This lecture was given to use by Jane Hankin but David McGawn and Sturt Hilton were also present and contributing to the lecture.
I wanted to go to uni to formally learn animation and become an artist in my own right. I felt like I didn’t have much proof of my own artistic vision in my artwork. So when Jane Hankin said that she already considers us artists it shifted my perspective.
The goal of this course is to continually surprise myself by uniquely, happily and authentically exploring through my own work.
So what does being creative really mean? – staying curious, asking questions, living in uncertainty, and manipulating the world around you.
Living in uncertainty For me hearing this was kind of scary but I think it is in human nature to fear the unknown. I don’t think I will have a problem staying curious, I strive for understanding that is why I loved the sciences so much when I was younger. Now I think of my favorite things and they live in a gray area of known and unknown.
Manipulating the world around you This essentially means ‘make weird shit’. I found this so hilarious cause I think all of the things I love used to be called weird. The word weird holds very little meaning/value to me now. I was intrigued more about the world. I feel like I spent so much time consuming the world through fiction and stories that having to manipulate the world around might be a very different ball game for me. Jane Hankin said “you know more about yourself when you look out and see where you are’ but I always found that I investigated myself through the story so what qualifies as the world because I feel like the world around me is fictional but then again every time I have a conversation with a person it does change my perspective. Or maybe the fictional world is my home and I need to venture outside more. I say all of this but I believe the fiction is drawn from the real so I just need to go drink from the source.
Staying curious I have had this conversation with almost everyone I have known for a Modicum of time. Education is built to beat the curiosity out of children and continually has failed me and others throughout their childhood. To stay curious you have to unlearn the fact that we have been given and learn who sits telling what story, to think outside the box instead of following the path laid in-front of us. Let’s take apart, deconstruct and build new things.
To ask questions To ask questions is to experiment, to do challenging things. To get back to the childlike play we have sorely been robbed of. When you play you discover things and ideas grow out of that. It is okay to make mistakes in experiments. How many times did you fall before you could walk?
Reflection You can’t improve without being reflective and being critical with your work. Being your work with an objective lens and asking others opinion demonstrates what in your art work resonates with people. Art is a form of communication as a result just because you said something that doesn’t mean it is understood or heard.
In conclusion, draw all the time, be a recorder on receive mode. Always be making things, you don’t have to ask or wait until work is set. Notice things that nobody has noticed before be that alters or stories.