But How Does It Make You Feel?

The feeling and the lingering memory of what you just saw

Over the weekend we had a friend in from out of town that wanted to have a look at what I’ve been working on over the last few months. Not someone looking to purchase one of my works or even recommend them to a collector they might know. Just a friend that was curious about what I’m making and simply wanting to see it. So off to the studio we went where I laid out the most recent work on a table and let them peruse the most recent works on paper.

Our friend, I’m going to call her Cathy, stood by the conference table I have set up next to my studio lounge slowly going over about 15 or so works on paper, slowly setting one after another aside and not saying much as I sat on the couch doom scrolling on social media. I wanted to give her space to examine the work and come to her own conclusions about it as though she were seeing it in a gallery without my presence and no direct explanation for each individual work.

After about 20 minutes she turned to me and asked, “What are these about? What’s the storyline here?” It was a genuine question, and one that I’m often hesitant to answer. It’s not that I’m not capable of speaking to the pieces or having a conversation about my motivation or choices for imagery, symbols, color pallet, mark making etc. It’s that more often than not a work is seen outside of the context of who created it, with little more than the title to help define the narrative. And since my work is not focused on telling a specific story, or capturing a place or a specific moment in time it needs to stand on its own in a number of ways.

The primary way that the work needs to stand on it’s own really comes down to one thing, feeling.

How does the individual piece, or the body of work make you feel? What was the lingering feeling you had after leaving it, or was it forgettable as you moved on to something new? Did it create feeling that wanted you to look more, or did it create a feeling that was easily dismissed for any number of reasons?

So, with that it mind I responded by saying that exact thing. That the images I chose don’t necessarily have a specific meaning to the viewer, but the juxtaposition, cropping, layering, color choices, introduction of pattern and mark making all add up to a composition that hopefully invokes an emotional response or a deeper feeling than what is presented at. The surface level. So I asked Cathy, “How do these make you feel? What is the general feeling you get from an individual work and what is the over arching feeling you get from seeing the larger body of works together?” For her it was a sense of tension, unease, and some mystery. She was curious about the relationships between certain images, and the relationships between pieces grouped together, all of which is a legitimate way to look at the work.

Rather than give some lofty answer filled with obtuse words and phrases designed to make myself and the work feel grandiose or self important, I simply explained that the images often just work for me. That there is a sense of doneness that comes from them. Not that there is a lack of intention, because the choice of everything that goes into the work is very intentional. It is a balance of what feels right together, and how the interplay between everything in the frame works compositionally. It is the visual tension that is created by placing two or more images together cropped in a specific way. The interplay between different potential subject lines and the curiosity that the interplay creates.

The goal is the overarching feeling that someone is left with after seeing the work. And, that feeling will be different for everyone based on what they bring to the table. Especially since I’m not working in a figurative, realist, pure abstract, pure photographic, documentary, narrative, or illustrative way. There are elements of all of those in the work, but my work leans more to the conceptual realm so it’s open for interpretation.

I think my answer to Cathy’s question satisfied her. At least I hope it did. My question to her about how the work made her feel definitely opened the door to a longer conversation. She pulled specific works out and set them aside discussing what she thought each was about, how specific sections brought out different emotional responses, how specific color pallet choices stirred different feelings especially when combined with certain images. She was very focused on the balance between the distressed image, clean and colorful lozenge patterns and the aggressive abstract line work. About how those elements interacted with the collaged photography and color washes asking questions about all of it.

My response to her questioning was pretty simple, “Does it work, and does it enhance what ever feeling you are getting from the work? There is no right or wrong answer. It either works for you or it doesn’t. Are you seeing a sense of “Doneness” in them?”