Work Doesn't Always Happen in the Studio

The business of being an artist seems to require a lot of business. I’m under no illusions about the importance of my art to other people- but it’s wildly important to me. Or so I thought until I started taking a look at my process of documentation.

I know Twyla Tharp works with boxes. Whenever she starts a new project, she opens a new cardboard box. It’s sort of a reverse Pandora system. Every note, every idea, color sample, picture, comment, cd, dvd, lists, telephone numbers- ANYTHING she feels might be or could be relevant to her project goes into that new box as she works on her project. At the end of the project, the box is closed up tight and put on a shelf. Ta dum. Instant cataloguing with complete documentation.

They must be pretty big boxes. Her work is great.

My system is a little different. It’s an ex post facto system. I must have at least 20 Ikea magazine boxes labeled Sort, More Sort, and Sort Now. I also have piles of half finished projects and collage materials in process stacked in piles which are stacked on shelves and in cubbies and also baskets. Like Twyla, I also use boxes, but they are of every size and description, from large white Ikea boxes to photo and shoe boxes. I also enthusiastically use the floor.

Once I had some very expensive photographs taken of my work by an incredibly fine photographer. He was in a hurry when I went to pick up the slides and so he gave the delicate film squares to me unmounted. “Here, he said, ”All you have to do is slide them into mounts, it’s easy. You know how to do that, right? I’ve got to go, I’m late.“

The transparencies were in an envelope. And no, I didn’t know how to do it and was too shy to ask. Instead, I think I first put them onto a shelf in our home office, a shelf of (guess what!) unsorted papers. Then I’m pretty sure, almost, they went into a box, possibly named ”Studio.“ That’s my last clear memory of those pictures. This was in 2001, I believe, and at least three studio moves ago.

Funny how a person never stops looking for the lost.....

But I’ve been thinking about the documentation process all this time (seven years) and last week finally Began To Work. So, instead of going to the studio, I worked at getting what photographs I had into order. I began on Monday with just the digital photographs which were scattered on several computers and three extra hard drives. Five days later, I THINK all the digital photographs are corralled into one computer, one program, one (backed up twice) file. There are over 11,000 photos and nearly all of them are bad. Or duplicates. Somewhere in that huge tangle are maybe thirty photographs of some of my work.

I will never take another bad photograph again.

I will never KEEP another bad photograph again.

I WILL label and keyword all photos with the zeal of a nuclear mechanic.

That said, at the end of the week, after more than twenty hours of diligent sorting, I still felt like I hadn’t been doing any REAL work because I hadn’t been painting and I hadn’t been in the studio. Painting, says my inner overseer, is the only Real Work. But no. Something has changed: I tackled a huge job and I didn’t give up. The whole project of getting my work in order may not be completed, but I did undertake and complete an important stage using every bit of tenacity and determination I could muster. This is a real accomplishment for me; once again I’ve learned the same thing I always learn. The lesson is: take care. Take more care. Pay attention. Love the process. I guess I’m here to tell me that any action done with attention, care, and a compassionate heart is the Right Work.

And that’s good studio practice, even if it isn’t happening in the studio.