On connection

Bonjour/Hello, having sworn to myself, and to Himself, we would not still be surrounded by boxes a year after moving to France, here we are, duly surrounded by boxes over a year after moving. And having also sworn to myself that I would label the boxes appropriately and with the requisite detail so as to be able to lay my hand on whatever it is I need with a minimum of fuss, I seem never to be able to find what I’m looking for. I find other things. Things that my brain thinks are interesting, or useful, or important. I know this because I say to myself, ‘oh, I must have a look at that later. It might be interesting, useful, or important.’ And dutifully take it out of the box and put it aside, on the pile of things to look at later. Often, I find whatever it is that I was looking for the last time I went to the boxes to look for something. Usually exactly where I’d expect to find it. In the appropriately labelled box.

On a latest rummage in search of a different book entirely, I happened across Perfect Imperfect by Karen McCartney. In it is a wonderful quote from Australian artist Alison Coates, “…creativity is like catching butterflies, you are always reaching for the unattainable. You are there but not there.” She encapsulates perfectly how the creative process feels to me. I am there but not there. Which makes documenting my creative process a tad tricky. Admittedly, I did use the word experiment when describing how the design Holiday Weather came to be, and I did have one of my early efforts to show you, but only because I had thought to sample it. Normally I don’t keep a record of my efforts. I don’t think of them as iterations as generally they don’t build upon each other. And certainly not as experiments as I don’t intend to replicate them. So I have no need to keep notes. When designing, I am messing about. I am playing. I am there but not there. 

Why would I need to document my creative process, you may ask. Well, because there’s a good chance that perfidious AI will make me surplus to requirements. And sharing how I got to where I got to is something the bots can’t replicate. At least, not yet. They could show iterations, yes. But not the thinking behind them. Not how a chance mistake sent you off in a different direction completely. And not how the world in which you find yourself informs your work. Nor how you experience the world informs your work. The bots can’t speak of what it is to be human, which is, after all, what art is for. And what are textiles but art that you can touch, wear, curl up in, sit on. They are everyday art. For everybody. Art that engages you, be it a film, a song, a painting, or a fabric, creates a connection between you and the maker. It’s hard to feel connected to a bot. There’s no chance of shared experience. As Rick Rubin says in his fascinating book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, “When making art, we create a mirror in which someone may see their own hidden reflection.”

There’s no need for notes, I hear you say. Just share your sketches. Well, that too is not so straightforward as you might imagine. Sketching is not natural to me. I’ll draw after I have an idea. I don’t sketch to open myself to ideas. This is because I find it difficult to visualise. I have to concentrate and even then I see only a dim outline. I do have a good memory for faces and even images, but only once I see them again. I can’t actually bring them to my mind’s eye. Nor could I describe them accurately to you. I believe this inability is known as hypophantasia. When I am designing a fabric, I’ll have an idea, a sense of something. I’ll draw the basic elements of it, either on paper or on a tablet, and usually from life or a photo I’ve taken. Or I’ll work directly with photos I’ve taken. I’ll import the drawings/photos into my design programme. Then, I’ll start working, playing around until the “Ah” moment, the moment the design comes together. I am there but not there. I know it when I see it. I don’t “see” a design, and then create it. It is there but not there. This is probably why I find that a digital medium is much better suited to my creative process. And I’m not sure how I’d share the playing around. Most of the time I don’t really know how I got to where I got to. It’s a happy surprise. Oh dear.

Although my brain is not at all good at creating visual images, it certainly has no problem talking back to me. I talk to myself a lot when designing. Occasionally aloud. Perhaps I should record myself. Hmmm… that would require a deal of editing, given that I’m Irish.

But then, as Rick Rubin says, “The goal of art isn’t to attain perfection. The goal is to share who we are. And how we see the world.” To share our point of view. To create something that makes another person feel… something. The goal of art is to connect with our fellow humans. The most wonderful thing I can imagine hearing someone say when they see one of my fabrics would be, ‘that’s so me.’

A bientôt