Sketchbook 2011-2012

I’m a photographic artist.  I like to make thoughtful, understated images in series’ to express a particular idea, a narrative or to collect fragments of things that relate to a philosophical exploration.  But what underlies this is an undeniable creative urge.  I get my peak experiences from making things, from spending time in the imaginative realms of my own head.  It’s the process of creating that really gets me off.  If I’m not creating then I feel only half alive and often anxiety or depression will kick in.

I’m really interested in the creative process and am always exploring ways to access the creative part of my mind – the part where dreams come from, the part that isn’t logical.  I keep a sketchbook for this reason.  I started this one about one year ago when I was really struggling with my creative voice and was yearning to make more, to be more prolific, to connect with that part of me more deeply.

I’ve had numerous sketchbooks throughout the past.  I always used pencil and I always tried to draw what I saw in the real world, wanting to have control over my mind and hand to draw accurately what I saw in front of me.  They’d also invariably end up filled with more writing than images.  One day a painter/sculptor showed me her own sketchbook.  It was full of abstract and geometric shapes done in pen. It was like seeing into her mind. This was an epiphany moment for me and I stopped with the pencil and tried the pen.  It worked.

My general process is simply to get comfortable somewhere, draw a line and then another line, then maybe some shapes and so on until I feel that the piece is finished for me.  It’s a mix of free drawings, sketches from dreams or memories, reflections from music I was listening to.  I had a rule that this sketchbook would be word free, though a few did end up sneaking in.

Reaching that creative space soon became automatic, I’d have a Pavlov’s dogs reaction to having the sketchbook in front of me.  I’d immediately feel relaxed and connected to my emotions no matter if they were positive or negative or a mix of both.

Fill me up completely isn’t about having something to show-off but rather about making space to be true to yourself, to know yourself in ways that aren’t describable in words and of letting your insides come through to the outside.

Train ride, 10th August 2012

I make art because I have a love affair with life.  Sometimes this affair gets a bit rough but it’s like what Juan Antonio says in Vicky Cristina Barcelona: ‘only unfulfilled love can be romantic’.

The day had been hot, humid and sticky. A storm was inevitable. It arrived quickly, bringing hail, wind and wet, and left just as soon as it arrived leaving the world a much cooler, fresher place. The clouds milled about for a while as though observing the results with satisfaction. Berlin was cleaner, for a while. A hole appeared in the clouds above me quickly turning into what looked like a tear in the heavens. So I made this image.

Watching it disperse reminded me of these lines from Errinerung an die Marie A. a poem by Bertolt Brecht:

Und über uns im schönen Sommerhimmel
War eine Wolke, die ich lange sah
Sie war sehr weiß und ungeheur oben
Und als ich aufsah war sie nimmer da.

//And over us in the beautiful summer sky
There was a cloud on which my gaze rested
It was very white and so immensely high
And when I looked up, it had disappeared.

The english translation doesn’t do the poem any justice at all.  I discovered the poem in The Lives of Others, an incredible film and essential viewing for any ex-pat living in Germany.  You can get a feel for the poem by watching this beautiful scene from the film:

The poem is about transience which is what a great deal of my work is about.  There is a sense of sadness and nostalgia for the past and it reminds us that nothing ever stays the same, what was once beautiful in that moment will never be again.  I photographed these clouds for the same reason.  Watching them after that brisk but violent storm, a moment of excitement where all the neighbors came to their balconies to watch the heavy hail.  We all looked at each other and smiled.  The man next door goofily wore a silly orange helmut and two girls on the pavement ducked for cover, hugging each other and laughing under the tiny bit of shelter they could find – pretty moments, soon disappearing from everyone’s memory, like that cloud in the sky.

June, 2012