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                        

The Tree of Life

I was working smaller to crank out ideas for large scale grid paintings.  As this study was nearly finished I noticed a shape lurking in the axes of all those squares:

An ideation sequence from 2012 ended in this shape (see “Finding the BrokenObelisk”) and it was exciting to see again. To have it reappear naturally was a pleasant surprise. 

Suddenly I knew the direction.  It was as if the grid was the way to get to this hexagon shape.  Fine with me!  I dropped the grid and went full tilt, working that hexagon shape.

A hexagon is a six-sided figure with six angles and six vertices.  We all think of the honeycomb but a hexagon is not necessarily equilateral—the sides don’t all have to be the same length.  

 

I didn’t labor over this but it came to be more important as time went on.


I was rolling with this image, not worrying about anything except what the next idea was:  boom, boom, boom went the artwork!

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The holidays were upon us and my wife and I went away for a week or so.  No art production, just vacation, visiting, watching football—a great break.  We come home and instead of jumping back into art production I took a day to reorganize.

Then I decided that I needed to do a little research about hexagons, look into their symbolism.  Without the Christmas break I would have forged on with my head down and brow furrowed, painting away...

It was time to hit the search engine.  Things got interesting quickly.

First, some general connotations:  communication, interfacing, union (consider honeycombs and bee society), and balance.  Then GOLD:  The elongated hexagon that I’ve been working with was a variation of  “The Tree of Life.”

As a Christian, this floored me!  I was steamrolling with this image; producing it over and over again in various forms, like the guy in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.  Then finding out its meaning…!  

This studio experience is good example of God’s “still small voice.”  (Check out 1^st Kings 19:11-12)  You are motivated, you know it’s right, you aren’t struggling with it, you’re producing.  And you’re clueless!  That’s one of the best parts!  Then you find out what you’re doing, and THAT’S the best part!

Go boldly forward.  If the creative urge is that strong then do yourself the favor of following it.  In fact, push it!  Believe that it will become clear in due time, that what you are doing is meaningful; even if you don’t understand it now.

Greater forces are at work.

http://jtnwdc.wix.com/jamesthatcherarts