It can be so difficult to remember that the process of making art is a pretty magical thing. I forget because I'm inundated with documentation of completed works or success stories once the artwork is out in the world from press announcements and social media. Rarely (if ever) do I see tracings of the process of making an artwork from inception to completion, which is where some of the juiciest stuff happens.
An artist friend recently recommended a podcast episode of the Ezra Klein show where he speaks with Adam Moss, a former editor of New York Magazine and the New York Times Magazine. The episode "This Conversation Made Me a Sharper Editor" is definitely worth a listen and prompted me to immediately order a copy of Moss's new book The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing. It describes how artists (and composers, poets, chefs, comedians, etc.) develop their ideas and it's like chicken soup for my artist soul.
It can be easy to think that lighting strikes and ta-da! there is the concluding masterpiece. But really there is an evolution that happens and one can follow the breadcrumbs on a journey tracking the idea from lighting strike to completion.
Tracing the steps for an artwork (like how the book describes Kara Walker's process for creating A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby for the Domino Sugar Factory) reveals how an idea is coaxed from its fuzzy and amorphous origins to a solidified manifestation. It doesn't dispel any of the magic of this process but shows the effort, the work, that goes into making any given piece of art. It shows what artists do that is so important aside from being a producer of finished things.
This is a useful parallel for how I often track and assess my career. I like to go through my CV and identify how each line came about. For example, I highlight the things from open calls with yellow, the things that came from my existing network with pink, and the things that seemed to drop from the sky with blue. And because I love a pie chart I take the data and create a visualization that helps me see which types of opportunities are coming from each place. For example, grants are 100% open calls. Shows are largely from my network.
I also use my CV to identify my most significant accomplishments and outline how they came about. Like the time I had a conversation with someone I set out to meet at an opening and they connected me with a person interested in the topics I am interested in. That person then put me in touch with an organization that eventually offered me a spot in a show.
Or the time I showed up to an opening where I knew the head of a publication would be and was able to tell them about my writing. That person opened the door for me to be a contributor to the publication.
This process helps me determine where my time and energy is best spent and also where I need to allocate more time if I want to steer my ship in a certain way.
I recently had a conversation with an artist who in previous years was racing full speed ahead in her studio. She wanted to get her new work seen and so she made moves and lined up shows. Then this year other important things have dominated her attention and she greatly reduced her time going to shows, having studio visits, and connecting with people about her art. The opportunities also slowed down.
This made her realize that she has more control than she realized over her career. She is steering the ship. As she said, "I am the one pushing the rock up the hill. If I stop, the rock rolls back to the bottom." She was seeing in real time how her opportunities were directly linked to her effort and presence in the art community.
I have also experienced this reality (and I'm sure you can also relate) and what I've learned is that the art world is always ready for me to jump back in. In a footnote in the book, Adam Moss describes his team whipping up an issue of the Times magazine after 9/11. He says:
"My own experience is that radically shifting gears can produce miracles if you're set up for them. On 9/11, at the Times magazine, we threw out the entire issue we had been laboriously planning and made a new one in seventy-two hours, a collage of fragmentary imprints of that freighted day, which was deeper and even more artful than many we'd taken months to make...That's because the talent at the magazine was so rich that with little input of my own, I could (mostly) point in another direction and watch what happened. That issue of the magazine, borne of crisis, which we called Remains of the Day, was just sitting in waiting. This is an endless footnote just to mention that talent hibernates."
Talen hibernates: that simple thought takes so much pressure off. I take it to mean that it's OK if I stop, or rest, or turn my attention to something else for a while, because my talent, my drive, and my goals will always be there ready when I am. That rock will be there itching to be pushed up that hill.
Here's to hibernating when you need it and awakening when you are ready,
Virginia
Talent Hibernates