Following the threads

Last week I wrote about my craving for immediacy in my work — a desire to move away from slow, layered building and into something more raw, more direct, more emotionally alive.

This week, I’ve been following that impulse wherever it leads — which, as always, means one thing: experiments.

I love to get into my studio and work on open-ended trials and messy play, where I try a thing and then respond to whatever it gives me. One small idea leads to the next, and then the next. Not all of them are good. Not all of them are even useful. But together, they help me feel my way into something new.

This way of working hasn't always been easy for me - I tend to be very results-oriented in most walks of life, and i have to consciously leave that behind when I get into my studio. This is SO important, because a focus on results almost always results in creative failure. making art isn't something that responds to trying ... creativity thrives in an atmosphere of freedom and complete lack of pressure.

Here’s a peek at what I’ve been exploring:

I started by playing with monoprinting on a gelli plate, trying to freeze some of my more intuitive, gestural marks onto paper. The beauty of this method is that it captures energy — the kind you can’t quite replicate with a brush. Those printed papers are now becoming raw material for collage, and they carry a life of their own. The challenge is that when I come to place them into a painting, I use my thinking mind and this can sometimes get me in trouble.

To combat this I tried monoprinting directly onto my substrate, cutting out the gelli plate, but the moment I started tidying the mess it created, I got far too into my head. I could feel the spontaneity drain out of the work. It became about “fixing” instead of following. And that’s always a red flag for me. 

Maybe my most successful experiment was when I rolled out a huge piece of paper (perhaps 7 feet wide). I taped the paper off into eight smaller squares and painted across the entire surface, treating it as one big painting. Because I couldn’t clearly see the edges of each individual square, I found myself less self-conscious, less “precious.” The result was surprising — full of energy and freedom.

I’m now wondering: What if I did this on wood panels? What if I hunge 8 panels with no gaps between them and then painted on them as if they were one giant piece? I could then separate them later to discover unexpected compositions? This idea has a lot of creative charge for me, and I’ll definitely be pushing it further.

So what comes next? What I’m most excited about is:

Creating expressive collage papers through printing and mark-making and then finding ways to use them that retain the freshness.

Working across even larger areas of paper, then cutting the paper down into smaller, surprising compositions.

These are the threads I’m following next. I have no idea where they'll lead and that's the magic of it.

This kind of process — open, playful, responsive — is at the heart of what I believe makes art-making so rich. It’s also something we’ll be exploring together in Art Tribe this July, with a brand-new class all about my search for a new process.

If you’re a member, look out for that on July 7th — and if you’re not yet inside, I’d still encourage you to set aside time this week to experiment, with no thought of a result.

Try something unfamiliar. Mix your materials. Work across a big surface. Ruin a few things. Then step back and ask: What surprised me? What pulled me in? What’s asking to be followed?

You don’t need a plan. You just need to follow the energy - what makes you feel curious? What sparks more questions? What would you like to do next? When you work this way, each experiment generates more of these ideas and more of these questions. 

So what's the question you've had in mind? What's the thing you've been dying to explore? There's no better time than right now :)