A Search to "See" the Words...
Liu Wei says that "a piece of art is never an answer to something". The purpose of a piece of art is, rather "to pose a question" but, "the question is only the beginning". To me, that says that art is the iterative attempt to ask better questions. It's continuously attuning the questions expressed through the work directed at the audience, but it's also the constant refinement of the way in which the artist poses questions to themselves.
I think that means asking ourselves questions not only about "what we have to say" or "what we want to say" in the work, but also asking ourselves questions about "how we say it". In other words, I think it means examining and analyzing the creative processes we use that enable us to express our questions; questioning our methods of artistically asking the questions.
This kind of critical and creative soul-searching has been teaching me about myself and my own creative process. It's becoming more and more obvious that, artistically speaking, I'm a writer before anything else. Such a realization is more an act of acknowledgement and acceptance than it is a statement of shock or surprise. The fact that I have a long held love of language is not a revelation. What is slightly more revelatory is how I've often neglected or ignored my predilection for literary expression purely out of vanity. In a culture that preferences the consumption of audio/visual arts, it simply isn't as sexy to be a writer, a blogger, a poet, etc. And, rather than allow my writing to take the wheel, I have relegated it to the backseat. Sometimes even barbarously stuffing it in the trunk, bound and gagged.
But, no matter how much I try to place video, or design, or drawing, at the forefront of what I do, writing has been the tell-tale heart pounding beneath the floor boards, refusing to relent or subside.
Truth be told, when I'm being creative my thoughts turn to the language of the written word before anything else. That's where everything begins for me.
Austin Kleon calls himself "a writer who draws". Something about that feels right even for me. Maybe you could say I'm a writer attempting to make art, or maybe, a writer who makes podcasts, videos, and art. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue though, does it? I'll have to work on it.
The point is that writing is the catalyst for all of my creative endeavors. Almost every podcast or video I've made has begun with a piece of writing. Even many of my art projects arise from something I've written. It's like I can't envision "imagery" or the "images" until I see the words. But, somewhere in the process of searching for the words, in sculpting the language, and guiding them from my head to the page, the pictures arrive.
For example, the picture at the top of this post came to me after I had written an essay called "Gratitude is Mutinous". Interestingly enough, even the image I created for "Gratitude is Mutinous" came from another piece of writing as well.
That's how it happens for me. Sometimes the simple turn of a phrase is the key that turns the lock to the door of a secret I've never seen.
In a way that's gratifying. When it comes to writing I've always wanted my words to paint a picture, and it seems like it does, if for no one else than for me.
Suffice to say, whenever pen gets put to paper, I'm home...