I am in the middle of working on two large custom pieces, so I am working one week on and one week off each one. This means I’m not drawing much from my own work, but I am still studying for future pieces. This can get a little weird. I am used to completely dedicating myself to one piece at a time and to one field of research. Currently, my study ranges from quantum entanglement to action potentials of muscle cells, plus my own research into the human brain. (It sounds more complicated than it is). I am finding that when I reintroduce myself to a field I haven’t been studying for a while, I have to give myself a refresher. There’s all this information I’ve already read that I seem to have forgotten! And it hasn’t even been that long since I was reading it!

Why is that?

I’ve noticed that any information that I have already incorporated into an art piece, I retain a firm grasp on (at least I think I do), however the data I haven’t used yet seems to be a bit hit or miss as to whether or not I still remember or understand it. A lot of it is still there, but it takes a lot more work to bring it back up to the forefront of my mind. I thought back on any mathy sciency stuff I have studied over the past couple of years and realized that anything I incorporated into a piece of artwork holds a realness today that the other research just doesn’t have. It’s been sustained.

When I noticed this, I immediately wanted to rush back to my school days and tell myself to paint something after or during everything I learned. To capture it in a drawing or a statue. The drawing wouldn’t “mean” what I learned, but it would somehow represent it, or reference it. Whenever I looked at it, I would know that it came from learning about calculating the area of a triangle or turning points in the civil war. No one else would really have any idea of the connection unless I made it obvious, but for me, it would always be there, living in my art. This would mean that remembering all those hours of study wouldn’t be left completely to chance. I would walk out of school with a gallery of my studies. With solid and very real representations of my academic journey. I think I did that to a degree. I doodled constantly and every now and then I’d offer a teacher a painting for extra credit based on the work, but I think you can do more with it.

Kids tend to dig creating. Why not let them? Why not support them creating something in connection with their study? You don’t have to limit this to drawing, you can easily do the same thing with music, film or literature….

For instance, all of the data in the image below is just floating around with nowhere to go. When I finally get to draw it, I really do think it will stick around, if not forever, than a lot longer than if it just lives in this form. My work is a bit more direct with it’s connection to the data, but I don’t think you necessarily need to draw with formulas for this to work.

Just thought I’d mention that. Back to work now.