Chapter 2

THE PROCESS OF ART

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OVERVIEW
This learning materials explores the artistic process and the art industry surrounding it: from individual
artists turning ideas into works of art to collaborative creative projects, public art and the viewer. It covers
the following topics:

 The Artistic Process

 The Individual Artist
 Artistic Training Methods and Cultural Considerations
 Art as a Social Activity

OBJECTIVES
Upon successful completion of this learning materials, you should be able to:

 Describe specific processes used by visual artists.

 Compare and contrast art as a social activity and a singular creative act.
 Identify and discuss historical forms of artistic training.
 Describe the cultural ties to artistic process and training.

THE ARTISTIC PROCESS

How many times have you looked at a work of art and wondered “how did they do that”? Some think of
the artist as a solitary being, misunderstood by society, toiling away in the studio to create a masterpiece,
and yes, there is something fantastic about a singular creative act becoming a work of art. The reality is
that artists rely on a support network that includes family, friends, peers, industries, business and, in
essence, the whole society they live in. For example, an artist may need only a piece of paper and pencil
to create an extraordinary drawing (Links to an external site.
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artobjectdetails?artobj=427&handle=li), but depends on a supplier in
order to acquire those two simple tools. Whole industries surround art making, and artists rely on many
different materials in order to realize their work, from the pencil and paper mentioned above to the
painter’s canvas, paints and brushes, the sculptor’s wood, stone and tools and the photographer’s film,
digital camera and software or chemicals used to manipulate an image.

From the Kusama exhibition, part of Fairchild's 2009 Knight Arts Challenge project to expose new audiences to contemporary art by exhibiting large-
scale outdoor sculpture on its grounds. Date: 28 November 2009, 05:27 Source: Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Author: Knight Foundation
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

After the artwork is finished there are other support networks in place to help exhibit, market, move, store
and comment on it. Commercial art galleries are a relatively recent innovation, springing up in Europe and
America during the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. As these societies concentrated their
populations in cities and formed a middle class, there was a need for businesses to provide works of art
for sale to a population that began to have more spare time and some discretionary income. As art
became more affordable, the gallery became a place to focus solely on buying and selling, and, in the
process, making art a commodity.
Museums have a different role in the world of visual art. Their primary function is in the form of a cultural
repository – a place for viewing, researching and conserving the very best examples of artistic cultural
heritage. Museums contain collections that can reflect a particular culture or that of many, giving all of us
the chance to see some of the great art (Links to an external site:
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmlocale=en) humanity has to offer.
The role of the critic commenting on art is another function in the process. Critics offer insight into art’s
meaning and make judgments determining ‘good’ or ‘bad’ art based on the intellectual, aesthetic and
cultural standards they reflect. We will take a closer look at the role of the critic when we explore meaning
in another module.
In this way, museums, galleries and critics have become gatekeepers in helping to determine what is
considered art within a culture like our own.

THE INDIVIDUAL ARTIST

In as much as we have seen art as a community or collaborative effort, many artists work alone in
studios, dedicated to the singular idea of creating art through their own expressive means and vision. In
the creative process itself there are usually many steps between an initial idea and the finished work of
art.

Alfred J. Casson, 1943, Ontario Society of Artists, Black and White Photography

This Canadian (Links to an external site.) work is in the public domain (Links to an external site.
Wilipedia:public domain) in Canada because its copyright has expired. Artists will use sketches and
preliminary drawings to get a more accurate image of what they want the finished work to look like. Even
then they’ll create more complex trial pieces before they ultimately decide on how it will look. View and
read about some of the sketches (Links to an external site.
http://www.pbs.org/trasuresoftheworld/guernica/glevel_1/2_process.html) for Picasso’s masterpiece
Guernica (Links to an external site. http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/images/guernica_details/
guernica_all.jpg) from 1937 to see how the process unfolds. Artists many times will make different
versions (Links to an external site. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/poplars-epte/) of an
artwork, each time giving it a slightly different look.
Some artists employ assistants or staff to run the everyday administration of the studio; maintaining
supplies, helping with set up and lighting, managing the calendar and all the things that can keep an artist
away from the creative time they need in order to work.

Fulcrum, Richard Serra, 1987

Source: en: User: Solipsist (Links to an external site.) (Andrew Dunn)

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
Some artists don’t actually make their own works. They hire people with specialized skills to do it for them
under the artist’s direction. Fabricators and technicians are needed when a work of art’s size (Links to an
external site. http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/serra/flash.html), weight or other
limitations make it impossible for the artist to create it alone. For example, the size of the sculpture
Fulcrum (see above) by Richard Serra necessitates additional staff be employed in the creative process.
Glass artist Dale Chihuly employs many assistants to create and install his glass forms (Links to an
external site.http://www.chihuby.com/).

Glass art by Dale Chihuly at an extensive exhibition in Kew Gardens, London, in 2005
Date: 16 July 2005, Author: Patche99z (Links to an external site.)This work is in the public domain

ARTISTIC TRAINING METHODS & CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

For centuries craftsmen have formed associations that preserve and teach the ‘secrets’ of their trade to
apprentices in order to perpetuate the knowledge and skill of their craft. In general, the training of artists
has historically meant working as an apprentice with an established artist. The Middle Ages in Europe
saw the formation of guilds that included goldsmiths, glassmakers, stonemasons, medical practitioners
and artists, and were generally supported by a king or the state, with local representatives overseeing the
quality of their production. In many traditional cultures, apprenticeship is still how the artist learns their
craft, skills and expressions specific to that culture. Some nations actually choose which artists have
learned their skill to such a degree that they are allowed and encouraged to teach others. An example
would be artists considered National Treasures (Links to an external site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/living_national_treasures_of_japan) in Japan. In the developed nations, where
education is more available and considered more important that experience, art schools have developed.
The model for these schools is the French Royal Academy founded by Louis XIV in the 17 th century. In
the 19th century, the Victorians first introduced art to the grade schools, thinking that teaching the work of
the masters would increase morality and that teaching hand-eye coordination would make better
employees for the Industrial Revolution. These ideas still resonate, and are one of the reasons art is
considered important to children’s education. A recent New York Times (Links to an external site.
http://wwwnytimes.com/2019/12/21/technology/21nerds.html?
_r=3&scp=1&sq=making+it+all+compute&st=nyt) article by Steve Lohr explains how this notion has
carried into the realm of high technology and the digital arts. A woman quoted in the article says that a
proficiency in digital animation is an asset less for technical skills than for what she learned about analytic
thinking.

Like most skilled professions and trades, artists spend many years learning and applying their knowledge,
techniques and creativity. Art schools are found in most colleges and universities, with degree programs
at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. There are independent art schools offering two and four
year programs in traditional studio arts, graphic arts and design. The degree earned by students usually
ends with a culminating exhibition and directs them towards becoming exhibiting artists, graphic
designers or chers. Such degrees also consider the marketing and sales practices of art in contemporary
culture. Click the hyperlink to view some of the different art schools (Links to an external site.
http://www.artschools.com/).

Artist "Bill" Schultz often conducted outdoor classes for his students, taking advantage of the local scenery.Date: 29 January 2011, Author:

Ed62624 (Links to an external site.) This photograph is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Unported license.

Many artists learn their craft on their own through practice, study and experimentation. Whether they
come from art schools or not, it takes a strong desire to practice and become an artist today. There are
no longer the historical opportunities to work under church, state or cultural sponsorships. Instead the
artist is driven to sell their work in some other venue, from a craft fair to a big New York City gallery (New
York City is the official center of art and culture in the United States). There are very few communities that
can support the selling of art on a large scale, as it is generally considered a luxury item often linked to
wealth and power. This is a modern reflection of the original role of the art gallery.

What is required to become an artist? Skill is one of the hallmarks that we often value in a work of art.
Becoming skilled means a continual repetition of a craft or procedure until it becomes second nature.
Talent is certainly another consideration, but talent alone does not necessarily produce good art. Like any
endeavor, becoming an artist takes determination, patience, skill, a strong mental attitude and years of
practice.

Creativity is another element necessary to become an artist. What exactly is creativity? It’s linked to
imagination and the ability to transcend traditional ways of thinking, with an exaggerated use of
alternatives, ideas and techniques to invent new forms and avenues of expression. The music composer
Leo Ornstein (Links to an external site: http://poonhill.com/leo_ornstein.html) described creativity this way:

“Once you’ve heard what you’ve created you can’t explain how it’s done. But you look at it and say
‘there’s the evidence’”.

Creativity is used in traditional (Links to an external site: http://www.thecityreview.com/s06samerin.html)

art forms as well as more innovative ones. It’s what an artist uses to take something ordinary and make it
extraordinary. Creativity can be a double-edged sword in that it’s one thing that artists are most criticized
for, especially in the arena of buying and selling art. In general the buying public tends to want things they
recognize, rather than artwork that challenges or requires thinking. This dichotomy is illustrated by a
poem by English writer Robert Graves, “Epitaph on an Unfortunate Artist”:

He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits

This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid,
So in the end he could not change the tragic habits
This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.

The ability to give visual expression is really what art is all about. It can range from creating pieces just for
beauty’s sake (aesthetics) or for social, political or spiritual meaning. To fully appreciate the artist and
their voice we need to consider that if we value expression we must value a multitude of voices, some of
which contradict our own values and ideas. The artistic process culminates in a form of human
expression that reaches all of us at some level.

ART AS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY

Some of the grandest works of art are made not by a single person but by many people. Pyramids in
Egypt and Mexico are massive structures, built by hundreds of laborers under the direction of designers
and engineers. Egyptian pyramids are tombs for individual royalty, while those in Mexico function as
spiritual altars dedicated to gods or celestial (Links to an external site:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/teot2/hd_teot2.htm) objects. They are typically placed at a prominent
site and give definition to the surrounding landscape. Their construction is the cumulative effort of many
people, and they become spectacular works of art without the signature of a single artist.

A more contemporary example of art making as a community effort is the AIDS Memorial Quilt (Links to
an external site: http://img.webmd.com/dtmcms/live/webmd/consumer_assets/site_images/articles/
health_tools/aids_restrospective_slideshow/corbis_rm_photo_of_aids_guilt_on_mall.jpg) Project. Begun
in 1987, the project memorializes the thousands of lives lost to the disease through the creation of quilts
by families and friends. Blocks of individual quilts are sewn together to form larger sections, virtually
joining people together to share their grief and celebrate the lives of those lost. The project is evidence of
the beauty and visual spectacle of a huge community artwork. Today there are over 40,000 individual
blocks. The quilt project is ongoing, growing in size, and exhibited throughout the world.

Many artists collaborate with non-artists in arrangements designed to produce work for a specific place.
Public art is a good example of this. The process usually begins with a select panel of the public and
private figures involved in the project who call for submissions of creative ideas surrounding a particular
topic or theme, then a review of the ideas submitted and the artist’s selection. Funding sources for these
projects vary from private donations to the use of public tax dollars or a combination of the two. Many
states have “1% for Art” laws on the books which stipulate that one percent of the cost of any public
construction project be used for artwork to be placed on the site.

After the selection process the artist will commence on an intense collaboration with architects,
engineers, public administrators and others connected with the project, ultimately resulting in the
installation of a public artwork. Because of its complexity this process needs to be expertly managed.
Other countries have similar programs. All of them allow individual artists and collaborative teams the
chance to put a definitive creative stamp on public spaces. You can view Flemish artist Arne Quinze’s
public art work The Sequence below.
 The Sequence, Arne Quinze, 2008. Wood. Installed at the Flemish Parliament Building, Brussels.
This photograph has been released into the public domain.

Public art projects can be subject to controversy. It’s not easy for everyone to agree on what constitutes
‘good’ or ‘bad’ art, or at least what is appropriate for a public space. The issue takes on a more complex
perspective when public money is involved in its funding. One example involves Richard Serra’s sculpture
Tilted Arc (Links to an external site:
http://pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/visualarts/tiltedarc_a.html) from 1981.

Time, resources, a space to work in, a supportive family and public, a culture that respects skill and
values creativity and expression: all of these are useful for the artist to thrive. What does an artist give
back to society? They give voice to speak of those things that language cannot describe, and an
experience that pays attention to aesthetics and an interest in the world. They give expression to what it
is to be human in all its positive and negative forms.