I made a Facebook post about this a little while ago. Thinking about that scene in willy wonka and the chocolate factory where charlie’s dad is bringing him home defective tooth paste caps in order for Charlie to build a scale model of the chocolate factory. I have been thinking about that because of working in a warehouse, and taking home scraps of materials to put into paintings. usually I just take it because the material is compelling in a way that it would look interesting on a painting. The way stickers line up or the way someone has written something. The unintended composition of the labels on a box. its this jumble of crossed out things and re-written words, numbers and symbols. But it all means something. To someone somewhere those marking is not an aesthetic consideration at all. Those markings are specific to getting a job done, to understanding and organizing. If it is someone who has been doing the job long enough, the way those marks are made are quick and intuitive. Almost done without thinking. Taken to this point of abstraction where, yah its still just a mark on a box, but were handling these things all the time these marks start to morph into something more. They are made so quickly and intuitively, the energy within them can be felt. That now inherent knowledge of the mark marker is held within that mark on the box and I can feel it. I can try and figure out what kind of marker was used, where the mark began and ended. The contextual information becomes irrelevant. I can understand that off the bat. Further investigation reveals all these other things, I can take home and use in my own work. Not only do physical scraps of material make it home to my work. But so do the ways in which warehouse and places like that work. The small things, that really hold it all together. Humanising a corporation, boxes, shelves, markers, dust, labels.
Quick note on ‘being aware of your natural tendencies”, which I have written down as a quick note. Don’t try and force your hand and mind. Your hand and mind already know what they are really good at. Let them carry you forward. Don’t try and force them to do things they don’t want to do. Workk on being aware of what you are good at, accepting it, and developing it. If it come natural, then you’ll never grow tired of it. Your brain and hands long for the familiarity, yet unknown of doing something you have been destined to do. It feels so right, yet feels so selfish. Like you’ve reached something unattainable. But its not selfish, use it, share it. Be about it and you’ll always have something to fall into.