…is playing around with different concepts, ideas and materials in preparation for something larger.
It’s play really, well…the kind of art-studying I’ve been doing this last week feels, to me, like play.
I must be learning something… I’m trying things that I haven’t tried before, but it seems more like I’m confirming things that I assume will happen because I’ve kind-of done something sort-of-like-it before, or I’ve seen something maybe done in a similar way somewhere, but haven’t put it to the test for myself.
Every study is somewhat different from the one preceding it, but similar enough to guarantee some degree of success, and success is enjoyable - so there’s the repetition and the pleasure of knowing there will likely be success and that is what makes it more like play, I think.
“Play is the work of children” - so I figure that in order to make it age appropriate work I’ll sum it all up with the writing of this weekly blog which feels more like work than the art studies do, but is more like play than the art studies are.
One thing I’ve learnt from writing these blogs is to save what I write as I go. There’s no pleasure at all in accidentally deleting a well thought out paragraph or two because you didn’t have the foresight to save them before the phone rings and you close the page in a multitasking fluster… …and my “ iCloud storage” has been “full” for at least 5 years.
Art studies are suppose to solve problems in preparation for the finished work.
One thing I’ve learnt from problem solving with art studies is that I need some problems to solve…
…and that got me thinking…
…maybe it’s the creating of new and interesting problems, and not just the solving of them, that makes art study different than play.
