I was thinking about process today because I posted part of a song that is not anywhere near finished. It’s the framework but I posted anyway because I like seeing people’s process which means that I need to share mine.
There is a painter here who spends hours and hours testing and mixing colours so that she can find the perfect blue. Every time I walk by her spot there are more and more paintings. It’s amazing actually to watch her work and focus. I know it’s more than just the colour but someday when she has a piece that is the most beautiful blue in the world I will think back to that process and THAT is what will be most interesting to me.
It’s that quest to capture a feeling of the vastness of space or loneliness or some other feeling that an artist will try to shape from nothing. In my music I try to capture a story or a feeling or a moment in time.
Another woman has pieces of an idea and you see fragments of the idea go up and down on her wall. It’s in her head and she has a vision and that is taking shape before my eyes here and although her book in the end will be amazing again I will think back to this beautiful and messy process that I saw happen.
There is a sculptor here who builds his pieces from black sand and then releases them back into the sea/the land. The process WAS the journey and there is no end.
I like seeing this process because it lets me see and feel the freedom in creating. There is beauty in the messiness and the way that you can push through frustration (which is how I feel much of the time) to get to the other side. a polished song doesn’t show that part.
The polished piece is fun to have in the end but for me it’s so much more than that. It’s the way my music can allow me to connect with people and share that journey. To see something form allows people to also see that art is just whatever/however you choose to define it and that is why anyone can be an artist. We have somehow made it unattainable to be that in society because it’s just what we all see as the end product.
I’m just gonna keep posting my messiness and then somehow, someday at the end of this journey maybe there will be something beautful – but maybe not.
I don’t know.
