Ideas, Inspiration, Invention (Jaeda's Artists' Cafe 11/29/99)
Timm may use words heard to make art about, and Jaeda sometimes has dreams or things like dreams that she turns into art. Their work is constructed to illustrate an idea, or to turn visual something that was not, but existed in another form prior to existing in the visual form. They plan the work.
My stuff doesn't come from an idea. Well, maybe a new idea for use of color or form, but not from any non-visual precursor. This makes my work truly "uninspired." For me the process goes something like this:
1) Get the materials together in the same place and time (including a model or two, camera and film).
2) Make or find interesting light.
3) Pose the model, not for a positive effect, but to minimize negative effects. (It is more important to me that the eyes be right, than the face, and that the face be right than the body, and that none of the less important parts diminish the more important parts.) Poses are very seldom dramatic, and more time is spent making sure the errant cigarette butt is not in the picture than is spent making sure the clothes drape right. I do pay attention to how the light sculpts the face though.
4) Repeat steps 2) and 3) until the film is used.
5) Process film.
6) The most important part, and the one that I find to be the heart of my creativity is - sort the pictures. Throw out the bad ones. Throw out the good ones. Keep only the most interesting - the best ones. Once again, it's a process or removing negatives. And this is the process where my sense of beauty and my aesthetic come into play.
The process above is the antithesis of processes alluded to by others. It clearly isn't used to illustrate a pre-existing concept, and the work produced clearly has no meaning beyond being the result of my personal taste in photographs. Viewers, however, are able to correctly deduce some of my personality from what is left in the pictures I select to show. Other viewers try to give more meaning to the work.
But there isn't any.
-Don