OK, let's pause for a moment and think about this whirlwind painting strategy of Monet's. To my mind, it contains components that should be considered by every jewelry and glass artist. I'll go through them one by one, and maybe we can talk about them a bit:
1. He came up with a unique idea. Monet wasn't your run-of-the-mill artist. He wasn't strictly a portait painter, or a landscape painter. He wasn't a religious painter, nor a political one. I think that his goal was to focus on, to capture and freeze onto his canvases, light in all its evanescent permutations. Before him, the Dutch and Flemish masters illustrated their command of light, but to me, it was an effect caught in certain portions of their paintings, such as the shimmer of silk, or the single beam of daylight pouring through a high window. Their use and control of light was part of a larger goal, while for Monet, light became his focus, his true subject, his very reason for painting. He took something and forced us all to look at it differently--he presented us with a vision, a new idea.
Coming up with a new, unique idea is perhaps the greatest challenge for beginning artists, maybe for all artists. For example, I've been in stained glass classes where students invest in books of patterns that they can trace and copy. That's a great way to start. I remember seeing art students at the Art Institute, with either easels or drawing pads, carefully copying the Masters. They were undoubtedly told that before developing their own style and vision, they needed to learn the techniques of those who went before them. In metalsmithing classes, students are taught the same basic techniques for setting cabochons, drilling holes, soldering and sawing metal.
The challenge is finding just the right place to "jump off" from the stock designs and start creating your own. Many stained glass people never do that...They become highly skilled in making decorative objects, even large windows and doors for their homes, but beyond selecting glass colors, they breathe little if any of themselves into their works.
Glass fusing is a bit different, because it adds the often unpredictable alchemy of the glass reacting to the heat of the kiln. Plus, students are often urged to use smaller pieces of scrap glass first, so from the very beginning they are creating their own, albeit experimental, designs. In my Surefire Handbook, I urge readers to do a lot of experimentation, with color, with types and thicknesses of glass, with layering sequences. Quite often, the glass provides serendipitous results, and the savvy glass fuser will try to replicate that effect and deliberately incorporate it into their own designs. But even in glass fusing, there are folks who stick to the safe patterns that others have drawn.
In jewelry-making courses, there are those students whose work is technically correct, but it's very similar to the jewelry they're already familiar with. It's very difficult for some people to "get out of the rut" of the familiar, of what's been done before and done to death.
So during the next few days, I'd like to take a closer look at the concept of the unique idea. I see this as being different than the concept of a unique style. To me, a person's distinctive artistic style is composed of both unique ideas, original designs, and often, a special technique or combination of techniques. Monet's style, for example, was composed of his unique ideas of capturing light and painting the same subject in a series of differing light conditions. He used the impressionist technique that made the outline or form of an object subservient to the light falling on it and reflecting off of it.
So what are your thoughts on this? First, I'd like you to think about how you made the leap from run-of-the-mill ways of doing things and began developing your own unique designs, and perhaps share that with the rest of us. What was the hardest part about doing that, and how did you get over the hump? I think if we talked about that a bit, it would really help people who are struggling to break away from copying other people's patterns and get started on their own. I think that this initial break is essential in order to start exploring and building your own unique style. Please take a moment to send in a comment on this, thanks!
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