New year, new experiments
It’s a lot more fun to run experiments for a year than it is to set goals.
Experimenting, learning, and finding things out is so much more fun than trying to aim for some number - a number that may well have been inspired by a feeling of inadequacy and failure and self judgement.
Goals tap in weak, transient motivations. Those external ones. If a goal is measurable, by necessity it will veer in the direction of money over mastery, adulation over autonomy. And those will push me in the wrong direction in my life.
It’s the intrinsic, internally generated motivation that really move us in good directions over time.
And how can being a good artist ever fit into a measurable goal? Nothing about actually getting better as an artist can be measured.
But there are questions that keep recurring, keep wanting answers. So that’s how I approach a new year now - with looking at the questions that are important to me and responding with new experiments to test answers to those questions.
Goals are fragile, but questions and experiments are robust, anti-fragile
Like - How can I make art that expresses what I want it to, more and more clearly and more beautifully too?
And although I know I will not solve that one, it is the work of generating new answers to good questions, and then testing them out in painting or drawing- that is the work that I love, and want to focus on.
The other big question that comes up every year is some version of ‘How can I do my studio work to make good art, fully experience the studio joy and also have enough resources (energy, time, money) to live a full life outside the studio as well?’
Figuring out, going over what worked last year, what didn’t work, comes first in the process. Then I design an experiment to test a new, hopefully more effective protocol to bring me good time in the studio.
In 2023, my experiment was to test 150 days of concentrated art making, followed by rest and consolidation for the other 200 days. (Included in that 200 days was a huge journey to Sumatra, Indonesia for my son’s wedding and I was also going through a bitter period of long covid and associated health problems, just in case that sounds lazy to your ears).
An artist I knew always did a big 100 day art project and then returned to her every day life and it seemed to work for her. Maybe it would work for me.
I wanted to test these assumptions:
1:
That I would be able to fully sink into a satisfying art making obsession on those allotted 100 days, knowing that there would be time later in the year to deal with normal life and administration stuff. Therefore I wouldn’t feel guilty about letting the rest of the world drift away while I was absorbed in painting.
2:
On the off-art days, I wouldn’t resent the time spent on business and life things, the way I normally do, knowing that I had already given my all to the art. I anticipated feeling fulfilled and satisfied as a result of this deep immersion in art. I would then also have the time to recuperate and recover in the off-art time that my health really needed.
I need to tell you - I am counting this as a failure.
During the 150 art days, the world remained ignorant of my plans and life kept on stubbornly happening in all sorts of ways, despite my intention that it should not.
And the world continued to remain important to me; I did not want to ignore everything.
But worse, more destructive, was the state of my mind during the off-art days.
The other artist I was inspired by had an engaging day job the rest of the year. Me, I don't have something like that.
My mind seemed to chew itself up without an art project going on - a self-generated art problem to solve, one designed by me and for me, to perfectly delight me.
Perhaps what was happening in my mind was my default mode network was left without this good sort of problem to happily mulls over while I am walking, doing the dishes, showering, gardening.
This default mode network is a mental network that keeps working away without our conscious control, whenever we are not actively, purposefully focused on a particular task. This default network goes over and over all the things rattling around in your life, making associations and connecting all the various disparate bits and bobs stored in our minds. It seems we spend about 30% of our lives with this rich, barely conscious process going on.1
Whatever problems and questions you have going on in your life will engage this process, this network of thought. And it will generate new ways of approaching the problems and questions while you garden, or walk, or shower.
When I am making art, the art itself keeps generating new and fascinating problems. And I think this default mode network keeps on generating new and interesting ideas and solutions. That’s fun!
But without these art problems to turn to, my default network starts to consume itself, turning to anything to chew endlessly over. But now it has to turn to stupid things. To ruminating on pointless problems, inventing problems, going over incidents in the past, exaggerating and awfulising everything in my life.
I need to have a beautiful problem to turn my mind to.
Without time making art, I only have boring, unpleasant problems.
This year I am conducting a new experiment. How can I work in flow every week of the year as a way of integrating my art and energy?
Flow is so delightful, and it’s what we all adore in our lives.2
Sounds good, doesn't it? I think it’s going to be such an exciting experiment. I’ll let you know how it’s going after I have run it for a while - we could all do with more flow in our lives, I think.
Although last year’s life/work experiment didn’t have the best results for me, I did have good art questions to answer, about colour and pigment and presence.
I have mapped out the material results of the 2023 experiment below, all the finished art I made, shown at scale, for you to see here.
Mindwandering by neuro-pyschologist Moshe Bar is very interesting on this subject
I am testing out the methods from The Art of The Impossible by Steve Kotler first
This is great reflection Helen and looking at ‘flow’ as a way forward will be interesting for you. AMAZING seeing your body of work in one place, inspiring output. Thanks for the book suggestions.
Clever words about goals for anybody in the creative space, Helen. And what a body of work, huge effort - Brilliant!