Dearest Saint Nicholas.

“Art is like beginning a sentence before you know its ending.” 

-David Bayles

 Art and uncertainty are one in the same. Uncertainty means to have the privilege of sneaking downstairs Christmas morning to unwrap parcel after parcel, experiencing the ecstasy of pleasant surprises as well as the devastation of unpleasant ones.  For those whom embrace uncertainty, every morning is Christmas morning.

Many will argue that foreshadowing can help prepare you for desperate times by subduing the shock that comes with sudden unfortunate events. But it’s when you make predictions or snoop around in closets looking for evidence of what you haven’t yet discovered that forces you to fake a polite smile for every parcel you open, the good and the bad. Thus, shoving every predicted event into a box in the attic reserved for unexciting things.

Of course it’s impossible to accurately predict everything to come, and so there will always be surprises in store for those that choose to leave the house. But in art making it’s quite possible to predict what will come, if the approach itself is predictable. And so the danger of being shoved into the “boring” box is a very real and immediate danger.  The difference between those who make art and those who don’t is that after an artist unwraps his or her parcels that may contain new paintings, poems or music, he or she then wraps them back up and puts them under a different tree, where it will then be deemed a pleasant or unpleasant surprise by someone else. 

I have recently rediscovered the excitement of Christmas mornings (or at least of uncertain ones). A journey, to a place I could never visualize accurately, along with experiences I could never verbalise correctly, is what it took to remind me that my art is a product of the rest of my life, and that maybe my life before Italy wasn’t very good at surprising me. Just like it would be irresponsible to bake a cake without first tasting the batter, it would be very difficult to surprise others with art if you can’t surprise yourself. This may be the simplest lesson to learn from a life-changing experience such as this, but it’s fundamental and easily forgotten in the midst of producing client-based work.

As an illustration student, it is an absolute privilege to be working in a community of mostly fine artists, as what excites me most is that I’ve begun to feel like one again. I began this year knowing exactly what was going to be under the tree for me to unwrap. I had the ambition to create a body of work that required the viewer to read each piece instead of feel it. A series that desperately tried to claim respect from its viewers by pretentiously showering emotional themes with convoluted subject matter.

But in Italy, I can experience overwhelming emotions by the mere sight or sound of very simple things. So I realise that emotions are born from discovery, not premeditation. I know now that the only thing worth having when considering making art is intention. To have the intention to create something emotionally valuable and the Intention to convey something important to you that others may discover later. Being honest with your work and trusting that your personal voice is interesting enough is undeniably important. And so I think the intrigue of “great art” doesn’t lie in paint, clay, words or musical notes but in the intriguing personality that manipulated them. That person is the commodity, and anything they produce is an autograph, a footprint from a life journey worth following.