3.01.2011

RESEARCH, my new best friend

Research is not a pleasant word for most students. It conjures images of bleary-eyed long sessions in front of the computer, hours lost in the stacks at the library, taking detailed notes so the works-cited page will be complete... NOT fun.
But research for the artist is fun, and pretty much necessary. To me, it's has become a valued part of the artistic process. After the initial inspiration, it's the next step. Sometimes a little research will turn me off to an idea, and that's okay, because it always opens me up to a million other ideas in the process.

As a kid I used to love the glossy pages of the family's multi-volume encyclopedia and the dictionary. I would sit for hours and look through them, loving the way the information was organized, in alphabetical order with no consideration to topic. This organization combined with arbitrariness is still intriguing to me today, and is often a major device I use when communicating with my own artwork.
See what I mean? Volume 19: Excretion through Geometry. You can't make this stuff up!

 My new favorite gadget for research is the iPad. I use Google Image search, look up the topic I want, and with just one touch I save the image to a folder. I can access the folder easily and quickly and take it anywhere, even places without internet access, and have those images ready for reference.Why is this so great? First, I can edit and delete these photos anytime. Also, I can flip through them easily with a slideshow or thumbnails, and zooming in on the details is no problem. Also, in the course of any normal web browsing, I can save any intriguing images to be looked over later when I need a little inspiration.

Just in case you were wondering, I never just copy these images into my work. I just select bits and pieces, such as color palettes and perspectives, to use in my process. I recently wanted to do a series about circus freaks, presented as vintage side show posters, which were actually showcasing very mundane exhibits, in order to illustrate the hypocrisy of xenophobia. I haven't done it yet, but I have about a hundred examples of vintage circus posters ready to go on my iPad when I'm ready.
See? Fun! Just as a note: it took me ten times longer to search, save, and upload this image onto this blog than it would have for me to find and save it on my iPad.

Research is a multi-faceted process, and in actuality, it never ends for an artist. I'm always observing and gathering new visual data, both to support existing ideas and to form new ones. It's easy to get stuck in a routine where you don't just LOOK AT THE WORLD around you- I try to stay out of that routine.

One more thing: just in case I haven't made it clear, research for me is more than just gathering visual data. I love to know the history of things, people and places when I put them in my work. If I'm making up a subject out of my imagination, there is still always a link to the real world (it's unavoidable) and I can't help but assign a story to my new subject. Why? It helps me convey the message, and it's more fun.

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