Process; thinking through

Customarily, in a gallery setting, audiences are treated to the pristine and accomplished results of an artist’s efforts. What isn’t typically shown is the journey from concept to completion. An artist’s process can be a long and winding road, sometimes it’s smooth, sometimes it’s bumpy and can take him/her in unexpected ways. The Alberta Craft Council’s exhibition, Process; thinking through, provides insight into the complex and multi-layered methods of how artists work and create while nurturing the organic nature of creativity.

Process is an essential element for craft artists as creating entails multiple material and technical knowledge, the use of specific tools, as well as steps and processes that must be followed for the material to properly work. When these inter-relate with idea generation, development, experimentation, and testing, then are combined with marketing, education, and networking, they contribute to the evolution of a body of work and career. Some processes have logical beginnings and conclusions while others are continuous.

Communicating the many aspects of process can become important points of understanding and appreciation, for colleagues, supporters, customers, collectors, media, and the public at large. Ideas of process and the breadth of their possibility can become popular and compelling conversation for both artists and their followers.

“As Kevin Ashton discusses in his book, How to Fly a Horse, ‘New things don’t flow finished into the world.’ My work usually starts as a simple idea followed by thinking and rethinking, false starts, tears and swearing before I have a finished piece. Then the process continues as I discover new directions I wish to explore while keeping the same core idea.” - SUZETTE KNUDSEN

“Working intuitively through a series of trial and error configurations, I explore, seeking the arrangement that allows the work to become complete. My knowledge of the materials gives me a fluency that allows me the freedom to investigate ideas through the combination of metal and enamel to achieve the ambiguous and expressive material qualities I seek.” - JAN SMITH

“My work is the product of using complete control and using the relinquishment of that control. Many ceramicists know that the kiln often speaks the last word about the work that it galvanizes. With the process that I employ, I willingly ask the kiln to be the final tool that works on my sculptures: it is not only the author of the heat which vitrifies the works, but is the last element that bends and shapes my sculptures. However, this process can be described from the very first step.” - JOCELYN REID

“Works of art that are considered ‘in progress’ and yet are displayed in renowned museums are more memorable to me, as an artist, than those that are considered complete because we get to glimpse at the processes of masters.” - BRENDA RAYNARD

Participating artists: Carissa Baktay (Calgary), Donna Brunner (Westerose), Anna BurgerMartindale (Calgary), Milt Fischbein (Calgary), Pamma FitzGerald (Calgary), Terry Hildebrand (Edmonton), Suzette Knudsen (Calgary), Brenda Raynard (Edmonton), Jocelyn Reid (Calgary), Dana Roman (Canmore), Katherine Russell (Elkford, BC), Jan Smith (Salt Spring Island, BC), Andrew Tarrant (Calgary), Catherine Thomson (Victoria, BC), Luke Weiser (Calgary), Amanda Wood (Vancouver), and Simon Wroot (Calgary)