I've been talking alot about where ideas are born with my students. Everyone has ideas, everyone has creative ideas. The first we looked at our fingers and moved them about and watched in amazement we were learning what to make of our ideas. I hear students say 'I don't know if its too weird' or 'I just don't know what I want to do.' I guess I was lucky that way--i never really ever was at a loss for what I wanted to do. At first it was just to explore using a material or a device--what can I do with this? That would lead to learning a little and then realizing I could use it to say something. What alot of people don't realize about me is a lot of my art work is about higher powers. I used to use a light bulb all the time and it was a symbol to me of God. Well that has changed somewhat as has my interpretation of what God is and what is spirit and energy. And what is power. Its easy for me to make the connections in my work because I invented hose connections for myself to use to make my images and to say something. I don't expect everyone to get it, nor do I require everyone to get it. Now in my work the light bulb when I use it means so many things to me that it isn't as simple as saying it represents a higher power. What I have learned about power is that it is relative to a situation. One of my favorite sayings is 'what do you call a leader with no followers? A. Just a guy taking a walk.' So where does an idea come from. Usually it comes from getting interested in something and studying it. For instance a light bulb--what is it. Its a thing, its a devise to brighten if given to electricity, its light, its illuminating, its color, its reflective and its generating....you see if you really start to think about it it has many properties. Then pick a word out of what you've discovered it to be. Lets pick illuminating--what else is illuminating? Scripture? conversation? teachers? Now you can use illuminating to mean something else entirely and use a light bulb as a representation of that part of a thought. I had learned about light being used by master painters in many ways and wanted something more to my time and it developed for me, at first crudely, stumbling and often incoherently, but it grew and grew in me and is still apart of my work in many ways today. And it led to other things, other discoveries, other motifs that I could use to further my visual vocabulary. So now when a new idea comes I am sometimes not even conscious of it at first--sometimes I'm not conscious of it until after I've forgotten how it started. It just builds and grows and becomes something that I work on. And I related it somehow back to other works I've made even when the connection can only be clear in my mind. Today I worked on a piece for a little while before the idea escaped from me. It expanded as I looked up an image for a friend that i made over a year ago and realized it might be what I need to incorporate into this new image. I'm not at all sure if its where I'll take it eventually, but it has opened up my mind to further possibility. It is further evidence to me that I am still working on the same idea that I had 30 years ago, even though its grown and looks a lot different now. Sketch of an idea in progress by Richard Sayer
This might need to be a part of a triptych is what I'm debating now!
This might need to be a part of a triptych is what I'm debating now!