The Wayward Artist
The Wayward Artist is the working title of my book on the creative process and common natural materials. It is about "ordinary creativity". that energy we all have and use to make our lives everyday. It is the result of working rustic for almost 30 years and teaching about it for 25 years.
Every so often, tucked in between sets of chairs, beds and tables, I'd find myself making something "else". Something that wasn't really a chair or a table. After years of "elses", I began to see certain patterns and themes in these objects. So, The Wayward Artist got started.
“wayward” Middle English, short for awayward, turned away, from away,
1 following one's own capricious, wanton, or depraved inclinations : UNGOVERNABLE
"a wayward child"
2 following no clear principle or law : UNPREDICTABLE
3 opposite to what is desired or expected : UNTOWARD " wayward fate" anima
Synonym: CONTRARY
The Wayward Artist is an exploration of the need and benefits of tendencies we all have towards expressing the ungovernable, the untoward and the contrary parts of ourselves.
But it is not just about the maker. It's an attitude towards the making of objects... Or perhaps, it's learning that objects get themselves made through us. Objects "matter" themselves into existence through humans.
For the last four years, pieces of bark from the Hudson River have been mattering their ways through me and my studio. There are now hundreds of them...What I seem to now about them is that they have something to say about the many aspects of our s'elves: some preferred, some hidden away, all with influence. At the moment, Anima, is the word associated with them
The Wayward Artist is about the workings of imagination and creativity and about making things. It's about the 'how" of making, but it's really more about the why and what of making. It's about ways of seeing, ways of being and ways of doing and the changing mix of all three. This means that there is no first way, best way or one way. We are an ever-changing mix of tendencies and influences. Some people use the word archetype.
Archetypes are tendencies we have; they are old, old ways of being that humans live out... A great description of archetypes is at the ARAS website.
But for us makers, us Waywards, some archetypes hold more influence. You may recognize parts of your self in these few descriptions of the different ways of being, and being Rustic:
The Hunter: You are active, moving, dynamic seeking the unknown.You have a short intense attention span; you want results. You enjoy the search and the discovery.You need the chance of utter failure to be a success.You can search the local woods for new materials to add to your storehouse. Odd shapes, supple branches, more driftwood, mosses. You remember where things are and how to get there; you might make a map. You like to create, extend and defend
Find the face
in the birch bark.
The Magician: You study the sticks and hold the sticks and decide what sticks are right for being special. You reveal and release the power in sticks by choosing, placing, sanding, whittling, coloring and giving the sticks to others. You might tell about secret places and ways. You are compelled to make things special. You understand the unseen and unspoken around you. You see how sticks can become part of something else. You have a sense of patience and a sense of experimentation. You have a broad view. You know that things never stay the same
The Bodger: You use the tools in cooperation with the trees. so that both the tree and the maker can be recognized. You saw, drill, whittle, sand, glue, peg. You come from the line of Hephestus. the inventor, the craftsman. who was kicked off Olympus and kept trying to invent ways back. You know ways of protecting and providing comfort. You build chairs, tables, tools. and shelters, huts, lean-tos
The Muse: You find the trees to fit the air. You make music with trees. You make dance with branches; you make sculpture and shadows. Your work is beautifully insubstantial. You have come from Mnemosyne. the source of deep memory, so time, slow time is a part of your work. You use the musky smells of the forest in your work
from p.14-15 Daniel Mack's Simple Rustic Furniture. Lark (1999)
nixie
Block Island
my backyard