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Oct. 5th, 2008 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseSo, I'm back from the conference. Things went well - okay, except maybe for the bit about turning into an alley between bars and catching a couple very much mid-act. Then again, had I been alone, i would have noticed and passed on -- one of the other girls, however, decided to breeze right by.
Which really doesn't make it sounds like a mostly staid and quiet group, mostly staid and quiet lectures (except for the one very entertaining speaker, who also did one of the demos), some highly entertaining demos, tons upon tons of artwork of varying amounts of accessibility, talent, beauty, and depth, and only one actual bar trip (And that one by a rather small minority of the conference-goers - all Winnipeggers, but not even all of those. There was talk at one point abut finding a karaoke bar, too, but not enough momentum to get out the door. There was no end of drinking or other minor partying over dinner, in the hotel rooms, at the two different gallery receptions) I sketched three pages worth of ideas (A series of body-language doodles, a thorn-laden unicorn, a few henna-inspired details for a current project).
I also got 2875 words on Soldier of the Road, the brand-new scene that I mentioned was nagging me a few weeks ago, and a handful of paragraphs or edits on other projects (Which brings us back to Dana is Love, at least for first drafts; it's a bugger to edit on the thing.)
I did not, alas, bring a camera. Or the Angry Chicken; I practiced Thursday morning, before we left, and will do so tonight until I am absolutely sure that tomorrow's practice will be utterly painful (This, alas, is strategy and necessity combined, not masochism. My masochistic tendencies are more along the lines of writing and making art in the first place.)
____________________________
I also got to thinking about creative processes. I get involved in so many of them.
I've discussed before how my fascination with story intersects with my desire to sing songs, (And why I choose to listen to some of the songs and genres I do) and why so many of the songs I sing have at minimum an implicit story within. Obviously, this connection to story is also directly linked to my decision to write. (I think my desire to learn to play *an* instrument is directly linked to the desire for accurate closure, as well as pleasant accompaniment, but is also related to the pattern-making impulse that causes me to do the repeating-design pots with more than one pattern as basis.)
However, the stories I write are pretty much always fantasy, and when they aren't, they're bad science fiction. And this links to the visual medium, of all things.
I do two types of pottery: Figure work and pots; the pots are also split down, into those decorated only with glaze, and those elaborated either with repeating patterns (Like the spirals and triskells on the mitosis cups), or strong iconic images.
For now it's best to leave out the aspects of creating pots that feel like either meditation or like playing with mud.
The reason I do the figurative work I do is because I feel that there are things - almost, but not actually stories - best shown by such a thing. The mermaid more than the others exemplifies this, since some of the thoughts that went into her are on strong political and social memes (Though not everyone sees them, nor should they.) Nessie is more subtle about the politics therein, though i could probably write a rather dry essay on cultural appropriation, cultural identity, and cross-pollination. It was more fun to make Nessie. Fetch, the gryphon, is all about protectiveness, a figure meant to guard a house and yet evoke something domestic, not demon or gargoyle.
The thing is, I didn't decide to tackle gender, sexuality, race relations, cultural appropriation, or even just revisioning the cliche, by doing a piece about 1950's advertisements, Old West cowgirls, or romantic comedy movies. I did it via a mermaid. A classic fantasy-world image.
The fact that I used a fantasy figure with all its particular baggage does mean some people won't see some of what's going on, not simply because it's not how their mind works, but because the words "fantasy figurine" immediately evokes images without thought.
Similarly, when I write complex relations into my stories, they will be missed by some in the rush of selkies and ghosts, sorceresses and greatsword-wielding Princes.
Some of this falls into the Steven Brust "cool stuff" theory of writing; I use these things because I find them "cool". I can't help thinking there has to be slightly more than "taste" or "coolness" involved in why fantasy images ring for me while mysteries, which I enjoy reading, or naturalists' diaries and nature books, which I still like but once loved as much as fantasies), don't appeal to me to write unless they also contain a wealth of magic. Especially when the magic can be startlingly subtle in its insertion (See Swordspoint, where there is NO magic in the book, but I never once doubted it existed in the world, just more placidly than in many fantasy universes. Or Freedom and Necessity, where it's essential but very background.)
Is it possible to pinpoint the traits in fantasy that pull me that way, so that even as I urgently want to re-vision everything to be fresh and not the traditional dragon or the cliche unicorn (Or the traditional quest story or cod-medieval setting - or, if so, to be so to critique, subvert, undermine, and reconsider.) I still insist on fantasy, usually high fantasy. Or on fantasy images.
I can think of a few; Pattern making (including dedication to closure or re-connection with the opening, symmetry, the application of smaller, simpler patterns to create a larger, far more complex one). Certain aesthetic qualities - beauty, texture, etc. - that come together there, but only appear in part in the other areas that interest me. The ability, not to do without rules (Anyone who says fantasy has none either doesn't read it and assumes, or doesn't read thinkingly), but to choose the rules yourself, based on real world precedents or future possibilities, or impossibilities we have wished for to save us from having to wait for the bus in the rain/work a day job/remain a peasant in a world where class matters.
And yet... somehow that misses the point. Or fails to mention one.
So these thoughts go nowhere, as yet. But if they stir your thoughts, let me know. I have to go practice mandolin till my fingers hurt.
Which really doesn't make it sounds like a mostly staid and quiet group, mostly staid and quiet lectures (except for the one very entertaining speaker, who also did one of the demos), some highly entertaining demos, tons upon tons of artwork of varying amounts of accessibility, talent, beauty, and depth, and only one actual bar trip (And that one by a rather small minority of the conference-goers - all Winnipeggers, but not even all of those. There was talk at one point abut finding a karaoke bar, too, but not enough momentum to get out the door. There was no end of drinking or other minor partying over dinner, in the hotel rooms, at the two different gallery receptions) I sketched three pages worth of ideas (A series of body-language doodles, a thorn-laden unicorn, a few henna-inspired details for a current project).
I also got 2875 words on Soldier of the Road, the brand-new scene that I mentioned was nagging me a few weeks ago, and a handful of paragraphs or edits on other projects (Which brings us back to Dana is Love, at least for first drafts; it's a bugger to edit on the thing.)
I did not, alas, bring a camera. Or the Angry Chicken; I practiced Thursday morning, before we left, and will do so tonight until I am absolutely sure that tomorrow's practice will be utterly painful (This, alas, is strategy and necessity combined, not masochism. My masochistic tendencies are more along the lines of writing and making art in the first place.)
____________________________
I also got to thinking about creative processes. I get involved in so many of them.
I've discussed before how my fascination with story intersects with my desire to sing songs, (And why I choose to listen to some of the songs and genres I do) and why so many of the songs I sing have at minimum an implicit story within. Obviously, this connection to story is also directly linked to my decision to write. (I think my desire to learn to play *an* instrument is directly linked to the desire for accurate closure, as well as pleasant accompaniment, but is also related to the pattern-making impulse that causes me to do the repeating-design pots with more than one pattern as basis.)
However, the stories I write are pretty much always fantasy, and when they aren't, they're bad science fiction. And this links to the visual medium, of all things.
I do two types of pottery: Figure work and pots; the pots are also split down, into those decorated only with glaze, and those elaborated either with repeating patterns (Like the spirals and triskells on the mitosis cups), or strong iconic images.
For now it's best to leave out the aspects of creating pots that feel like either meditation or like playing with mud.
The reason I do the figurative work I do is because I feel that there are things - almost, but not actually stories - best shown by such a thing. The mermaid more than the others exemplifies this, since some of the thoughts that went into her are on strong political and social memes (Though not everyone sees them, nor should they.) Nessie is more subtle about the politics therein, though i could probably write a rather dry essay on cultural appropriation, cultural identity, and cross-pollination. It was more fun to make Nessie. Fetch, the gryphon, is all about protectiveness, a figure meant to guard a house and yet evoke something domestic, not demon or gargoyle.
The thing is, I didn't decide to tackle gender, sexuality, race relations, cultural appropriation, or even just revisioning the cliche, by doing a piece about 1950's advertisements, Old West cowgirls, or romantic comedy movies. I did it via a mermaid. A classic fantasy-world image.
The fact that I used a fantasy figure with all its particular baggage does mean some people won't see some of what's going on, not simply because it's not how their mind works, but because the words "fantasy figurine" immediately evokes images without thought.
Similarly, when I write complex relations into my stories, they will be missed by some in the rush of selkies and ghosts, sorceresses and greatsword-wielding Princes.
Some of this falls into the Steven Brust "cool stuff" theory of writing; I use these things because I find them "cool". I can't help thinking there has to be slightly more than "taste" or "coolness" involved in why fantasy images ring for me while mysteries, which I enjoy reading, or naturalists' diaries and nature books, which I still like but once loved as much as fantasies), don't appeal to me to write unless they also contain a wealth of magic. Especially when the magic can be startlingly subtle in its insertion (See Swordspoint, where there is NO magic in the book, but I never once doubted it existed in the world, just more placidly than in many fantasy universes. Or Freedom and Necessity, where it's essential but very background.)
Is it possible to pinpoint the traits in fantasy that pull me that way, so that even as I urgently want to re-vision everything to be fresh and not the traditional dragon or the cliche unicorn (Or the traditional quest story or cod-medieval setting - or, if so, to be so to critique, subvert, undermine, and reconsider.) I still insist on fantasy, usually high fantasy. Or on fantasy images.
I can think of a few; Pattern making (including dedication to closure or re-connection with the opening, symmetry, the application of smaller, simpler patterns to create a larger, far more complex one). Certain aesthetic qualities - beauty, texture, etc. - that come together there, but only appear in part in the other areas that interest me. The ability, not to do without rules (Anyone who says fantasy has none either doesn't read it and assumes, or doesn't read thinkingly), but to choose the rules yourself, based on real world precedents or future possibilities, or impossibilities we have wished for to save us from having to wait for the bus in the rain/work a day job/remain a peasant in a world where class matters.
And yet... somehow that misses the point. Or fails to mention one.
So these thoughts go nowhere, as yet. But if they stir your thoughts, let me know. I have to go practice mandolin till my fingers hurt.
