers: it is bland and lacks tone and strength. It is blown about by indecision, by each influence and new idea, bloated by a failure of commitment. I don’t mean to say that there are no fun and necessary phases of exploration, inquiry, and play. Not everything needs to result in something substantive—maintaining room for possibility is part of the process too. Sometimes it is best to make adjustments, change our mind, or abandon our chosen direction altogether. Choices are embedded in the creative process; they facilitate and strengthen our work, giving it shape and direction. In the end, our finished work is the sum of the actions we take within our chosen constraints.
That’s it from me this week. I’ll be back next Monday with an artist interview!
Yours in practice,
Choosing Creative Constraints
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