Social Isolation: Clara Lieu

Posted: March 30th, 2011 | Author: Lance Hewison | Filed under: Drawing, Mixed-Media, Printmaking | Tags: art blog, contemporary art, intaglio, monotype, printmaking, visual art | No Comments »

When I visit your site, and particularly your blog, I get very inspired by your methods of working. You continually push your images and chronicle both your successes and failed attempts. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a lot of artists put up a stoical front that they are always in control. Do you get this sense, or do you think artists are generally open about the moments where everything seems to conspire against them?

In general the majority of artists don’t communicate the various trials that the creative process puts them through. Let’s face it: it’s not glamorous most of the time to talk about what happens behind the scenes, which can frequently be a tedious and frustrating process. I would estimate that out of all the work I do, only about 50% of it is actually worth looking at, and only about 10% of that is really strong work; that makes for a lot of failed attempts.

You are very generous in terms of sharing your sources of inspiration and your works in progress. Why do you feel you are so vocal with this, as opposed to keeping your methods and references more secretive?

I’m open about my process because I’m also a professor. For me both roles are closely intertwined, and so I view any creative experience that I have as being pertinent to my current and past students. The fact that it’s me, someone they know in person (as opposed to studying a historical artist from a book) is important because it makes the creative process real in today’s context.

Another reason I carefully document my process is the fact that my blog is a structure that keeps me focused and on track. When I have to verbalize my process in a blog post, it forces me to clarify and reflect upon exactly what I’m doing; it’s a method of self-analysis that I find to be essential to what I do.