Foraging: A Maker’s Point of View
By Sidne Teske
I‘m in my studio waiting for a stroke of genius, a lightning bolt of writing brilliance.
I have written and revised this essay about 10 times so far and have yet to come up with anything worth anyone’s time to read it.
It just dawned on me that all this writing and revising is similar in a way to how I make art. Not just in the making, destroying, and remaking. I’m talking about the actual process of making.
It all comes down to the search, and then beginning.
The act of searching is rather intriguing. There is an element of foreknowledge. We kind of know what we want and think we will recognize it when we find it. But we have to look for whatever it is.
Usually when I am able to paint on location I just go somewhere, set up my easel, and challenge myself to make something reasonable out of what I see. I look, evaluate my view, and place my choices on my support. I spend the next few hours searching through hundreds of sticks of pastels trying to decide which few will serve me best.
Sometimes I paint with watercolors. Sometimes I don’t paint at all but work in metals or wood. I am constantly in a search to find how best to say whatever it is I want to say, in whatever medium.
During the early part of the shutdown I was invited to participate in Gail Rappa’s Shelter In Place project (Creative Contact: Shelter In Place by Gail Rappa, Sept. 21, 2020). I am SO not a jeweler, but I really enjoy working with metals.
The whole process of fabricating out of metals is pretty foreign to me. I mean, you have to know exactly what you want to end up with before you even start. And you need to know a lot to be able to change course when you blow it. I was pretty sure I’d be able to make a book. But it took a lot of thinking, re-thinking, drawing, and research to finally get it right. My end product is not at all what I started out to make.
After much hunting I found a quote from G.K. Chesterton I thought pertinent. Using items from the packet Gail sent me I made a 2 ½”x 2 ½” book out of copper, brass, aluminum, and silver that in my eyes illustrated her concept. The quote is: “Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.” Fairy tales are not just stories, they are stories that teach. I was thinking of the COVID-19 virus as a dragon. The title of my book is Fairy Tales.
All original artwork/Sidne Teske.
I have also been participating in Nevada Humanities’ Postcard Project (Nevada: PS I Love You). I had heard about it and thought it would be fun to do one or two, be part of a collaboration. I contacted the Program Manager, Bobbie Ann Howell, and asked for some blanks and a template. The packet I received had way more than one or two postcards. I have spent most of a year (not every day) working on the cards. I usually work entirely on location but for whatever reason I couldn’t get out every day. I ended up mining the files of photos I have taken of different places in Nevada, referencing those for a few of Bobbie Ann’s postcards.
All but one of the shows that had been scheduled for me for 2020 and 2021 ended up being cancelled. One rescheduled show has been cancelled again and will be re-rescheduled at some unnamed date. I am finding that Instagram is a pretty easy way to let people know I am still working, even if it is on projects unrelated to what they are used to from me. I have been practicing my Instagram skills by posting these cards. I did finally finish the project and sent the batch to Bobbie Ann. She will decide who receives the postcards, and off they will go.
During this whole period of COVID-19 I have been working on refining a picture book I am writing and illustrating. Because I have no formal art training I rely heavily on my critique group buddies for honest appraisal of what I make. We meet virtually via Zoom every couple of weeks. This group of articulate, knowledgeable, kind people has been such a boon. Their honesty in evaluating work gracefully makes all the revisions of illustrations and writing much easier. They always have wonderful suggestions of master texts to look up and study. I am getting the benefit of their educations. Hopefully it is showing up in the illustrations I make.
In June I held an Open Studio in conjunction with the “Tuscarora Pottery School Experience,” which was quite successful. That was the first open studio I have had for quite a while. It was lovely to see people in person, have conversations, and have my work seen in a somewhat formal context. But my search goes on for venues to show work.
Throughout this whole period my partner has been positive and supportive of all my efforts. He has taken the brunt of my workaholic approach to life, the hours spent being mentally if not physically in another place. I am grateful.
There is research for an idea that I came up with. There is the amount of time spent just thinking, trying to come up with an idea in the first place. Deciding on which materials to use, coming up with and discarding ideas about how to use those materials. Working and reworking after I commit to a project. Working for hours at a stretch without a break. None of that changed for me during COVID-19.
I think the major change was in the amount of time I spent on my computer doing things that I had done in person before the shutdown. I couldn’t go to the library. I couldn’t go ask for help in person. I couldn’t go to a store. I had to go down many wormholes online to find what I needed and then put that to use. I had to make the best of what I could scrounge up. And without my privilege (computer, internet, ability to read, and the pillar of my partner) I might have made a bigger mess of it.
I can’t say that the shutdown has changed my work very much. I decided early on that I wasn’t going to focus on making huge political statements. There are so many artists out there who are much better able to express those thoughts. I wanted to make beautiful things in a world that was starting to look pretty scary. I still want to make beautiful things. It all comes down to the search and then beginning.
And I am still waiting for that lightning bolt.
Sidne Teske is a self-taught pastel painter, who makes plein aire landscapes as well as large studio pieces. She often sketches with watercolor when out in the field. And to change things up a bit she also makes books out of found objects such as broken musical instruments, and translates her love of petroglyphs into furniture.
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