When you don’t hear from me for a long time, it’s because I’m working. Or rather, stumbling around in some new rabbit hole, and trying to make something of the things I find. This I call work. Clearly it’s not the kind that pays bills, or the kind you avoid like cleaning the oven or going to the DMV, but the kind that is so engaging that you forget to go on social media to talk about yourself for weeks on end. I’ve been working on some new paintings for a show I have coming up, so there is some degree of external pressure, but no one is standing over me, checking on my progress or providing direction, so it remains pretty soulful work. I’m thankful for that freedom.
The only reason I bother to write this now is that Facebook algorithms have goaded me into it. Every week I get a little reminder about my Facebook page - the one for my artwork - that tells me how many visits I’ve had and that sort of thing. It usually tries to guilt me into posting something new by saying “You haven't visited Mark Penner Howell in a while and there's some activity you might have missed. To keep people interested in your Page, please post something new or respond to some of your new activity.” Given the language, it’s easy to suppose Facebook is just looking out for me, but when I consider that any post I make must also be “boosted” by paying real money to reach my audience, then Facebook’s actual motivation is laid bare. Their feigned concern is just a programmed message triggered by my prolonged inactivity. And still, I have to admit the Facebook bots are correct, it’s been a while.
For an artist trying to create a new body of work, it’s necessary to carve out a distraction-free work environment (both the physical space, and somehow also your state of mind), and to stay in that space as long as possible, returning to it often, until your new “work” becomes clear to you. This is basic stuff for any practicing creative person, but the thing I often need to remind myself is to go as deep as I can and stay there as long as possible, especially in the initial stages of creative exploration, before coming up for air. The temptation is to commit to halfway decent ideas, familiar ideas, before you’ve discovered something truly new. The tricky part is to slow down and linger with your inspiration and really stretch out the time you spend in that concentrated state of creative flux. For me it’s an act of discipline that usually precludes the use of social media in the studio. Apologies, Facebook.
The guy across the table from me in the coffee shop this morning asked where I get my inspiration. We were meeting to discuss a commissioned piece. I was flummoxed by the question, as I usually am, since there is no one answer. I wish there was a kind of psychic Costco where I could just stock up on ideas. Then I could simply give him directions. Instead I told him most artists have a catalog of themes or image fragments or half finished stories that just sort of bob around in the back of the mind until a catalyst begins to pull some of those pieces together. I have found this mostly to be a function of the subconscious. Something at work in that protean mental engine causes the good ideas (or at least the shiny, attractive ones) to bubble up to the threshold of consciousness. The conscious mind need only be on duty, or at least nearby, to receive the thought. This experience of suddenly wakening to a fresh idea is what people have taken to calling the “aha” moment. The mumbo-jumbo part is that practically anything can trigger it.
To any severely left-brained person, this is all going to sound like utter horse shit. Sure there are things that can make creative inspiration more likely, but they aren’t remotely quantifiable or repeatable in a laboratory setting. Recently I spent a whole weekend trying to have some exciting new ideas for paintings. Right away the half-decent ones began to present themselves, but nothing seemed worth diving into. The weekend was a wash. The following Monday morning I went about doing some of the chores I’d avoided all weekend. At the grocery store, while scanning my rewards card, the friendly voice inside the machine said “Welcome, valued customer.” That message was all I needed to pull together a whole host of ideas I’d been having about materialism, fate, and the power of the individual. I already had most of the images I needed in my head but they needed some sort of context. And though the phrase wasn’t remotely visual, it suddenly provided the framework for me to organize my thoughts so I could begin pushing the images around in a meaningful way. This, I’m afraid, is as close as I can come to describing my inspiration. I regret it isn’t more stirring or provocative.
I have an artist friend who routinely talks about her muse. I’ve always thought the idea of a muse is sort of romantic and fey. For the longest time I assumed she was just being metaphorical, but she’s so consistent in her personalization of this inspirational force, and so reverent toward “her,” that I’ve begun to realize my friend’s muse is more literal than I had allowed for. It works for her. Every artist has some personal version of this, we just talk about it differently. My own religious background makes me wonder to what extent the creative impulse isn’t the distant echo or fingerprint of the divine somehow still at work in the world - another seemingly antiquated idea, for sure, but also workable. So whether you think creativity is a function of a trans-personal “collective” unconscious that forever seeks expression in order to ensure the adaptability of our species, or whether it’s the work of the Holy Spirit, we’re kind of all talking about the same thing. In the end all these distinctions may be false dichotomies. A subject as big as the mechanism of creative impulse is at the limits of our language to describe. Multiple points of view are to be encouraged.
Back in my basement studio sit four new paintings in various states of completion. None of them are actually ready for you to look at. One has recently emerged from an extended ugly-duckling phase and just today I realized it’s the one all the others are going to have to live up to. You artists know what I mean. If I’m lucky and stay focused, I might eke out one or two others that do what they are supposed to do as well as this one. We’ll see. I’ve only got a few more weeks to finish everything up for my next show. Until then you’ll have to use your imagination, and this will have to serve as an update. It’s a paltry offering, but hopefully enough to appease the almighty Facebook data gods.
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