The Working Artist

Artist The Working

Don’t expect a breakthrough after every picture you make. Real progress only happens if you work at it, says our columnist LAURA BOSWELL

Since you’ve been making art, have you ever had a moment when your work has taken a leap forward? A time when something clicks and suddenly you have a creative change for the better? If I look back on the last 16 years of my printmaking career, I can point to specific moments when I can see sudden innovation has occurred. While it is impossible to engineer such magic, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances of a creative breakthrough.

Firstly, don’t expect them every day. While we all hope such developments will be a regular occurrence, it is unrealistic to hope they will happen frequently. For the most part an artist’s career is one of linear progress. The more experience and skills you gain, the better you become at expressing your individuality and making work. For working artists particularly, it makes sense that their portfolio will reflect a steady progress of developing ideas and skill. However, this doesn’t mean sticking to one technique, subject or medium – and it certainly doesn’t mean missing out on taking advantage of creative leaps forward.

Breakthroughs will find you… The more you work, the more likely you are to get lucky

Breakthrough moments will find you working. It sounds obvious, but the more you work, the more likely you are to get lucky. I use this as motivation when I have a spell of creative block: remembering that you could hit the jackpot with the next random sketch is a great reason to get going. Speaking of random sketches, hang on to them. One of my best breakthroughs came with a set of prints made from sketches that were several years old. Sometimes ideas take a while to mature and rise to the surface.

Be prepared to be uncomfortable; a breakthrough is far more likely when you are working outside your comfort zone on a regular basis. This means accepting that there will be failures, with plenty of ideas and images abandoned along the way. If you see your art in terms of a constant upward curve of your individual creativity, rather than focusing on each piece as an end in itself, it is easier to accept that risk taking comes with the territory – and why it is a positive for your work.

Lastly, always go with your gut feeling and follow your enthusiasm. Your ideas may seem counterintuitive but feel irresistibly right. In my experience that reckless move might just be the very thing. I always gamble when this happens in the hope of a win. www.lauraboswell.co.uk

TOP Laura Boswell, Skye to the Mainland, linocut, 46x73cm