Meditations on Making

by Todd Fillingham

I find making objects a little strange. It is more than simply a means of communicating ideas or creating a useful object. It is also a way of exploring the physical world that can lead to glimpses of more metaphysical realms.

The first thing many people are aware of when they encounter something handmade is some appreciation of the skill required to make it. I admire skill when the skill and cleverness used to make a particular object directs our attention to something beyond skill and cleverness, to an aspect of the object that transcends the technique used to make it. However, when how an object is made, when the skill used to make the work, becomes the focus and a source of status I see little to appreciate.

Upon a little more time spent with an object made by an artist people often start becoming engaged in a deeper way. This response, in general terms, is part of a kind of resonance the work has with the viewer’s culture. It is not always obvious how deeply ingrained material culture is. Why people are reacting to an artist made object the way they are may seem mysterious. However, each of us has absorbed countless meanings associated with an incredible variety of objects that we live among. In a way we have been raised by our culture. We may often have an emotional response to certain forms (as in three dimensional shapes) or combinations of forms and materials. Our response may be subtle and easily overlooked at times and profound at others.

As an artist I make cultural artifacts. Part of what I do is to seek cultural resonance. I think in a language of forms and materials but I use my emotions as a kind of detector for this resonance. I explore the culture I’m in, this culture, looking for parts of it that are elemental, shapes and forms that I can use. Arcs that curve a certain way, rectangles of certain proportions, conic sections, polygons, pyramids, columns, globes, and the incredible array of biomorphic shapes of branches, leaves, stems, bone, shell, muscle, the drape of hair across a shoulder. Then there are patterns of organization: linear, circular, random (but not quite), sequential, hierarchical, that shade and color the perception of the elemental forms. Then there are colors! I explore combinations, variations, ways of isolating, ways of highlighting, all in an attempt to create artifacts that ring true within this culture, that resonate with this culture.

It really isn’t hard to determine if an artifact will resonate with this culture, at least with part of this culture (maybe a very small part). All I have to do is listen, very quietly. Sometimes, for example, the ring comes as joy. Joy is one of my most important sensors. Joy is not something I ignore. The joy in working, in making things is very significant. Joy is also a detector, my Geiger counter. It tells me when I am making progress. Progress towards the creation of some small part of our physical culture. And progress in finding that resonance with the broader culture.

A funny thing happens while I’m making something, the thing, the piece starts to assume a kind of autonomy. It’s becoming a discreet object that is part of the culture and I start responding to it differently as it approaches completion. Soon it will be out there, on it’s own, a new artifact. As the object becomes more and more autonomous I become fascinated with the process of making it. My work becomes an ontological exploration as well and I try to learn what I can by doing, testing, modeling, taking notes, pictures, making sketches as I work. I am aware of how what I am doing now in making this artifact will affect how the world interacts with this artifact once it is delivered. Not only the functional role, but the more the intangible interactions. But that’s not all that’s going on.

While I’m working away on a piece, trying to tune my awareness to a cultural resonance and at the same time working out an ontology of creation, sometimes I start slipping into the "groove". The groove is something that is astonishing. If you are in the groove you start feeling excited and relaxed at the same time, your mind starts extrapolating concepts yet you are also very focused. Time flies. The groove is a variation of my joy sensor. Between the two I can really tell if I’m making progress. The groove is a real "here and now" thing. When I’m in the groove I am living in the now, right here, right now.

And this is what existence is. It is here and it is now. From the ontology, the awareness of making from scratch, from raw materials, an artifact slips away into the metaphysics of existence. The act becomes all.

And the act creates the object and the object is what I’m left with.

And then I sell it. I engage in this illuminating cultural exchange of money for object. That exchange is a little whack across my shoulder. A whack to focus my meditations, meditations of action, actions that result in the materialization of these artifacts that I have been making for half of my life now.

The Drawing Board is a web-only column for artists and artisans writing about their craft. Anyone working in or near the Riverwest area can submit their writing. (Send submissions, proposals and inquires to editor@riverwestcurrents.org.) Selected articles may appear in the print edition of the Currents with the approval of the author.