|
Sarah Sachs
EPortfolio #2
Process
It’s hard to draw a line between process art and non-process oriented
art.
There are millions of reasons why people make art and millions of ways
in which different artists go about making and presenting it. One thing
that all art has in common is that, whether or not the artist makes a
point to discuss it, there was some kind of process involved in the making.
You cannot take process out of art; some artists just place more emphasis
on it than others.
I think that there are definitely artists who want their art to be seen
in a certain way and who want to convey a message that has nothing to
do with their process. I do not believe though, that there is a single
piece of art in this world that was made without any influences outside
of what the artist meant to portray. What do I mean by outside influences?
I mean everything that surrounds the artist, everything that s/he is thinking
about consciously or unconsciously while creating.
A lot of artists have trouble talking about how exactly they made a piece
or have trouble articulating how they came to certain decisions. I have
the same problem sometimes, but I don’t think that it’s fair
to blame our choices on ‘instincts’ or ‘gut feelings’.
All conscious or unconscious choices come from somewhere real, and even
if you can’t point a finger to where they came from, I think that
it is pretty arrogant to think that art is unaffected by these outside
influences.
Dream researchers say that dreams are the body’s way of releasing
un-needed information from our memory. Our brains can’t process/don’t
need to process every single thing that we think about during the day.
Dreams are mother nature’s way of trashing unnecessary memories
so that every morning when we wake up we can begin the day with a cleansed
slate. How the mind knows what information is worth keeping and what can
be tossed, no one knows, but the brain does a good enough job to keep
us all relatively sane from one day to the next.
The reason that I went off on the dream tangent is because I think that
process is a combination of dreamlike/ unconscious thinking and conscious,
directed intention. “Process Art” is important because it
recognizes that art is a human process and that artists are not above
human vulnerability or resistant to outside influences. Trying to understand
why we make art, and trying to grasp how every aspect of our lives influences
our art, is essential to figuring out who we are, how our art fits into
our world, and if and why it is important.
|