So I have been absent on the blog for so long it seems and not for the reason that I don’t love you, sweet readers; it seems I am a slave to grading student work.  Furthermore, in being  slave to grading, my students are feeling a bit like I’m a task master- maybe I am but it’s all for their greater good!  Little do they know I am giving them an extension this coming week to give both them and myself a bit of a reprieve.
But I’m not here to drone on about school…. I do miss the frequency of visiting my studio that I am normally used to but I’m making baby steps of progress there so I won’t complain.  In the meantime, I will trash my office and be a notorious nuisance to Tracy, our department secretary, for spilling coffee on my keyboard and breaking the space bar (after only having my lovely MAC a week) and changing my official office hours time three times in a day after they were approved and schedule printed, twice(state school have lots of rules!- office hours are a serious thing!).  But I digress….
Recently an old friend of mine reconnected with me on Facebook.  FB has become the class reunion I never went to.  But one of the very first people to talk to me when I moved to Emmaus and hated it (that was 2nd grade!) is now living in Australia and is a flourishing artist.  So in a few of our recent exchanges, he asked me a question that I have been thinking about a lot lately.  The objective of the question was about where I gain the most satisfaction about being an artist.  His options were: A. in realizing the final work seeing all the ducks (of clear intent, hard work and passion) in a row OR B. in the actual labor of the journey/love.
I love this question because it has been something I only recently had a conversation about with a friend.  So in trying to take a step back and get out of myself, I tried to gain a bit of understanding about myself.  Growing up, there really wasn’t ever a question of me being anything other than an artist.  I think I probably even asked myself the question as I watched my friends evolve into “practical” areas of study so that they may one day get a stable job and realize a prosperous career.  And as this all happened, I still maintained that I wanted to be an artist.  I always knew the “starving artist” stereotype and joked that it was my career goal.  So I went on to art school and majored in Fine Metals- in hindsight, it seems a practical solution to enter a craft field.  After all, it is an applied art and there is function to the objects I would make.  That idea of function would be an easier sell to people and therefore I could make a career on it… as a teen, I looked up to my metals teacher at Baum, Ann Lalik, and saw how cool she was teaching and making really provocative jewelry and it seemed effortless.   I wanted to do that too.  But I get into my program at Tyler and find I just look at things a little bit differently.  Although I was still creating functional objects- they didn’t function traditionally and became more like little sculptures (of torture… what a weird personal phase that was!).
One thing I learned about most craft artists is that they are product oriented.  I certainly have a bit of that engrained in me.  I’m a stickler for craftsmanship when it comes to my students and I think that was something that was certainly beaten into me while studying fine studio craft.  I will be perfectly honest with you though- I struggled with craftsmanship and still do.  Going back to Tyler days, sitting in the studio next to my best friend, Jess, I felt constantly inferior to her attention and ability of perfection.  Now she did obsess over it and it would even ruin her morale at times (which required me to take her work and lock it in my drawer until she settled down- true story.  She hated me for it).  But craftsmanship is something I have to work very hard at- and I know its value.
So now it’s been 14 years since I graduated from Tyler and 9 since I got my MFA and looking back through those years I can see that the idea has always been forthright for me and technique second.  I seem to cater my method to fit the idea- which makes me feel as if I am a “Jill of all trades, Master of none” at times.  It used to really bother me because I wished I had the wherewithal to just hunker down and focus.  Honestly, I didn’t realize that I do focus- it just happens to be not what I’m used to my colleagues focusing on.  I came to realize that it may be a unique thing to be able to explore so many other materials, methods, and techniques all while chasing after a thought… when I realized I COULD do that and no art police was going to fine me for not staying within my selected and accredited medium- it was a moment of epiphany and liberation.  I learned that SHOULD is a bad word.
I’m happy I did all of that- I feel like it was a long and involved road to understand who I am as an artist.  I’m at the point in my life where I’m finding how I approach making art is how I have approached my personal awareness of self.  This has been a series of construction and deconstruction of form, artistically and metaphorically.  I consider myself a work in progress.  But it’s a positive thing- I consciously have been picking and choosing what works for me and I love the fact I realized that it is a choice.  So this exploration of “female” is more an exploration of “self”…. And I happen to be a female so it is informed by all the experiences a female being can have.  This is the stuff I’m interested in uncovering and this is the stuff that if I think way back and watch down on myself as a developing artist- THIS is the thing I love most.
Greg, to answer your question:  it’s all about the Journey!