Trust the Process by Shaun McNiff

Author:Shaun McNiff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

GATHERING AND ARRANGING THINGS

If you are convinced that you have no artistic abilities, start gathering things. Keep them and arrange them into aesthetic configurations, and you will find that the things will initiate you into the world of design and creative expression.

WHENEVER I SEE PAINTS AND other art supplies, I feel inspired to do something with them, but I have worked with many people who find them intimidating at first. If we focus the creative process on the home and its artifacts, we can all express ourselves with materials and things that have personal significance.

One of my graduate students makes objects and framed constructions with personal objects that contain her personal and family history. She takes doilies made by her grandmother, charms from her childhood bracelet, ribbons connected to special events and memories, a match cover from a cousin’s wedding, a snapshot, and uses them to construct a composition that is visually pleasing. It also generates an intensely intimate and sacred aura. The constructions are mounted on velvet and other fine materials and elegantly framed. The high-quality construction of the frame enhances the sanctity of the contents. The works look like treasuries of memory, enshrinements of the past and the family.

An artist friend, Dana Salvo, has been taking photographs for years of home altars made by women in the United States and Mexico. During religious feasts the shrines are constructed with arrangements of flowers and different religious artifacts. Personal objects and photos of family members are also woven into the displays. They give the shrines a distinctly individual and artistic appearance, as contrasted to displays made in churches and other public places. The personal memorabilia make the shrines a living extension of the household. Photographs of deceased relatives are often included, and they deepen the spiritual sense of the shrine. Loss awakens intimacy. The use of photographs or simple objects connected to a beloved person infuses the creation with emotion.

These home altars elegantly display the interplay between distillation and proliferation that I described in the previous section. The viewer experiences a vastness conveyed by the arrangement of numerous objects. Yet there is a sense of order, as with a large bookshelf covering an entire wall. The gathering of diverse things is itself an expression of unification. The pieces come together in an overall sense of ritual and aesthetic purpose. Anyone can create an equally wondrous and impactful artwork. The only requirement is a willingness to commit the household space and the time for collecting the objects and constructing the display. As a way of preparing to make artworks from arrangements of materials and artifacts, take some time to contemplate what is already going on in your personal spaces at home or at work.

Sit in any room in your house or apartment and observe the things you see. What do the objects say about you and your past?

Look at the objects in the room, the space itself, the way things are placed in relation to one another. Ask yourself what your sense of beauty and intimacy wants in this room.

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