in the studio

Why do we visit the artist’s studio? What do we hope to find? Amidst the well-worn brushes and squeezed-out tubes of paint, will we unearth clues with which to explain the creative act? Will the back story of the work we see before us be confided to us, so that we can gaze with confidence at each new piece while others see only mystery? Or, are we in search of something greater? Does Truth lie underneath that pile of sketches, or those stacked canvases? Are we in some way privy to a secret communion between the muse and the artist?

When we visit the artist’s studio, are we satisfying our seemingly innate need to identify, classify and then dismiss? Will seeing behind the scenes offer up simplicity where before we saw only the inexplicable? Perhaps. More likely we will find more searching than answering. Endless explorations confined and directed by seemingly arbitrary rules and parameters. Failures, along side successes, and things which rest mute next to others which speak somehow only to us.

Each new space stimulates different questions. What and where I left off at the end of last year no longer seems particularly relevant in this environment, -in this moment. So I begin at another beginning, and so it goes and so it goes.