Atelier, La Vie — ANDREA SHEWCHUK

Atelier, La Vie

Reflections from The Early Years in the Gallery

December

Suddenly – it felt sudden, though it wouldn’t have actually been that way at all. It started a couple of years ago. I found myself alone – hours of intimacy with the works of art around me in the gallery, direct contact without the barrier and confusion of commerce as a result of a staggering economy. I was surrounded by it and the kind of time that encourages profound and uninterrupted contemplation. I believed that I had settled into my philosophies of life, love, art and creativity. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, the singular that was all of them.

I found Letters to a Young Poet in The Biography Bookstore in New York. Rilke’s name had been coming up frequently – other than that, I was naïve to the appropriateness of this serendipity. I then discovered Arthur Koestler’s Act of Creation. Koestler’s information seemed to be what I had been hoping for. I finished the book when I read Pascal’s quotation.

I wanted to write an outline for a book on creativity. It seemed futile when I dared to reflect upon where I had just been with other efforts of the same nature. But I suppose it was in some way the frustration that encouraged and impassioned me. Up until this point in time, I had kept all of my notes and philosophies in my journals – in between, after the cause and before the effect of life’s events that brought the philosophy into focus, into reality. I wanted to now separate these concepts from the whole to see what would become of them.

I found a sheet of kraft paper. My canvas. Finding strength from a moment of anxiety was remembering that nothing disappears. I vowed to myself not to consult the journals. That which is significant is enduring and unforgettable and would be pulled to my conscious by living and then I would add it to the outline. I kept it on the floor next to my desk in the gallery. It was about 3 feet by 5 feet. Some clients would ask about it. Most would walk on it. All of this affected the shape of the CREATIVE PROCESS – WHAT IS IT? HOW AN ENVIRONMENT CREATES CREATIVITY. ART IS NATURE. HOW CREATIVITY GROWS FROM THE BANAL SPONTANEOUSLY – THIS EXEMPLIFIES WHAT MAKES ART – DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW OF THE SAME EXPERIENCE – LIFE. EVERYTHING IS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. ALL EXPERIENCES ARE RELEVANT TO CREATION. ART IS COMMUNICATION. CREATION – COMMUNICATION. A WORK TELLS THE STORY OF WHAT OCCURRED AT A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME – NOT NARRATIVE BUT ARTISTIC RESPONSE – THIS WILL BE THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK. FORM/CONTENT – CONTENT/FORM SUPPORT/INTERACTIVE INSEPARABLE. WHO IS AN ARTIST? ONE WHO IS MOVED BY SPIRIT AND WHOSE PRODUCT OF THIS MOVEMENT SERVES TO MOVE THE SPIRIT IN OTHERS. SELF-PORTRAITURE. THE CLOSEST MODEL OF THEM ALL. THE SPECIFIC AND THE UNIVERSAL EVER-PRESENT. THE HUMAN CONDITION – IN ITS COLLECTIVITY AND INDIVIDUALITY. DEALERS, ARTISTS, BUYERS. THE DIVINE AND SYMBOLIC ASPECT OF TIMING AND MESSAGES THAT DIRECT THE ARTISTIC PROCESS. APPROPRIATENESS. ART IS NOT EGO-DRIVEN (?) – THOUGH CRITIQUE IMPOSES THIS. LIFE IS TRAGICOMEDY – BECAUSE EVERYTHING REQUIRES ITS FOIL TO GIVE IT EXISTENCE. TRUTH – HOW IT IS ALWAYS REVEALED. THE MANY SIDES THAT MAKE A tRUTH – WORDS, ACTIONS, COLOURS, SENSATIONS, LIGHT, SPACE. YOU HAVE TO BE A KIND OF A METAPHYSICAL DETECTIVE. WE ARE NOT PRIVY TO THE “T”RUTH. A WORK OF ART IS A tRUTH. A tRUTH IS DIRECTED BY ONE’S PERCEPTION. ENERGY, LOVE, ETERNITY. THE QUALITIES OF CONSTANTS: FOREVER PROVOCATIVE, ELUSIVE AND EVASIVE. THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENERGY. ONE OF THE MOST EXHILARATING EXPERIENCES OF CREATION IS THE NOT-KNOWING. THAT ONE CANNOT SEE THE COMPLETE MANIFESTATION OF A PIECE. CREATION WILL SATISFY AND EXCEED THE INTENT WHEN THE DESIRE AND PASSION ARE CLEAR. THERE IS NOT THE NECESSITY TO ENVISION EVERY DETAIL. ANY CONTROL BY THE CONSCIOUS IMPEDES THE CREATIVE SPIRIT’S POTENTIAL, MAGNITUDE. THAT DURING THE PROCESS OF CREATIVITY ALL OF THE STEPS IN HISTORY ARE DISCOVERED. TO CELEBRATE THE MYSTERIES. ART OCCURS OU LA MAIN TOUCHE L’ESPRIT.

From Journals

Art is not to be defined – but like life, just there for the living and discussing not necessarily consensus.

The inspiration is not at all when we think it was, or expect it to be.

I can’t even remember what I was thinking about. It was clear and bright at the time but it was coming so fast that I couldn’t do anything. I was paralyzed. And then when I wished to conjure up the story, I couldn’t see it. I suppose it was sacrificed to the process, the step to get me to the next step. A moment is as significant as the everlasting.

It is in the calm and still that creation may take place. It is in the delirium before. It is in the unconsciousness and being moved unconsciously.

The inadequacies of language, of any one thing – the interdependence of all forms of art and their separateness. One not being better or more effective than the next so much as we need to understand how a work stands on its own and then as is Nature to be part of the whole. They talk about the shortcomings of the expression of language – the subjectivity of definitions. There are limitations in all forms of communication. The frustration and elation – the ebb and flow – the fact and fiction – dream and reality – smooth and rough – abrupt and gentle that make the essence of creation what is the essence of creation. Reconciling and accepting both the infinity and the limitations.

Not to succumb to the breathlessness as defeat but only to surrender to the bombardment of inspiration.

Space and hands instead of the mind: author is potter

low fire red clay shallow bowl w/ 3 wave images in lapis blue

signed “Paix de la naissance 12-03- “

[Donated to the Fusion silent auction fundraiser]

ARTIST’S DESCRIPTION

It is tiresome and draining to me how change, which is a form of birth, is associated with pain. That in the birth of a new life, there is a concentration and fear surrounding the physical. That so much change for the better is yearned for but prevented by the fear of the change itself. That too often, the creative act is seen to have been inspired by pain and people dwell on this source. But it is all perception. The manifestation of creativity from the spirit into the physical plane is a phenomenon of collectivity in the human experience generated in a form for others to refer to. Pain is only an emotion designated to experiences that seem to be separate or incongruent to the definition of happiness. Pain and happiness have been collectively defined for everyone. They are learned to be unlearned. It is an individual’s responsibility to determine what happiness is. Pain is not necessarily of the human spirit. Nothing needs to be painful. I feel such joy, elation and trance when I am making something, writing something, drawing something. Even if my creative force has been instigated by something perceived as negative, I choose to move and be moved - to transmute and translate this energy.

One day…

It’s a gallery. It’s a store. Stores need hours. I didn’t stop to put my gloves on and my fingers were feeling the cold. It was difficult to scrape the window clean. I can’t remember what happened that day to make me do it. The boundaries of time we create to instill “discipline” and “order”. But creativity doesn’t acknowledge this time. I was tired of the gratuitous art critique generated by image and insecurities and the banality of our faltering senses. It all of a sudden excited me that they would reach for the door to find it locked and in this pose search for the hours of business on the window, replaced by:

The pleasure of criticizing robs us of the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things. - Jean de la Bruyère

* The heart has reasons that reason does not know.

I am responding, reconciling, reflecting – a hiatus from writing to feel something in my hands. I am aware of a glimmer of the inspiration when I am making a piece but most is revealed upon contemplation. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.* - Pascal.

I sign my work with a date. A signpost of a point in process – though really if I care to admit it, an ignorant exercise in grasping at the straws of the concept of time.