Twyla Tharp

Scratching, according to Twyla Tharp, is the process of brainstorming through making a series of small projects. Scratching is meant to help you generate ideas without fear of judgment or criticism. Twyla Tharp thinks that scratching is important because an artist needs to have time for them to just create without thought or judgment sometimes. It may be that all of the brainstorms are thrown out, or it mat be that the brainstorming leads to a wonderful idea or spark for a great project. Either way it is important to work through the brainstorming process before beginning a long term in-depth project.

I would agree that brainstorming, or "scratching", is very important for any artist because it allows working without influence and without too much thought. I tend to doodle which for me, sometimes leads to great ideas for projects, although I tend to be very critical of myself a lot of times. I need to work on just letting myself work and not think about how it looks so much as what it is as a piece of art. I like the idea of just drawing or painting or what have you and not putting too much planning behind it. It is good to work through the creative process in a way that is not meant to be closely analyzed or criiticized, but I need to learn to let go and not criticize my own work.

Artist Studios (presentation)

After going through the slide show, it is clear that artists need to feel really comfortable and at ease in their work spaces to create the best work and to work most efficiently. The artwork itself sometimes reflects the work space and in turn the personality in a way. Some artists need to spread out and just be able to start and stop where they please. Some artists make a mess and don't worry about cleaning up, they just keep working. Other artists need to have everything neat and organized so they know exactly where everything is when they need it. The common theme among the different studios, though, is the need for the artist to have inspirational objects, a sketchbook or camera as a way of documenting certain images, and other art pieces they have done. It seems that the artists studio is as important to the creation of the art as the medium itself. I would agree with this statement and say that without a comfortable space to work in and familiar and inspirational objects or images to help inspire (for lack of better word).

Artist's Studios

Looking at pictures of various studios, it is clear that the studio tends to resemble the work of the artist. All of the studio's that I looked at contained a number of nick-nacks and seemingly random, somewhat personl objects that seem to serve as inspiration. It was very interesting to compare the overall look of the studio to the art the artist creates because the sense you get from the studio is most often reflected in the work itself. The really neat and organized rooms often revealed a very clean and organized style in the pieces, whereas the wild and crazy disorganized room revealed a lot of confusion an crazy and random "movement" in the pieces of art. I'm not suprised by this I guess, it was just interesting to see that all laid out in front of me at once.