Thinking Assignment 5

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

“I start a picture and I finish it. I don’t think about art while I work. I try to think about life.”

This is a great way of putting something I often find myself trying to do during my studio time. I try not to think about why I am doing something, or the aesthetics of what is happening until I have the chance to react to it after the fact. I try to let my experiences and feelings drive what I am creating. However, while working in a visual medium it is not always easy to cast aside the need to drive something in a beautiful aesthetic direction. One way I do this is by staring at my work in progress, but forcing myself to think about something else. A memory of a past experience can often conjure up the idea of a color. At other times it will make me focus on one particular section of the work and I will try not to ask myself why, but simply act on these impulses.

I think when I look back at my work is the time I take time to reflect on how I feel about the piece visually. It is interesting to me that while I am working I can have a memory or some other thought so strongly in my head, yet not necessarily be reminded of it at all when I go back to view the finished piece. When it is finished it becomes a work of art to me. That feeling of having art sitting on my easel is always what I am chasing after and the only way I know it is “finished.”