Jackson Pollock answered best. ”My whole Life.”
Thou we discuss it among ourselves, it’s the most difficult question Artist’s face from the public.
Lee Humphries president of ThinkingApplied.com, describes artistic process eloquently: He writes
“…At its core, artistic process blends emotion with the disciplined pursuit of quality.” When you think of creative process on these terms, a question of timing doesn’t seem applicable.
“How long did it take you to paint that?” is stress inducing for artists to answer because:
1. Establishing value of art/ people often equate with time.
2. Time in execution does not mean time of creation. ( ie. We may do pre-paintings, studies and apply internal puzzle work first, which may take years)
3. The public’s association of professionalism with efficiency.
~Companies can rise or fall depending on their efficiencies. Big industry depends on it. Associating creation of a handmade original with any other kind of manufacturing process is a dangerous road. And Artists know it.
4. We don’t keep track.
~Imagine making a complicated recipe, then stopping every time you add an ingredient to list the time each step took. It would be labour intenstive and incredibly distracting from your focus. Now imagine this process is a hundred times more difficult than the recipe, because there is no template or formula.
~ We often work on several pieces at once to varying degrees. It would be nearly impossible and inefficient to track time.
“How long did it take to paint that?” may be followed by “Artists only work when they feel like it, or when inspiration moves them”.
Yet, that simply isn’t the case.
Many put in long days, months, years, some with near obsessive rigid schedules. One artist responded, “how long did it take me to paint that?.. it took me 5 years of nervous breakdowns”. (Read Picasso’s comment and about toil here.)
Artists who Thrive, state “Artists don’t trade their time for money. We trade value for money. And what value is that? Emotion.”
From Artist Lori McNee “ART in all its forms )(is an accumulation of knowledge. Each painting, novel, poem )( is the embodiment of the artists lifelong experiences, emotions, education, and intuition.
To Lori’s comment I would add: this accumulation of knowledge and emotions are a form of communication to humanity.
Art can emotionally reflect a viewer’s experience which they possibly couldn’t articulate themselves. That’s powerful.
Artists understand when asked this question, the public is either curious or searching for a way to validate the art.
This validation can be assured with quality of work, intention, uniqueness, originality, collective following, and, the spark of emotional connection.
The purpose of art is not a rarified, intellectual distillate – it is life, intensified, brilliant life.~ Alain Arias-Mission
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