From Concept to Canvas with Michael Hafftka | The Creative Process

hi this is michael hofka and this is the creative process and today we're going to talk about my [Music] process [Music] so we're sitting here in my studio uh in brooklyn and i want to explain a little bit how i work i try not to start with visual ideas what i just start with is waiting and uh i've always done it that way when you know i first became an artist of course you know you think what do artists other artists do but really you have no clue and no idea and things are very vague and artists uh they're all forms of artist artists that go outside and they look at things artists that have studio models when i first began in my mind this concept of art was something holy something beyond understanding so it was a very vague superhero that i wanted to become inside myself i really uh romanticized and glorified what an artist was it it certainly wasn't a reproducer of things it wasn't a guy that looked at a model and then tried to make a rendition of that model it was something mythical something beyond all sense somebody that discovers the essence of meaning the essence of things so very naively i just waited for something to come to me wait for a feeling that pushes you in a direction the reason that i still think this is very very important is for me art is about freedom it's very hard if you think about reality how do we get outside of ourself to discover ourself idea of being an artist is being actually your own essence discovering your own essence so uh for me i wait for a very subtle feeling what i'm trying to do is actually cultivate a state of not knowing because for me knowing seemed too simplistic so let's say you know you're going to paint a picture of a house well in the end you just wind up with a picture of a house for me i wanted to discover something more and then the next thing i do is make a decision about what's the physical parameters of the art is it going to be a painting is it going to be a work on paper is it going to be a wood cut is it going to be an etching the reason i think about that is that also the medium gives me a feeling and as you go further and further you're becoming locked into that particular meeting but the very beginning of it is really kind of freedom that that vague feeling that i have when i start a work determines everything so if i feel i want to paint an oil painting on canvas then i go put a canvas and i've chosen the size on my easel i work a lot in watercolor uh watercolor is an extraordinary medium my favorite mediums are oil paint and watercolor really so the moment i choose the medium i pursue that medium as a young artist i was very curious about every medium i really had no idea you know i heard about watercolor i even tried lipstick you know uh you know oil paint so each medium informs you of a different they have different limitations and each medium forces you into another way of using it and another way of creating and actually it's a lot of fun so i would recommend that all artists try every different kind of medium take paul clay for example if you look at paul clay's paintings paul clay experimented with every kind of medium he wrote notebooks and made notes about the different mediums and the way they acted it really it's an extraordinary adventure to try everything so with this vague feeling uh you know collectors and uh artists always ask me how long does it take a paint to paint a painting sometimes uh that vague feeling lasts days and days but you could sit there for days and days and not touch paint so it takes a long time to start that being said there's lots of moments of just doing nothing and looking at your paintings or looking at them in between and that stillness of allowing the painting to talk to you is really important you know when when i go to a museum and i look at paintings painting is a contemplative thing it's not about a glance i believe paintings uh require more contemplation in looking at them and there's a lot of subtlety to the medium and uh these objects are designed for contemplation uh i showed my paintings to a great art historian and he mentored me his name was maya shapiro and he taught at columbia university and he wrote a very very extraordinarily beautiful book they're published in his papers he wrote an extraordinary book about romanesque art and one of the things that made a very strong impression on me is what was the purpose of art in the days of romanesque art in and later on even in the renaissance art functioned to inform the public of deep spirituality that was acquired through contemplation people didn't go into a church and look at a sculpture or look at a crucifix or look at a painting uh you know and go bam that's like campbell's soup can that andy warhol is like hitting us with pop art it wasn't about a pop experience it was about a deep experience unfolding in you of understanding salvation of understanding sin of understanding the universe art is still a deeply psychological process of trying to understand the unknown and that is acquired through contemplation it takes time i start after contemplating of course what happens is all of the sudden there's an impulse to do it and there's kind of an enlightenment you can do it you're in it now you're you go with it this is a very very exciting experience and very often what's going on in my head as i'm doing it i'm full of doubts i'm fully a full of misunderstandings and those doubts could lead me to question myself and say don't do that do this don't do that do this or do something else as i'm working i'm in a state of flux everything is constantly changing and i'm trying to simultaneously understand and not understand i want the unknown it's all about contradictory feelings you're in the middle of the storm you don't know if you'll survive it's like being in a hurricane you might die so if you die it doesn't really matter what you're going to look like you know after the storm there's a whole other story if you survive the storm you could decide well the next house i'm going to build i might build it differently i might hire another architect i might learn something about engineering i might actually figure this thing out but in the storm you just want to avoid the flying timbers that are coming at you at 100 miles an hour and survive you really really have to just ride it out with all the doubts that are happening you know making art is very different than making other things like when you um are going to build a house uh there's there's rules there's code there's engineering so in advance you follow certain rules otherwise the house is going to fall down anything that you build has rules what i want to point out is that making art is an opportunity to not use rules because you want to risk absolutely everything it doesn't matter if it's going to fall apart it's not going to kill anybody nobody gets hurt making art so you can go all the way and exercise the most extreme feelings that you have so in as much as you're changing and as much as you're you're um evaluating and and trying to deal with your doubts it's very important to understand this is not about editing it's not about critical judgment of an end result because you haven't gotten to the end result when i when i'm painting when i'm working so of course the whole beginning stage is just feeling and the whole end stage is really just looking at the painting all of the sudden i have the experience that the painting is finished it's a really loud concrete electrical feeling that it's done at that point i just look at the painting and uh there are times when i go back into it but the looking again is a deep meditation and a deep putting it together uh i've often had the experience that i paint the painting and because i've been doing it and in the flow i can't even really see it so i i go for a walk around the block and i come back into my studio and i look at the painting and i see it cohesive for the first time that's an extraordinary feeling nowadays we have access to social media we have access to networks all over the world and you know you can finish a painting and then show it to people i kind of advise against that it's very tempting you're very excited but you you don't know what you're going to feel about the painting uh it's a raw state you're raw from creating it uh i don't think you should just finish a painting and just throw it up on instagram uh and and show it to everybody because you might regret that um the critical process of being an artist happens after the work or for me happens after the work is done take that seriously don't let the enthusiasm of painting it infect your critical judgment and don't let your critical judgment affect your enthusiasm in making art it works both ways [Music] you

Channel: Artrepreneur

Views: 17,127

Keywords: the creative process, the creative process of artists, creative confidence, creative ideas art of painting, the art of self promotion, the art of showing up, artistic process, contemplation of the beautiful, how to be creative, artrepreneur

Id: pRywmbegAn8

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021