Opening to the worlds of others
What can happen if you truly get out of your own way
In the early years of my return to art I started working with a collective of artists and two different teachers. Neither of the teachers was a visual artist. One was an actor/producer, and the other was a dancer. It was a fascinating, ever-expanding network of actors, musicians, puppeteers, cabaret artists, theatre-makers and poets. Deliberately and declaredly not a therapy group, everything that was processed and explored had to be done through art. One of its great appeals for me was that most of the people involved often had more than one primary form. When they were working in the group, all kinds of artists explored all kinds of forms, whether previously known to them or not. Poets would move, musicians would paint, artists would sing, everyone would write.
The basic format of workshops was that the teacher would work with one artist while everyone else witnessed their work. The people witnessing were invited to respond in whatever way they wanted; in writing, in image, in spoken word. There was no ‘constructive criticism’ or suggestions for improvement – the responses of the witnessing artists were guided by what they felt as they experienced the person’s work, expressions that arose from moments that touched them or communicated something to them. At the end, the person working had not only what they had felt and experienced working with the teacher, but words and images from everyone else as well.
For the first few years, I responded in patterns and flows.
Then figurative elements began to appear.
It was a unique setup for me as a visual artist. I didn’t have to make myself go into the studio, decide what to work on, know when to stop. All of that was taken care of by the structure of the workshop, which someone else had responsibility for. All I had to do was open to the situation, my paints on the floor in front of me; reacting if and when I felt like it to the energetic stream unfolding in front of me. There were emotions, there was psychic material; there was the live energy dancing between the teacher and the actor/musician, and the silent focus of everyone in the room on what was happening.
It was deep work. The dynamics of the process created a space for all kinds of things to happen; new moves, new work, new words, unexpected reactions, incredible journeys. It was a magical example of emergence; of what happens when multiply interacting systems, not all of them bounded by the limits of the individual, and not all of them conscious, find themselves within specific constraints at the same time as being encouraged to move in a new direction. Many of these people took steps in these workshops towards ground-breaking new work, gaining insights and discovering layers of themselves that not been available before.
As time went on, I learned to open myself more and more to the deep psychic and emotional currents that permeated the work that was being done. It was fascinating for me, and my images appeared to be a useful contribution to the process overall.
And then, like every other creative phase, it tipped over. I became so open to the psycho-emotional energies in the room that they began to penetrate too deeply inside me; my own system started to register distress, and I had to stop that way of working.
I had been provided with an endlessly stimulating environment which always gave me something to do. The process had allowed me to get out of my own way entirely, at least for brief periods of time; to step aside from my own desires and intentions and allow a much deeper creative response to move of its own accord, fuelled by the energies I was observing. But now I was on my own.
I think by then I needed to be. It had been wonderful to be held by such a moving and intense process, to be provided with such rich stimuli, to have my offerings so well-received. But I was now beginning to wonder where ‘my’ work wanted to go. What was I trying to do when it wasn’t so easy, when I was working with subject matter that I had to find for myself?
Of course, as I talked about last time, I now know that I was doing ‘my’ work all along. But at the time I had this sense then that I was somehow being derivative, that I was focussing on other people’s work. I still had that buried fantasy about ultimately making my own large, confident and complex paintings, as it seemed artists were supposed to do. As, indeed, I wanted to do. I wanted to make paintings that would excite me and amaze me, feelings that I rarely had when I interacted with products of the contemporary art world.
I had missed this one along the way. Entirely fascinating.
Wonderful to be reminded Tamsin. Such a privilege to work in that way….quite magical. X