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.