Incidental Discoveries are Crucial

An artist does an awful lot of artwork in a lifetime.  Ideas overtake our imaginations and we rush on generating ideas, sketches, artwork and proposals. 

Ideation Drawing:  Hexagon Variations  ©  James Thatcher  2012

Use a “focus project” to concentrate on a single successful image from those labors.  Produce 30 identical versions with no variation in size, process or subject matter. This will stabilize studio output and concentrate your art making processes and effort.  

And it will generate a market of strong reliable imagery. 

I’m in the midst of the second focus project in the past twelve months. The first focus project was 30 small paintings, 8” x 10” each.

Transformation Hexagon  © James Thatcher  2015

© James Thatcher  2015

This second effort is sculptural and the discoveries are compelling. 

In a 2-D focus project you only have finished work at the end of the process.  Suddenly you’ve got 30 finished pieces.  The joy and beauty of this 3-D focus project pops up in unexpected places as assembled sections need to be stored.  

 Proposal for Public Sculpture ©  James Thatcher  2015

These incidental discoveries are crucial.  They maintain creative interest during the long weeks and months of production. You don’t want to break the momentum of your epic focus project but these ideas can also be works in themselves.

18 Corner Pieces, Bamboo  ©  James Thatcher  2015

So be sure to photograph and make note of your ideas.  Also consider making drawings and paintings of these various stages after completing the main body of work.  They represent a strong direction for future artworks and possibly your career.

Creating 2-D artworks extends the depth of your 3-D portfolio.  It’s a separate/additional body of work that supports your sculpture installation.  They provide a wall mounted display to accompany your floor display in a pre-curated collection.    

Model for Sculpture/Painting Installation  ©  James Thatcher  2016
(What if this were a giant outdoor steel sculpture with a digital billboard behind it?)

The question of whether one is a sculptor or a painter is not relevant because the relationship between your 3-D and 2-D images is so clear.  You present the artwork of one artist who uses multiple mediums to explore their ideas.  

Brilliant!

The dedication displayed by presenting your ideas in a volume of related artworks is impressive.  Your vision is clearly defined and explored at a depth displayed only by the most professional of artists.  

(Welcome to the big time) 

 http://jtnwdc.wix.com/jamesthatcherarts

Focus Project

I’m making thirty identical paintings.  They're each 8” x 10” and modeled after a study of a blue gradient Tree of Life hexagon.  

"Transformation Hexagon"  ©  2015

This image's step-by-step process make it a natural choice for this sort of project.  Focusing on the same shape, same colors, same process, technique and size will yield the same result X 30.

This is the most controversial assignment given by our faculty at the Corcoran College of Art + Design (Washington, DC, 1980’s). However, it was given after 2 months of free range creativity. Nobody mentioned it, but the piles of artwork generated during that first stage were about discovering our modus operandi and ONE image.  

A piece that summed up the range of our unfettered production; our free association, lateral thinking, uninhibited choices in art making that sidestepped our fault-finding, self-filtering, uptight, judgmental fearful selves.

Duplicating that one piece thirty times through the Focus Project was an exercise in discipline and an example of what to do when you found that idea worth pursuing.

Sometimes logistics becomes sculpture.

We do an awful lot of artwork in a lifetime.  We produce drawings and sketches, and ideas that take over our imaginations.  We rush on to generate more ideas, sketches, and proposals…. 

And then what--continue the search for “the next big thing”?  Ugh….

Let’s stay with that brilliant, reduced idea.  Why discard it in the search for another?  They're worth holding onto.  When you find it, focus.  

A focus project brings a meditation on an image, finding out all that it holds and in the process of re-iteration controlled progress reveals itself.  

Side work produced during the current Focus Project.

Thinking becomes ordered, step-by-step instead of random.  Your body of work becomes cohesive and its coherence is evident.  Clarity becomes a trait of your artwork and process.  The directions you take become manageable choices that your clients and fan base follow as well.

Dare to impose a little discipline into the mix.  Hammer out thirty!  You might like it.  If nothing else, you’ll find a few that really sing!  You’ll internalize the image, as well as the focus processes and the multiples aesthetic.  You’ll have that ability and insight as a permanent part of your creative options.  

Who can argue with increasing one’s creative options?  

It’s an investment in yourself; in your discovery.  Your work merits the investigation.  This sort of output declares the importance of your own thinking, research and imagery.

And here’s a surprise:  I’m not making 30 paintings, I’m making one. 

                                                                                                        
 http://jtnwdc.wix.com/jamesthatcherarts