"It’s human desire to be understood. And we always feel we’re not understood."
-John Baldessari
There is so much that goes into making art that can easily be missed when you look at a finished image. There are the the inspirations that spawn it, the epiphanies and breakthroughs that fuel it, as well as a slew of failures and challenges to overcome along the way. All to me are equally as interesting and important. This is what I call the Creativesphere. It's the magical place where overflowing optimism and possibility collide with the cold, hard realities of life.
Through decades as a professional visual artist and musician, I’ve found that our imaginations don't only fuel the arts, but everything we do. Whether you think you’re an artist or a creative person or not, the creative instinct is part of our DNA. It’s how we solve problems. It’s how we communicate and connect. And we’ve been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years.
This blog is dedicated to that process. The process of not only creating, but appreciating…attempting to understand…and finding ourselves in it.
I got invited to show at Art Basel. Great. Then the pieces sold I was planning to send, and I didn’t have anything else in my studio the scale I wanted to send that would ship easily. So I decided to make new work.
I was stressing out about getting everything finished by the deadline, and decided to use an old school time management technique. It’s working out pretty well. This is what I discovered.
Fantasy vs. reality. Always battling for real estate in my head. It’s a classic duel. Formidable opponents locked in an eternal dogfight.
Have you ever gone on vacation, and when it was time to come home, you thought, “Ugh…back to reality?”
Or thought about finding that perfect mate and living in eternal romantic deliciousness? And then you come home the next day to her bra soaking in the sink, or his dirty socks by the bed?
Thought I’d share a peak at a somewhat typical day in my personal art studio. While every day is different depending on which part of a project or series I’m working on, I get asked a lot about my process and what goes into making my wall sculptures. This will give you a glimpse.
If you’d like to see these completed works, they are in my With Open Eyes series here: http://www.robgrad.com/with-open-eyes.
I wish this moment could last forever
Right now
Floating
Carefree
And dare I say it…
…happy
Maybe my flight home will get cancelled
And my lottery numbers will come up
You never know…
Have you ever had one of those days when everything just worked? You were in the creative flow, ideas came easy and conversations were effortless? And then somehow you woke up the next morning and it was like the entire Universe spent the night plotting against you?
The past few days were like that in my studio.
Getting into the creative flow always feels like a magical vortex opens and sucks me into a beautiful, totally focused alternate reality. It’s one of the greatest feelings being an artist, but it can also happen doing anything, anywhere. So why is it so finicky?