Thursday, August 12, 2021

mise en place all over the place–mini 1000 - 05

This subject keeps popping up with friends and strangers so I've decided to give it some space. The conversation is about how we take our ideas and turn them into art or literature or food or whatever creative expression we choose.

For many years (until his deserved #MeToo fall from grace) I listened to Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac." I did love his baritone rendition of beautiful poems but the main appeal was listening to him talk about great writers. Mostly, about the how they did what they did. There were writers who wrote books in frenzied 3-month jaunts. There were writers who only worked at night. There were others who wrote only on weekdays from 6am to 2pm and then stopped to have tea and play chess every day. There were as many approaches to writing as there were writers.

I love learning about process. What motivates an artist? What daily rhythms create sympathetic vibrations with their craft? What timing or settings help propel them? How do they approach the execution of their art? What do they do when they can't get there? What does it feel like when the struggle (finally) yields a perfect sentence?

My creative process can be fundamentally split into three parts. The first is about inspiration. You read something or have a conversation or have an experience that takes your breath away. Then, there’s the exciting idea-explosion part. How do you take inspiration and craft it into something that captures that feeling? Finally, there's the execution. The technical crafting of a thing.

(Incidentally, this is seldom a linear experience. You could collide with, trip over or have any one of these parts settle into your lap in any order. Like when some random material trips a switch before you've even decided to create something. Or when the need to put pen to paper whets your hunger and the inspiration follows. And sometimes, the execution takes you to places you had never planned to go.)

For those of us driven to make, write or express, this shit will not be silenced. There's this itch. There's this tickle. To take an idea and breathe life into it through whatever art language you speak. To find an angle, to find a light that makes even the familiar sparkle again. The first two parts, inspiration and brainstorming are usually seen as the creative parts. What will this look like? How will it feel? But right now, I want to talk about the last part. Execution. Often seen as the tedious and deep-in-the-muck phase.

When I am designing a thing or when I am preparing to write, I am also thinking about how it will come together. I’ll use the example of a piece I did for my house because it's easier for me to talk about the creative process as it applies to a tangible piece of art. But the principles apply to writing an essay, baking a cake, building a table or knitting a shawl.

I made this mosaic backsplash for my new kitchen:

Above: The backsplash before range and exhaust fan were installed.

For months before I started the piece, I poured over patterns and colors before I settled on this (uncharacteristically whimsical) trompe l'oeil style. I imagined how it would integrate into the wall. I daydreamed about seeing it every time I used the range. I asked questions and tapped the expertise of friends. Then, I cobbled together lots of images and drew others myself
into a 3' x 4' layout. Finally, I began the actual building of the piece. I just had to get started, mistakes be damned.

Aside: I had always thought of myself as chaotic and unorganized. As a kid, I was a mess of sagging socks, misbuttoned coats and creased paperwork crammed haphazardly into every container. As I've gotten older, and according to my friends, I'm not only not disorganized, I'm Sister Attention to Detail. I'm over-the-top about precision. (Which, I cannot emphasize strongly enough, has nothing to do with creativity--it's just a personality tic.) I have learned to tame the chaos I used to live in for one reason only: so I can do more creative work. Chaos got in my way. Chaos meant I couldn't find my tools. Chaos meant that shit got dirty that wasn't supposed to be dirty. Chaos was a fucking roadblock.


Anyway, I embraced the process of getting things done as an art form of its own. There was beauty in the engineering of this piece.

Which brings me to the mise en place part of our show. When professional cooks prepare meals, they get everything they need ready: garlic minced, liquids measured, root vegetables diced, dry ingredients weighed, spices arranged in small bowls, etc. This part can be tedious as hell, and if you don’t have the time and guests are coming over, frenetic. But, when you spend the time setting up the bits, the actual cooking part is a pleasure. You can pay attention to how quickly the meat is cooking, rather than racing around trying to find the next ingredient. You can focus on folding ingredients together rather than look for the right spatula while your egg whites deflate.

When I constructed this mosaic, I used the same approach.
The tiles all had to be sawed into the same size tesserae. The matching cut tiles were organized in trays which made hunting for the right color and size unnecessary. The shelves with tools were arranged so that if I needed to change a broken saw blade or grind down a jagged edge, I'd just have to reach over to grab it. Extra glue and bottles of water (to keep the saw/grinder cool) had their place. Wrenches to change out grinding bits and tweezers for picking up the little weird-shaped tiles were lined up and accessible. Ditto safety goggles and rags. 

I taped down my image, overlaid it with a large mesh fabric grid to which I would glue hundreds of small square ceramic tiles. I would need to custom cut and grind the edges of additional shapes. Before I started installing the small tiles, however, I would need to cut away the larger, background subway tiles so the image would look like it was integrated into the wall. I approached each step as its own project with specific tools and materials. (If I looked at the whole, it was too overwhelming.) And while most of it was technical, there were times that creative solutions were needed to deal with an unexpected challenge. For example, I cut down standard square and rectangle ceramic tiles so I ended up with many sloped edge pieces. I found that some of the shapes (like the kettle handle and knife edges) worked well with placing all the sloped tiles in the same direction.

All in all, the prep made the actual doing seamless and enjoyable. For the most part!

If you don’t like the tedious or don’t have the patience for what some people find mad boring, then don’t do this kind of work! Use a more freeform style or choose a variety of mosaic stones so uniformity is not a component of your piece.

I’ve never gotten into yoga. Or meditation. They feel like a waste of time. But when I settle into a repetitious process that builds something beautiful, it feels like what others say meditation and yoga feel like. Grounding. Calming. Peaceful.

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