Starting a project is always difficult for me. There's the artists fear, anxiety and ego that kicks in...
Is this project going to be any good?
Is this going to be the project that I'm proud of?
Is this project a good idea?
The beauty about creativity is that the answer to all of these questions, and many more forever remains a doubt until you get going. You'll never quite know where you'll end up and it's important to give the ideas room to manipulate and change as they progress.
Studying Paleolithic art has been great, I've really enjoyed learning about the first artworks made by Homo Sapiens; diving into their thought processes and formally studying our first ever creative endeavours.
There are were a couple things things that stood out, unsurprisingly for me it's when thinking about the human condition, our minds and how we think/behave.
I want to try and adapt these ideas, bring them into the current landscape and use them to develop projects of my own. I'm hoping I can filter the thoughts and feelings of these artists through me and see what I come up with.
Now that I've imitated and learnt the techniques, I'm really excited to express the new skills and move onto thinking about the subjects in a deeper, more profound and conceptual nature.
I've got many ideas, but I'm trying my best to stick with one and see the final series through. So I'm kicking off with what I first began with...the hand paintings.
What struck me about the hand paintings on the wall was that this appeared to be human beings identifying and anticipating knowledge of the presence of time. A giant step in psychological development, and something that differentiates us from all other animals, is our ability to preconceive and plan. To visualise a present, past and future for ourselves.
There's a short clip of Brian Cox in his series Human Universe, where he visits the El Castillo Cave Paintings and briefly speaks of these ideas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74woCKzVEIc
I've been reading Angela Duckworth's 'Grit' which has been a great book. It's main themes explore the power of hard work, living up to your potential and developing meaning/purpose in your life.
I'm interested in ideas surrounding motivation, our potential and where it exists inside each of us.
From now, I'll be using this blog as a scrapbook and record of the development of these ideas. I'm very excited to see where the project will go and what I'll learn from the process.
I'll leave you with an image from the artist David Shringley which, by complete chance, I saw posted on his Instagram 30 minutes ago...
Image: Instagram @davidsrigley
Thanks for reading,
P