For as long as I can remember I have been drawn to process. As a child, the process of doing, problem solving and play. Once a process was performed and understood I lost interest and moved on to another. As a young adult, my fascination with process became about pushing a process in a new direction. In college, I was a photo lab nerd, I used alternative emulsion processes and fixed them onto materials for which they weren’t intended, like screens, wood, woven objects. My processes were often unsuccessful, but they led to a deeper understanding. I also used traditional fiber methods to create three-dimensional abstract objects. The processing of the wool from the sheep to the loom and object became a bit of an obsession. As a teacher, the learning process became paramount. How do you go about teaching a specific set of skills? How do you teach problem solving? How do teach about the art making process, from idea, to fruition? How do you teach higher order thinking with 5 year olds? These are the processes which have occupied the majority of my adult life. In the past few years, I have returned to my own creative process. I learned to knit in 2006, but the process of making wearable pieces did not satisfy me for very long. I soon began to push the process a bit farther. Altering patterns, inventing my own patters and designs.I made my first knit “painting” in 2012.For the first experiment I used left over yarn and random colors. That led to a larger piece which adhered to a specific color scheme. As I created more “paintings” I refined my process further. Larger pieces, planned pieces, more complex interactions within the image. I began to move my painting out from the canvas to invade the third dimension. My works began to drip and jump off of the canvas and grow into or out of the wall. I combined painting with the knitting and minimized the use of the canvas. With each experiment my process matured and showed more purpose and meaning. The series “thought”, begun in 2016, shows my thinking both in the creative process and the emotional process. This series is on-going, composed of 5 pieces thus far. Each one more dynamic than the last. I intend to continue this series, as my thought process evolves, during my pursuit of a Masters of Fine Art. I hope to learn new processes to meld into my own. I yearn to be in a community of artists. Artists who are processing their own ideas and, through intensive dialogue and collaboration, be a part of mine. I look forward top being in an environment where I can grow and develop my own thinking and art-making. I want to shift the focus of my work from my own internal processes to those of modern society. I hope to engage with a larger community through both art making and cultural interconnection. My goal, in pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts degree, is to enlarge my practice in connecting with communities of all kinds, in order to make art which more completely reflects the human experience. I will be pursuing my interest in processes and finding new ways to integrate them with the modern cultural processes. The MFA is a stepping stone on a path of life-long learning and creating.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorEmily Elliott is a driven art educator with twenty years of experience. She has taught all levels, from infant to adult, in subjects ranging from rock climbing to health to fiber art. She considers herself a teacher first and an art specialist second. Emily holds a B.S. in Art Education from Kutztown University. She is in the MFA in Socially Engaged Art program, where she is focusing on teaching as an artistic practice. Archives
October 2020
Categories |