Conversations with makers: Charlie Birtles
I met Charlie at New Designers One Year On this year, although I have been a secret admirer of her work for a while now. Something in her work, with its focus on ordinary objects and a meticulous approach to making, made me feel that she might be a kindred spirit, and I was eager to ask her more about her process and her relationship to found objects. I’ve recently started to question my own found object making practice and have discovered talking to other makers who work in a similar way illuminating for my inquiry. We met in Charlie’s studio, surrounded by her finds and her work. We chatted about her process of thinking through making, the joy of finding ordinary objects with a unique beauty and our shared loathing to change them in any way…
The ‘no plan’ plan and why it might be the best way to achieve your creative goals
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a planner. I have always got a million lists on the go, I am always thinking ‘what’s next?’ and daydreaming about things that are yet to happen. On a micro scale I have a tendency to fret over tiny details and have even been known to plan out my day to the nearest quarter of an hour. I love sitting down and planning my week, my month or even the next three months…
But, I am not a planner on a macro scale. I have never had ‘a plan’ about what I’m doing or where I’m going beyond the next year. I have always just followed my nose into interesting situations and my passions into new adventures.
Books to inspire: Not Knowing
This book is explicitly aimed at ‘the world of work’ and has positive recommendations from the movers and shakers of business, economics and leadership areas. Do no let that put you off! Although many of the case studies are taken from people working at often quite high-level positions in management, the main concepts in the book translate into all areas. Fundamentally this book hopes to prod people out of their safety zones, helping them to re-frame the concept of uncertainty and to embrace ‘Not Knowing’ as a positive force for opportunity.
Conversations with makers: Lena Peters
Conversations with Makers is a new series on the blog. As part of my work I regularly meet makers to discuss their creative practices and I always find the conversations insightful and inspiring. I thought maybe you would too. The act of articulating your work, to another person, regularly, is something we often overlook but which is vital if we are to remain critically engaged with what we do. Discussing your work, but also hearing other people talk about their work, helps the thinking behind the making no end. So, once a month, I will share a conversation I have had with a maker. First up – Lena Peters…
Thinking through making: wondering about tools
Not so long ago I made a couple of objects one after another. Of the two things, one gave me more satisfaction during the making, and the other brings me more joy as a finished object. The piece of twisted metal, that I spied on the pavement and pocketed, was quickly filed and made into a wearable object. The other thing – a tool – was a serendipitous moment where I realised that a brass ‘ring’ (a strip of brass folded into a geometric shape) that I made in first year of my BA and which, every time I wore it caught on my clothes and was too sharp on my skin, would finally have a home, wedged into the crack in an old wooden handle.
Notes on my creative practice: overcoming an inflexible mindset
I suspect I have an inflexible mindset. It troubles me, especially since I have learnt, via TED, that flexible and adaptive mindsets are the key to success for our youth and for people in general. How worrisome that my brain interprets things the same way and really doesn’t like to budge when it thinks it knows best. A growth mindset, is what it is called when your brain allows possibilities to happen. Why is it that my growth mindset is fair-weather, and only chooses to appear in certain situations? Why does it not grab hold of me, each and every day, when I am groggy in the morning or unable to muster the energy for simple tasks, and shout at me ‘see this differently’, ‘leave the house’ and ‘do something you don’t much fancy, trust me on this, you’ll feel so much better’. I sometimes wonder if leaving the governance of me up to me is the best plan…
Wrap up your creative return – the big picture
I started this month with a reflection on the French tradition of la rentrée – the return to normal after the summer holidays. It seemed to me that we could all do with a chance to celebrate this return, and why not apply it to our creative lives as well as our return to school or work? So, each week in September I have recommended books that might help you to put your creative life into perspective, giving you the focus you need for the last few (often incredibly busy) months of the year. This week we are shifting slightly – the book I’m recommending has a broader approach, it isn’t written explicitly about creativity, but its focus on introducing small moments of happiness into your everyday routine will no doubt have an impact on your creative practice.
Continue your creative return – Locate your practice
Last week I recommended the excellent book – What they didn’t teach you in art school: what you need to know to survive as an artist. By Rosalind Davis and Annabel Tilley – a book full of excellent, practical advice on how to survive in your chosen career.
This week, I thought I’d recommend a book that will help you think more broadly about your practice, and how to locate it within the context of contemporary craft/art/design.
Start your Creative Return – how to survive as an artist
After last week’s post contemplating the idea of la rentrée créative (a creative return to normal after the summer break) I thought I’d continue with the theme of reflection and review ready for the end of the year ahead.
I have a few book recommendations which I’ve been meaning to share and they offer opportunities for thinking holistically about your creative practice, your creative business and your work/life balance. First up:
Notes on my creative practice: when is making not making?
Yesterday I made two things. One may stretch the definition of ‘to make’ and the other possibly falls under ‘re-purposing’ more than making. As I made them I wondered about this, whether the verb to make has enough elasticity to hold all the things we makers do as part of our practice. Even if, maybe especially if, we do not create things out of raw materials. You know where you stand with a maker who takes the raw material and creates something that didn’t exist before. It is magic, it is astonishing. It takes vision and skill combined. It takes patience and commitment. But what of the people who take something as it already is and adds to it, incorporates it into something bigger, adapts it or alters it? What then? It seems to me that there are still all the elements as before – the vision, the skill, the patience and commitment – however we might interpret the work as slightly different.