When I begin a piece of final art, I begin with ritual. I pull and cut a fresh piece of watercolour paper, at the same time, I’m reminded of who and what had to happen to make this object – the cotton growers, the pulpers, the factories, the pressers – so that I could use it to make the work I’m about to make. I clean and fill water buckets, select the brushes I know I’ll need to use, prepare lighting, make the first marks on paper – the crop marks – all before the final act of art making. I know that once this ritual begins, I’m committed for at least 4 hours to the continual shaping and making of marks on paper.
With each piece of art, there’s risk. The materials that go into the final work aren’t cheap. The physical resources I will use are taken from the world and placed with intention on this piece of compressed cotton. There’s an immense privilege in that. If I stuff it up at any moment before it’s ‘finished’, I have to start again; more resources, more time.
I contrast this with digital ‘final’ art – something I’m trying for the first time as I write this. The same sense of risk isn’t there so the need to ‘prepare’ methodically also isn’t required.
No matter what I’m making, the process is fast and efficient; power button, swipe, tap, tap, go. I can work from anywhere, anytime, and for any amount of time – 5 minutes or 4 hours. I don’t find myself being aware of the thousands of people and precious metals that were needed to create the tablet in the first place – it doesn’t feel sacred to me in the way a piece of watercolour paper does; it feels decidedly commodified. But maybe that’s OK.
One of the things I used to love about physical art for picture books is it felt like a win-win – I experience the sacred and, eventually, it ends up scaled through the commodity of picture books; the money through which I can fund more materials. But now, the digital work flow hasn’t ‘devalued’ the sacred work. If anything, it’s made those moments of working with physical art materials even more more special, more private. I like that.