Despair at the Art Museum
or, developing the vision to be a better artist.
This week, I got out of the woods for a day in the Twin Cities. When you live rurally, trips to the city usually mean catching up on basic appointments and errands that you used to take for granted before moving to the edge of the wilderness—haircuts, cell phone upgrades, the requisite trip to Target. While in the big city this time, my boyfriend and I had time to visit the Minneapolis Institute of Art, one of the largest art museums in the US and a lovely (and free!) way to spend an afternoon in Minneapolis.
I’ve visited many times before, but not since I myself became an artist around 2019. Because it’s so sprawling, I get easily lost in the exhibits and find it best to just wander without agenda and see where I end up. I paid attention to what drew me in: anything bright blue or turquoise, anything woven or textile related, anything BIG.
I particularly admired a remarkable handwoven Navajo chief’s blanket, an entrancing large mosaic by Shazia Sikander that I couldn’t tear myself away from, and a jaw-dropping 5-piece silk woven wedding kimono worn by a Japanese bride in the 1930s.
These artworks, along with many others, sparked feelings of awe and amazement, of course. But as an emerging artist still finding my voice, developing my skills, and learning about my craft, I felt something unexpected.
Something like despair.
You see, I want to be a Good Artist. I don’t care specifically about, say, my tapestries appearing in a museum. But I do care about making art that means something, that is skillful and high-quality, that moves both me as the maker and those who experience it with texture and color and beauty and movement.
At the museum, I was struck by the incredible vision required to set out creating an ambitious work that takes months or years to complete. That kind of commitment to a plan or design, and the vision to see it through no matter how long it takes, feel unthinkable to me. Which is where the sense of despair came in: what if I never develop that kind of vision?
The longest I have spent on a single artwork so far is probably ten days. My canvas is limited to the size of my loom, which is 36 inches wide, but honestly, my vision feels limited too. My designs, while pleasing to the eye, are fairly simple conceptually. And I almost always, always deviate from the original plan or design I set out with when I make a weaving or tuft a rug.
This may be due to the Instagram effect. There is pressure to always be posting bite-sized, entertaining, easy-to-digest pieces that will bring likes, followers, and hopefully sales. My art is a big part of my livelihood, so I need to produce smaller works that sell. I can’t afford to spend years on a massive artwork that will be fundamentally un-priceable due to the enormity of hours it took to make. That production mindset has almost certainly affected my ability to envision and work on something for more than a few weeks, let alone years. I want, and am used to, immediate gratification and those Instagram-fed dopamine hits.
This feels especially present right now because although I am not working on a years-long single artwork, I am creating a collection of 15 tapestries for a gallery show coming up in Duluth, MN in April … and I have no clue what to make. I have tested out a few disparate ideas that don’t really excite me. With this show, I want to WOW people. With the internal pressure that comes with that desire, and the lack of a clear direction so far, I find myself at the point of the creative process where I’m pretty certain that I’ll never have a good idea again, let alone a great one.
The Writing Connection
As both a weaver and a writer, it is interesting to compare how my approach to creating in the two mediums differs and intersects. How I manage to write is to never overthink the outcome, or even expect an outcome at all.
When I sat down to write the first draft of my first memoir last year, I didn’t—couldn’t—think too much about what I was writing or where the book was going. I needed as little pressure as possible while still working within some kind of structure. I gave myself a daily word count that felt manageable for a month at a time–at least 1000 words a day–and just sat and wrote every morning. I did this in November and January, and emerged with 90,000 words of a memoir.
Now I am reaping both the rewards–I have more than enough words to make a manuscript!– and the consequences–the book exists, now I need to determine what it’s actually about (the vision). When I do, I will likely rewrite a lot of it.
This sort of spewing out and then cutting back works for writing and—thanks to Anne Lamott giving us permission to write sh*tty first drafts—is an expected part of the process.
For the craft of weaving, editing after the fact is more complicated. In a tapestry, one row builds on another row, and depends on all the rows before it for structure and shape. This makes undoing and re-weaving any part of the piece that’s not exposed at the top tedious and risky. Making edits often means tearing up the whole thing, and it’s not something I would willingly choose to do.
The cost of investing time and materials into a large or complex woven artwork is a risk, making it a lot easier and safer to work small, especially if the vision for the work is unclear or nonexistent.
Some Exercises in Vision
So, while I understand the reasons why my art is still so far off from having the kind of vision I admired at MIA this week, I do want to begin to exercise my big vision muscle.
In writing, I will work on determining the “aboutness” of the rambling 90,000+ words of my memoir draft, and editing it accordingly. Aboutness is a term I learned from
who shares some helpful exercises I plan to use for getting closer to the aboutness of my book.While the jumping off point for the memoir was to chronicle the first ten years of living with my chronic illness, as I wrote I found there is so, so much contained within ten years and many decisions need to be made as to what to include or exclude. Those decisions will be based on the bigger vision, or aboutness, of the story I am trying to tell. First, I have to find it.
For weaving, I am going to start a 2024 “tapestry diary” on February 1. This concept comes from Tommye McClure Scanlin, a tapestry weaver and writer. She sets aside a loom specifically for this long-term project, and she weaves a little on that piece each day over the course of a year. The year might have a theme—leaves, flowers, simple color squares—and the outcome is quite remarkable. Check out Tommye’s tapestry diaries here.
The tapestry diary is a commitment: it won’t and can’t be done faster than an entire year. It isn’t for sale. Its entire purpose is to let each day come and go, and mark that passage of time with a few woven rows, slowly accumulating a visual picture of the year.
To do my own, I need a spare loom I can dedicate to slow work, one that isn’t needed for producing the weavings I need for my upcoming event, online website sales, or commissions. Between now and the 1st, I’ll construct a simple, large copper pipe loom, warp it up, and begin my year-long tapestry diary.
What’s most important to me about this exercise is not the actual result. It’s to build trust with myself that I can commit to a year-long process and see the project through. That I can undertake a process that simply cannot be rushed, and let time unspool it slowly.
Additionally, I am working through a book called Mapping: The Intelligence of Artistic Work by Anne West that a local artist friend recommended. This book is dense—it feels like a textbook (and costs about as much)—and uses a series of unexpected questions and exercises to help artists understand, chart, and describe their approach to making art through writing. I am not very far into it yet, but I’ll write about it more when I’ve had some time to do the work. (Have you worked through this book? If so, I’d love to hear about your experience!)
Meanwhile, I hope that the vision for this upcoming gallery show—as well as big, beautiful visions for future artworks—will develop if I practice my craft with love and tenacity, and if I continue to put myself in front of art that both inspires me with its beauty and immensity, and yes, causes me a little despair.
Have you ever worked on a visual art project that took months or years? If so, did you have a clear vision when you first began or did it unfold as you worked? Did it change as the process unfolded?
If you’d like to check out my fiber art, visit www.northwoven.com/portfolio.
Thank you for this post, it touches on a few ideas I'm thinking about in my current novel project and has given me lots to ruminate on! Also, I'm full of admiration for anyone who embarks on an artistic project that can't be messed around with later. My partner is working on a graphic novel and I always think it's so scary to have to work out your vision before you start instead of figuring it out on the page as you go along...so props to you for even considering it!