An almost universal problem for blocked creatives is dealing with the blanks canvas, page, or computer screen. We are finally ready to create. We have the habits in place or are starting to get the practices in place, but how do we start? The creative spark can be elusive, but it is not impossible to find. We do not need to wait for the spark to appear to us, we can start looking for the flash of inspiration and coax it into revealing itself.
To start off the series on igniting the creative spark, we will look at Jennifer Barlett and her In The Garden Seris that was realized in the late 1970s and early 80s in Nice, France.
Jennifer Barlett traveled to Nice, France, in 1979 with plans to pain the beautiful French countryside. When she arrived, she was disappointed to find the weather was gloomy and grey and not at all what she was expecting. Instead of throwing up her arms and giving up, Barlett decided to get to work anyway. Looking out her villa window, she observed a simple garden space that features cypress trees, grass, a reflecting pool, and a cheeky statue of a boy peeing into the pool.
Bartlett’s reaction to the disappointment with the weather and the reality of her situation, not matching her expectations, is an excellent example of making lemonade when life hands you lemons. Barlett’s decided to focus on what was available and not dwell on the preconceived notions of her environment shows how a creative can ignite their own spark and invite the muse to come along to enjoy this new inspiration.
Barlett was able to transform a lovely but unremarkable, garden scape into a series that spanned a variety of media, scale, tone, point of view, and mood. The three-year series was revisited later, and newer works were based on photos and sketches of the garden taken during the initial trip. What started as a study is now considered an essential meditation on the artistic process and how artists can use materials and moods to create a new reality and elevate an otherwise mundane subject.
Barlett’s early work dealt with abstraction and was known for images of grids with one or more colored dots applies on canvas or metal plates. She began to move into new territory in her large scale work: Rhapsody, which consisted of 987, 12×12 panels that covered 150 square feet when displayed in its entirety. Rhapsody, when viewed as a whole, is a monumental work but it the entire work, broken into the theses: INtroduction, Mountain, Line, House, Tree, Shape, and Ocean has its own, smaller, moments of color fields, abstract imagery, drawings, paintings, and photographs. Barlett stated that she wanted the work to be like an overhearing a conversation and its “ebbs and flows.” The multimedia aspects of Rhapsody showed Barlett, as an artist, was open to experiment, to play, and to TRY new things. This willingness to experiment allowed the project later known as In The Garden, to be realized.
If Barlett had not expanded from the grid/dot theme, would In The Garden have been possible? It is hard to say, of course. Still, one could imagine a very different result if the openness to expand her visual vocabulary had not been allowed. In The Garden, Like Rhapsody, when shown in together (the NY TIMES ARTICLE SAYS 200 works), it is usually shown in a grid style, and, in fact, many of the individual works continue to use the grid motif as a ground.
Keeping a familiar theme can help an artist expand their vocabulary. Perhaps Barlett felt a sense of security or the familiarity and comfort of an old friend to help while embarking in the new, more representational territory? Maybe it was just useful to support for laying out a scene? No matter why Barlett continued to include the grid in her images, it shows us that we can try new things without abandoning what feels like a part of our artistic identity.
Are there conscious or unconscious themes that you regularly use? Are there themes that might benefit from being set aside to allow experimentation? Are there themes that can be expanded and rearranged? Would embarking on a series like In The Garden help you in your creativity?
As an experiment, I am going to embark on my own “in The Garden” type series in December 2019. I’ll base share my scene for this experiment soon.
What is my grid? For me, I rely on line as an outline in most of my work. I plan to keep this familiar theme in mind as I embark on this project. Are there benefits to abandoning the reliance on lines and outlines? Are there reasons to go even further with line and shape? I think the only way I can find out is to play with ideas and seeing, ways of creating, and a concerted effort to abandon ego and attachment to the final product and, instead, be mindful of what is happening when I am creating, what do my eyes do? How do I apply materials? How does different support affect the elements, and so on?
I’ll add my updates on new posts and describe the process and my reaction to the pieces. I invite your feedback and encourage you to consider doing your In The Garden type project!
Quick Wrapup:
Jennifer Barlett and many other artists have used series to explore different ways of expressing a scene or style or medium.
Exploring familiar themes in our work and using, expanding, reducing, and eliminating them are all valid ways to encourage growth and openness to new ways of seeing and representing ourselves through our art.
Coming soon: Project habit plan.
