Not to get all Very Special Blossom, here, but it must be noted that the man does the amazing stuff he does after suffering a debilitating stroke — a blow that would have left a lesser person, like myself, feeling very uncreative and very incapable of making 9-foot paintings.

I mean, damn.

But it goes straight to the basic point of the story in my opinion; almost nobody thinks they need a process until they need a process. His process is based heavily on extremely hard, tedious work, but it might be a lot harder to do if he did not have a mature understanding of the help his mind, body, and soul needed to make it go on.

Lies freedom. In an interview I heard with Nick Cave - I think it was on Fresh Air - he talked about how every day he got up, had his coffee, and went to his “office”, sat down at the piano and wrote for eight hours a day. Then when he was finished, he went home to his wife.

He said that though he didn’t write hits all the time, it gave him a deeper understanding of his relationship with himself, his creative process and his art.

I agree that the process is the most important part of creation. It’s not where we go, but how we get there.

This post really resonates with me. For the past 25 years I’ve made a living as a graphic designer. I’ve often joked “I don’t get to have writer’s block.”

I hardly ever get a bolt of inspiration. I’m a plodding designer. But I’ve found that if I just keep putting in time, if I just keep at it, eventually something interesting shows up.

I’ve evolved an incremental way of working that makes the best use of my limited skills, and minimizes my copious shortcomings.

I’ve found that I just need to get something down. Anything. And it’ll suck, but that’s okay. Then I duplicate that page and I make a change to it. Then I duplicate that and make another change. And on and on and on. It’s not unusual for me to have a 100 page InDesign document that yields 4-5 designs that I can show to a client.

I can’t always think of an entirely new design, but I can almost always think of a way to change a design, to make an edit. It’s easier to do a lot of little things rather than one big thing.

The quotes and commentary here really resonated with me, particularly Close’s self-proclaimed laziness and impatience. I love that he takes these shortcomings and works them into a process that sets his work apart. As a budding web designer, I find it’s so hard not to wait around for a muse to strike, or tell yourself that maybe at 3AM you’ll feel more like working. Even though I know that having a process is key, articles like this are great inspiration to keep with it when my motivation is waning. I also love finding a connection with a successful artist working in a different medium - it feels like we’re all going through the same struggles.

Somerset Maugham says, “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” Inspiration is rarely glamorous. craigly’s “plodding designer” word choice is wonderful.

Close’s dedication to process is definitely amazing, not to mention his paintings. But perhaps my favorite thing about Close is that his work still evolves within that process. It doesn’t stay exactly the same, and I think that’s kind of a relief to know that the right structure supports us without limiting our results.

Thanks for a great post on making art and insightful analysis of Close’s process. I’m new to your blog, but enjoying in the past few weeks.

I made humorous contemporary art quilts, and decided to work in that medium, for many of the same reasons that Close works the way he does. Although I’m familar with his art, hadn’t paid much attention to how he makes it — Thanks for drawing my attention to that.

www.pamrubert.com

Ok, so this one tickled me in a slightly different way. CC’s work makes me think about us humans as a collection of cells- teeny, weeny seemingly unrelated blobs that when put together make a remarkably cohesive whole. Then MM’s comments on process of creativity made me think of Neil Stephenson’s Quicksilver and the conversations between Daniel & Leibniz concerning the relationship of mechanical philosophy with free will, ie. if we are no more then a collection of microscopic gears— how can we possess something that transcends the mere physical- thought, awareness, intelligence, creativity, soul, etc.?

Are CC (in his paintings) and MM (with his GTD) really engaged in some deep philosophy…..by breaking things down to their fundamental elements and then rationalizing how they go together?

Anyway thanks for letting me scratch my back up and down your blog, I feel much better.

There are two stories that have always come to mind when I think about this. One about Bob Dylan, I heard from a friend. He said that you HAD to write something everyday. Just stayed at and hung on with his teeth until it came out.

The other is from the book Inside the Music, there was a really great chapter on Iggy Pop. Who said that he did not sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. He chose to spend uninspired time getting drunk with interesting people.

Somewhere between these two methods is the key to happiness and success.

But the method of the artist in this post is probably a better fit for me.

It reminds me of the Noah Kalina video on YouTube, “Everyday,” where he takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years. Each photo is prosaic, but the sum total is a video that is worthy of being viewed millions of times.

Splendid post. Just wanted to chime in with something that Picasso said that also goes in the line with earlier quotes.

He said something like: “You’re not always inspired but it’s a good thing to be working when inspiration hits you.”

I highly recommend Bird by Bird for anyone involved in the creative process. It’s a great book. Glad you mentioned it… it’s time for me to read it again.

Somewhere I heard someone say that because of its length, a Novel cannot be a hobby.

Well, against my resistant nature -I took that advice to heart.

So: I sat down at the same time, listened to the same electronic music, and wrote for 2 hours, ~2k words, every single night.

After about 4 months, I woke up one day with about 400 new pages.

*Not only that, but doing the same thing at the same time every day seemed to prep my brain to think on it and inspirations seemed much easier to come by as a result of conditioning.

?Lightning Bolts from Routine; -who knew?

Right now I’m fighting against being negative and hyperscrutinizing/editing while I’m supposed to be writing.

So for my part: Routine is Your Friend.

I love the pictures of this post, which artist made it ? I’d love to have a poster of it !

The Art Institute of Chicago’s collection has a few of the huge photo-realistic paintings of the late 70’s, they amazed me then and will always be considered to be modern classics. However I am distressed by his quote about inspiration, Chuck Close’s content has not changed in 30 years, only his technique has. The mysteries & struggles of the person portrayed are lost in his technique, the subject of the portraits are secondary. By the same measure Warhol was a preeminent portraitist as well.

I recently went to an exhibit here in Seattle of his print work, most of the images were variations of work I have seen many times before. There was nothing new there for my eye, just further variations of familiar refrains in large editions.

I understand the thrust if the post being that incremental work adds up to big things, but I also think Art should be about inspirations. I am not trying to diminish Close’s work or his triumph over his life threatening health issue. I am trying to balance the linear GTD commercial work ethic with a dash of epiphany and unconventional and non-commoditized thinking. There is more to Art than process and it can be conveyed in an instant.