What does it mean to be a process-driven artist?

I’ll be honest: I think every artist has a different answer to that question, and even a different definition of what process-driven artist means.

My partner Ricki is a poet. A published poet, even. In her newsletter, she talks often about the Work. In writing, the Work is more than just the physical (and mental) act of writing, although it includes the scribbling and typing, the revising and editing, and all those steps you may remember from English class.

The Work is always happening, and this holds true for visual artists as well as for writers. When Ricki talks, er, writes about the Work, they are referring to the writing they consume (of any genre), the art they consume and share with others, their political praxis, the noodling their brain is always always always doing.

Intentional Living is the Work.

What does this look like for me, a visual artist, former reading and English teacher, disabled queer person who is also a caregiver, auntie, and partner?

Well, I am so glad you asked.

When I was working on Bear Country, it looked like collecting a stack of Berenstain Bear books, and then finding a character who was queer coded in one book, and a sign that said “Closet Open at Your Own Risk” in another book, and the serendipity of putting those two illustrations together into a single painting.

This week, the Work looked like going to my part-time job at grain inspection, listening to the playlist I have curated specifically for my current body of work, and letting my brain magically resolve a problem in a painting in the background of my thinking while my active brain was doing inspection paperwork on that day’s sunflower samples. No joke.

Was it actually magical? No. It only happened because of the Work. I have put together that themed playlist over several months, and listened to it somewhere between 50 and 100 times (I can’t actually find the stats in my music app). I have taken notes on which lyrics feel like good painting titles. I have digested several movies, some poetry, a Shakespeare play, and quite a bit of visual art all connected to my body of work. I collected collage materials, built a color palette, painted underlayers, sketched and doodled. I started thinking about this last summer (July 2023). So when I got stuck, instead of pushing, I just took a step back and let my brain noodle noodle noodle.

So what does it look like to be a process-driven artist? Well, in my case, it looks a little like chaos, a lot like ADHD, and a medium amount of me listening to the same songs over and over while I look at half-finished paintings. And sometimes it looks like me sitting at a computer in a grain inspection building and suddenly grabbing my pen to excitedly scribble down “collage seaweed hair” in my notebook.

Intentional action — with a side of serendipity — is the Work.