Bridging technique & creativity
My work is divided into technical and creative. They are equally important in making something unique. If your desire is to create original work that will find an audience, why would you learn a skill with no vision of its possibilities? That is always my question.
This fall I had two events back-to-back that brought this question into focus. I gave demos at Woodworking America in Des Moines and then, a week later, a talk at Yale University. While both were related to woodworking/turning and I presented similar information, the audiences were very different, as were their questions. The audience in Des Moines asked technical questions: What tool? What step? What grind? While the audience at Yale asked conceptual questions: Why did you use that material? Where did that idea come from?
This is the land I inhabit, always bridging technique and creativity. I love the act of making the same thing over-and-over again to work out the best way to accomplish a technique, but I am most satisfied when I see how the technique will fit into my big idea.
My work is influenced by current affairs, art history, personal experiences, memory, emotion, landscape, nature, archeology. My work is also influenced by the techniques I know: woodworking/turning, drawing, sewing, metal work, watercolor, mold making, printmaking, bookmaking, and animation. Having the knowledge of many techniques not only inspires my work, but offers a big toolbox to bring to every design process.
When I take classes in other areas, it is not to become an expert in that field. It is to bring the ideas and techniques of those fields back to mine. For example, when I took metalworking and was asked to make a piece of jewelry, which I don't wear and know very little about, I made miniature woodworking tools. I probably won’t pursue jewelry-making further, but the metal techniques I learned now show up in my woodworking/turning–from making hardware for furniture and details for turning, to using the joinery of metal smithing for wood joinery.
When students ask me what class they should take next to propel their woodworking career, I always say figure drawing. Furniture and turning mimic, or are made to hold, the human form. If you do not have a good sense of weight and proportion, you will not be a confident designer. After that, take any class not related to woodworking!
If you only look at woodworking/turning and read about woodworking/turning, you will tend to create other people's work. The more you bring your personal interests, history and curiosities to your woodworking/turning, the more you'll inspire and develop your creativity, and the more original your work will become.
This reflection was published in the Studio newsletter. You can read more here.