Showing not telling in the visual arts

If you go to a creative writing class you are almost certain to hear the instruction to 'show not tell'.  Whilst the many tutors on short courses that I have attended told me to do this, they rarely know how to show you how to do this.  Rather ironic, that.  My understanding of this phrase is that your writing should make you feel you are part of the world inside the story, you know the woman jogging slowly past up the hill is hot and finding it hard to keep going not because the text says

'Jane was hot and found it hard to keep jogging up the hill'

but because it said

'Jane's hair was matted across her sweating forehead and her jaw was set. "Nearly there, nearly there" she said between coarse gasps.' (Rod Griffiths)

I'm working on visual art and not writing, and I am full of enthusiasms but unclear of my artistic objectives. It occurred to me the other day that one of the issues with the works I have made so far on my MA is that I was giving instruction, trying to transmit data, keeping things neutral and objective.  I was telling, not showing.

Kathleen Vaughan (in Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts, Ed Smith H and Dean R, p169-170) quotes Paul Rabinow

'The giving of form (whether discursive, logical, artistic, scientific, political, and the like) is..an essential goal of 'describing' a problem and of shaping an inquiry. Description rather than explanation is not a naive act but one that can arise only within a process of inquiry that is engaged in one or another type of form making.

and continues

'art as research and research as art can be transformative...being a profound engagement that changes both the researcher and the researched - the process can evoke something new.'

I have been thinking about where I benefited from the first year of this rather disorganised part time MA (staffing issues).  There have been three significant moments.  One was where a hastily recruited stand-in tutor said my work was like another student's work which I really loathed, both conceptually and in delivery.  That shook me and it took me about a month of thinking before I realised she was saying I was structuring the viewers experience too completely.  Working within the social sciences field you do try not to leave acres of uncertainty and possibility for multiple interpretations, so the notion of working to leave space is new to me.

The second was when another fellow student reacted emotionally to a piece that I was simply viewing as a small part of a story and a demonstration of a new technical skill acquired.  She made me see that, again, I had a full sentence of instruction in mind and the single word was potent.

The third significant moment was when a complex piece requiring collaboration was due. I had achieved nothing due to a combination of events.  I had been aiming at a clear exposition with clarity of message.  Two fellow students told me that I should put myself into my work.  A simple sentence but a revolution in intent. I then collaged all my preparatory work into short movie which, at the very least, got me a pass on the module.

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I spent yesterday looking at the degree show at Hereford College of Art.  The work there, in the BA (Hons) Contemporary design Crafts and Jewellery Design room, was quite extraordinary.  One piece in particular caught my attention.

Kim Colebrook produced a piece from black and white porcelain and coal.  The work is called 'Survival'  "and is inspired by the Aberfan Disaster of 1966, and the way the community has coped and survived"

It is a multi-part piece with considerable presence.  It is calm and contemplative but also monumental.  One part has a square table-top display of precise black porcelain boxes with cracked and blemished white porcelain cubes.  These represent those who survived, and embedded inside each solid white cube is coal, which distorted the clay on firing.  These hidden pieces of coal and the random seeming degradations of surface are a metaphor for the continuing impact such events have on the individuals involved.  In the centre of these black boxes are white porcelain open boxes with wavy tops, holding gleaming chunks of coal.  These represent those who lost their lives.  I cannot write about all the meanings encapsulated in this work as it is complex and multi-layered.  It spoke to me as an object of great beauty before I knew what it was about, and keeps returning to my thoughts for all the meanings it holds.

This piece of work has for me much of the quality of the 'Snark' I was writing about in my previous blog, where I talk about the hunt for that impossible to define and difficult to find attribute of art that truly resonates.  It combines content with exquisite craftsmanship and potent use of materials in a way I find truly inspiring.

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Looking back on this piece I see that this whole conversation with myself is continuing the exploration about how to identify the Snark, and how to work towards creating 'snarkness' in my own work. I am reminded of the military tactic of continuous aim firing which is a great strategy for hitting a moving target at an uncertain distance, and using the firing process to hone in on the target.  If you pause for too long to get your  aim right the target will have moved or vanished in the mean time.  It also works if you have a giant amount of ammunition...making vast numbers of works might lead to some being successful.  I once saw an exhibition in New York of Picasso and Braque early cubist pieces,  Serried ranks of almost identical works which were their process for working out what they wanted to say and how they wanted to achieve it.

Research and context-- developing an understanding of your practice methodology

I'm an enthusiastic doer.  I enjoy something - I do it.  I don't enjoy it....I try not to do it.  When it comes to art, this methodology is fine for a hobby but completely inadequate as an MA student.  

Next term's title is 'Research and Practice', and the book to read over the summer is "Practice-led Research and Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts', edited by Hazel Smith and Roger Dean.

In amongst the gobbledy-gook and self-aggrandisement that seems an essential part of an art theory book (they always use words associated with the interpretation of religious texts) there are some interesting ideas, and an excellent description of the process of developing an idea and a body of work by Kathleen Vaughan.  She describes how her idea begins, thrust upon her by a single image of poster spotted while hurrying to an airport taxi.  

"Stopped in my tracks, I was reminded of Jeanette Winterson's remarks, on having been halted on her walk through Amsterdam by 'a painting that had more power to stop me than I had to walk on'.  In my case, I was stopped by the mental image of art that I might make, arrested mid-stride......I've learned over the years in the studio, to recognise that characteristic inner quickening - which I actually feel as a kind of stomach pang- as an indication that there is depth and density of creative potential in the idea or image that has come.  I have learned to respect and respond to this feeling, as to a summons.  Indeed, I have come to understand that (so far, at least) my creative practice is one of response, either to a visual image that grabs me and hurtles me forward into unexpected imaginings, or to a deeply felt inner experience, one that links emotional and body-based realities, and percolates into an external aesthetic expression.  Such a summons does not come just once, to kick start a body of work, but can recur throughout the entire process of making, as I am faced with decisions and directions to take up or not." (p167)

The use of the term "quickening" is interesting. I've only come across this word in the past as an archaic term for feeling your baby move inside you, or the process of spring.  This idea of something akin to creating a child is one described by Jenny Saville, when she said that painting and pregnancy were similar (unfortunately I have no idea where I came across that comment, well before I started this MA).  The notion of the liveliness of an idea, grabbing the gut, and the sensation of liveliness of an art work that really works for me, seem very close.  

 "Art critics, anxious to emphasise the resonance or beauty of a particular work, have a tendency to exaggerate. They will tell you, for instance, that a canvas seems almost to vibrate, such is its power. But this painting moves well beyond vibration. No superlative I can think of seems to do it justice. It's uncanny. If I heard its subject softly breathing, I would hardly be surprised."Rachel Cooke (article about Jenny Saville and her works)

I have a memory of a recent bit of data which said that well over 90% of sensory data the body receives isn't processed consciously - again I'll have to hunt for the reference on that.  There is data to support the idea that 'hunches' and intuition can support decision making as they capture some of this information even though people couldn't articulate the process for this. A simple search produces an article that says unconscious information increases performance but not people's confidence in their accuracy, which an interesting insight into why data derived from this unconscious input might be discredited.http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16214.full.pdf

The book also refers to Walter Benjamin and his text on 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'.  An article by Nick Peim in the Journal of Philosophy of Education (Vol 41, No 3, 2007) discusses the  notion of the 'aura'...

"Aura seems to signify something of the symbolic halo generated by objects of special significance that is both powerful and indefinite."  

It is going to take a lot of energy to really get to grips with what this paper is saying, and the single sentence in the original text book by Kathleen Vaughan may be sufficient to frame the ideas I am becoming interested in.  She says

"I have...a belief...that embedded and embodied withing a work of art, almost holographically, is a reservoir of knowledge and understanding, the 'research' of the work as conducted by the artist. This conception of research is perhaps similar to Walter Benjamin's concept of aura (1955/1968) as something that pertains irreducibly to the artistic object, performance or event, a quality we can feel although not always decode." (p169)

One of my goals for the MA was to develop a clearer idea of why some pieces of art work for me and others don't.  I find, just occasionally, that a piece of art will grab my attention, and it feels as if the work dances off the wall and enfolds me in some sort of psychic force field.  I'm more Doctor Who than Mystic Meg, and I'd more happily think it was something akin to a sonic screwdriver that was affecting my response than an 'aura', but there is definitely a non-conscious visceral response to works which either entrance or repulse.

So what is it that does this?  Is it an intrinsic attribute of some pieces of work or is it a product of the interaction between an art work and an individual viewer?  If it is entirely individual, why do some pieces of art acquire cult status, with queues to view? How does this process happen?  Is it a 'forever' thing or does it vary in time- can you 'fall out of love' as abruptly as you fall into love with art.  Are there cultural differences?   Does a well-executed fake work as well as the original?

Lots of questions, and possibly impossible to answer.  I am reminded of Lewis Caroll's "The hunting of the Snark"poetryfoundation, where a ridiculous group set off in pursuit of the undefinable Snark- and hope that even if they capture one it doesn't turn out to be the deadly Boojum.  A worthy pursuit for me, with the hope I don't 'suddenly vanish away' just as I triumphantly believe I have completed my quest.