Artist Statement

I am often asked about my process for creating prints. So here it is, all written out.

I am aware there are as many approaches to the creative enquiry as there are people making it. In my view, all Artist Statements should be read with 'a pinch of salt'.

There is no one approach more valid than another, but to better appreciate a person’s work it can be helpful to have some insight into how they view their life, from where they draw inspiration, and how their work practises have evolved.

The mindset

We use our multiple intelligences (referencing Howard Gardner) to make sense of the world, to reflect on it, construct our sense of reality, place and purpose.  Through interactions in the world, a sense of ‘I’ and ‘thou’ is developed; we are relational beings.

Because we are immersed in a particular culture at a particular time, a lot of what people take to be themselves is really only social convention.  I had the good fortune to work in several other cultures for a couple of years in my 20’s and so learnt that lesson while I was young. 

I also came to appreciate the advantage given to ‘white’ culture through technology born of empirical thinking.  But this has lead people to value rational thought above all else; just look at the ‘religious’ certainties of the new atheists.  

I have always known thoughts are a complex soup in which post-enlightenment logic is only one ingredient.  In western culture, we overlook or undervalue thoughts known to us as feelings, not as an internal monologue.  Awake or asleep, all of which I am aware is part of my human experience.

There is a Buddhist story - which I can’t recall as an accurate translation – which advises feeling the energy of my wave while acknowledging the vastness of the ocean.

Longevity provides important lessons too.  It is really only in looking back over a life that the chauvinism, racism and other social injustices in our culture – and therefore part of my enculturation - become revealed.  So with age, I have come to hold my life lightly and avoid people who hold certainties.

I am content to be a simple man; it is enough for me to build a curious life.

The process – ‘no work, no lotus’ (Thich Nhat Hanh)

I describe myself as a printmaker, not as an artist.  That some prints I make may be art and others not is of no consequence to me.

My creative process can be divided into four distinct steps, although the process of action/reflection is active throughout the whole process.  I am a full-time printmaker and over the years I have developed my own annual work cycle.

1.  The preparation - focusing enquiry

The first step is identifying where to focus my enquiry.   

When I sense intrigue in a place or situation I know I have a starting point. I like to produce a series of prints from the same source of inspiration until I feel I have done enough quarrying.  I have no idea or expectations of what the final prints will look like at this time, I only have a starting point. Trust in my creative process is all I need.

Like in prayer, taking time to be quiet is important. Listening to the ocean, not the wave.

I like noting the subtle ways life grows by accommodating the physical structures surrounding it, the soil structure, neighbouring life forms and the climate. Taking time for quiet, considered observation, reveals the strength and history in a landscape, and the relationships of its parts.

There is nothing mystical about this; it is how humans would have interacted with our world for most of the time we have been on the planet.  Unfortunately, intimacy born of deep knowledge of the land is lost to me as I had inner-city enculturation; all of my food, clothing material and medicine is not native to Queensland.  But the animal connection, the sense of wellbeing, hasn’t been bred out and I enjoy the feelings that arise in me when I am quiet and still in a place that I am interrogating.

I say feelings because different places, even different time, give rise to different senses of being within me.  In some places, I don’t feel welcome, in others there is a sense of indifference, or there is a sense of thinness.

I use thin because I once stumbled across a Celtic description of places that were said to be thin; meaning the barrier between that which is known and experienced, and that which is outside the known is thin.  I have walked into this thin feeling both in arid and forested places.

I especially like the forest experience, it is an experience that is walked into, like going down the walkway to board an aircraft; a change is felt.  The forest floor on which a forest is created is a legacy of ancestry, not time-wearied like me, but time enriched.  In these places, time seems to run to a slower rhythm, the growing and dying that is still happening is almost imperceptible.  Thin places can provide rare moments of non-narrated being.

My journals contain written thoughts rather than drawings. The camera can record the visual aide memoirs, but to remember my thoughts and feelings in a place I need to look for a long time, and then write.

Once I have all the resources needed for the new print series collected into folders, I begin to draw.

2.  Drawing my images – just one imperfect mark after another

In this part of my work cycle, I draw all day, mostly every day for 6 to 8 weeks.  I find that I need to draw for a long time to quieten (exhaust) my conscious mind.  Of course, it is trying to help, offering me everything that it knows about trees and leaves.  But that which is essential for navigating cultural life is a total pest when I am trying to draw with clarity.  I minimize this by either playing long music tracks or putting on easily digestible audiobooks.   They are like giving a dummy to a crying baby, while the surface mind is distracted, it has no need to provide a running commentary and I am free to make one imperfect mark after another.

I can’t pretend this is easy.  Many of the drawings made in the early days of the drawing cycle go straight into the recycle bin, either because they are too tight or because I am holding on too tightly and coming into the studio with expectations.  

In time that mostly passes, and I enter the studio for my body to just work.

Destroying poorly described drawings is important for me, the impermanence lessens attachment.  It is just a piece of paper; it just serves to get what my body knows out where I can see it.  Marks based on my interrogation of a place need to be laid down neutral of value.  It is an attempt to create awareness without an observing self.  I know this is not strictly possible, but my body knows what it wants to say and there is time later to reflect on what has been revealed.

All drawings are an assembly of imperfect marks. I use a nib and ink to draw as I enjoy the interaction of thick and thin, loud and soft marks.  I don’t do this consciously when I am mark-making, but each line’s quality becomes something I considered later when I am cutting the blocks.

3.  Cutting the blocks – considering both sides of the line

Cutting a block is the most joyful stage of the creative process for me.

I began training as a Stereo Cutter (a relief block maker) at ACI Fibre Packages in Melbourne in 1970.  It is a craft that no longer exists (here).  How fortunate my work life has been, I began work in the machine age and saw the digital age develop over time.

I think my first usable commercial blocks said something profound like ‘this side up’ or ‘use no hooks’.

Most of the craftsmen and the commercial artist in charge of the Art Department have probably all gone from this world by now, but I like to think the craft discipline, work ethic and joy of working skilfully with their hands live on in the work I do.  They were so patient with me and I owe them all a great debt of gratitude.  The skills first learnt more than 50 years ago are still part of my mental and physical tool kit and I can’t imagine my life without them.  I certainly would have become a different person.

 When I cut a block I consider only the wave and ignore the ocean.  My mind reduces its focus to the end of my cutting tool.  To prepare for a day of cutting in the studio I begin by sharpening my cutting blades. The repetition of running my blades back and forth across my whetstones quietens me and gets my mind into the right mental state.

To create a line one moves a point through time.   To see its qualities is to be aware of the relationships contained within its boundaries, along its length.  So while cutting, I consider both sides of the line to express its qualities.

Lines and lives have varying qualities along their length.  Sometimes they are full and rich, sometimes thin and delicately fragile. 

I seek to cut without ‘gaining’ ideas.  That is, I try to faithfully release the expression contained in a line without judgement or much correction.  A line has a unity that comes from both of its sides.  Cutting both sides of the line is my practice.  Most of my blocks take between 2 and 3 weeks to cut.

When I cut, I cut like it doesn’t matter ...and yet, as if nothing else matters. 

 4.  Printing the blocks and colouring the prints – the payoff

All my blocks are either printed by hand, or on hand presses.  I print at Impress Printmakers Studio, or with Dr David Jones at his Corvine Art Studio.  Both workshops are in Brisbane.

I especially enjoy printing with David; he has exacting standards and treats my blocks respectfully. He inks up the blocks and I run them through the press. Working with him I come away with my back still able to hold me erect the following day.  His own work is remarkable and can be seen at www.corvineart.com

Some print editions stay black and white while others are hand-coloured.

This is a lengthy process taking several weeks to colour a small limited edition.  But it is the least demanding part of the process.  I am still with the wave, but in this stage, I am floating on my back.  I use liquid acrylic ink to colour my work as it keeps its brilliance when it is diluted and glazes beautifully.

So there you have it - from the mud, a lotus.  

Montaigne said, “I don’t portray being, I portray passing”.

I like to think I do both.  My creative process is a way I like to be in the world and a record of the passing of my days.

Recalling my advice in the beginning of this essay; you may take that ‘pinch of salt’ now.