My Artistic process is one of thoughtful forgetting. It is amnesic. There is always an awareness of the tangible, creative space that I inhabit. There is the smell of its musky perfumes and the steady condensation of its humidity. The order of materials is considered and tended to in an obsessive way. There is a creative instinct propelled by an accumulation of practice and training. A creative muscle memory that operates across all layers of consciousness simultaneously and cannot be harnessed or manipulated by the conscious mind alone. It is always present. It moves perpetually. Its influence is always recognizable in the amnesia. And so, I am always a knowing participant in this amnesic state.
This amnesia seeks to erase all forms of conscious, premeditated inspiration. A mind can regulate these things. If I emulate an artist’s work to better understand their style this is fine. If I emulate another’s work in a conscious effort to create a piece that resembles theirs, then I am consciously inspired and my work is without originality. This process is a constant reaching towards originality, not a wild grasping for it. There is no belief that what I create comes from an inner source that is exclusive to me. This method prepares the mind to engage in an act of creativity that is not influenced by a predominant source of influence. This creative amnesia exists solely in the mind of the creative person and so it is their responsibility to cultivate it. To cultivate is to foster a creative mind space in which all creative inspirations are driven out, beyond recognition. There are Three Ways:
The First Way: [Prior to the creative process] speedily and randomly consume an assortment of inspirational material from any number of mediums until a comprehensive message sifts through the muck of their blur.
The Second Way: Slow the flow of creative inspiration by pouring your focus into only one of its outlets. Now keep pouring until any firm belief had in the inspirational subject is smothered by guessings and second-guessings and third-,fourth- and etc. Confusion ensues, the mind wanders, the mind wanders until it discovers creative stimulation far removed from this source of confusion.
The Third Way... should be taken very seriously if it is taken at all. It consists of encouraging such an extreme emotional state that all thoughts or feelings outside of it are obscured. In this way, the amnesia takes on the identity of the extreme emotional state and, regardless of the work created whilst in it, is likely to affect the artist long after his work is done. Violent and/or depressive temperaments could spill over into the artists’ personal life and muck it all up, leaving him/her asking themselves, “Was it even worth it?”.
When I approach my space with the audacity to create something new, it is most often with the First Way. I have consumed an array of material and am left with an urge to create something that is completely uninspired. I like to work as quickly as I possibly can, being sure to regularly rid my mind of outside influences that overstay their welcome. A swift hand rids the mind of creative imitation. This amnesia is a quarreling with materials in a fit of unhindered spontaneity. Time for thought is crushed to slivers; booted aside by the reaching for a random can of spray paint, buried under piles of recycled materials and drowned by the dousing of house paint. The materials impose themselves, take control, tell me how to handle and apply them. After a while it all feels very natural. Worries of scale, theory and proper form—anxieties instilled by the academic—fade. Images of paintings from those artists I have always admired drift away. Forgery is impossible. My identity as an artist disassociates from my personal identity. I am engulfed by the process. My surrender to this uninspired moment of creativity begets an act of art that baffles me. It is...a success! A successful work of art effects everyone individually. It crashes into them like a sudden bout of dejavu. Above all else, fugue art strives to achieve an absolute subjective experience in the passerby.
"It is detritus. A creative work of Detritus in absolute form."
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