Art Is a Conversation, Not a Product
I tend not to think of art-making as production.
Production implies a goal, a deliverable, a finished object that justifies the effort. That framing belongs to factories, not studios. As a professional artist I do design how I work in a way that natually fulfills production needs over time but for me, as I am working along art has always been closer to a conversation.
I don’t wake up in the morning with a quota to fulfull. Instead I respond to an internal impulse, what’s stirring today?
I make a move.
The work answers.
I respond.
Sometimes the conversation is brief. Sometimes it unfolds over years. Sometimes it wanders into territory I didn’t intend to visit. None of that feels like success or failure. It just feels like engagement.
This way of working requires sincerity, not seriousness.
Seriousness is heavy. It wants results. It wants importance. Sincerity is lighter. It allows you to treat even an absurd or useless idea with care and attention - not because it’s profound, but because you’re profoundly present with it.
Many of the ideas I’ve followed the longest didn’t arrive announcing themselves as important. They showed up as jokes, misstatements, fragments, throwaway remarks. What mattered wasn’t their brilliance, but my willingness to stay with them a little longer than usual and see what they might become. They are often gates into an unknown garden.
When artists talk about being blocked, I often suspect the issue isn’t a lack of ideas. It’s an attempt to control the conversation too early. To know where it’s going before it speaks back.
But conversations don’t work that way.
Art doesn’t need to be forced into meaning.
It needs to be listened to.
When you stop trying to produce meaning and instead allow meaning to emerge, the work often surprises you. And that surprise is usually the signal that something alive is happening.
I do concur!
I read this article yesterday and was delighted to see a reference to your work! Very aligned with this post. Alllowing meaning to emerge is how young children make things.
https://artmakespeople.com/asemic-writing/