Reframe is a Breeze

I met an artist.

Yes, this is not always a pivotal thing. But in this case, it was. Dawn Breeze stunned me with her parallel path. We skipped through touchstone topics. I left our sunlit moment with a simple enough reframe. What if, instead of asking an artist what they do…. what MATERIALS they use. One might ask “what questions are guiding their practice?” And to this, I add, “What are they doing about those questions?” It is a privilege to be an artist, and the skill sets we carry with us are nothing without the questions we ask.

If, as I propose, sense making is about meeting the unknown. The process is the practice. There is nothing relevant or revealing about stating the physical medium in casual conversation. It perpetuates the ignorance of what art’s role is in society. Further more, questions change. If I answered photography in 1991, it would have a different meaning than if I answered in 2024.

In a way, this requirement of naming the question, is a support for artists to learn how to write, journal and work through their motivations. (This is a nod to you, Gina Siepel). The response: I make as my language holds some level of obvious responsibility, and yet it does not resolve the changing directions, complications and failures at hand. It creates a prison for thought, to be only consider by those that have access to the context.

Ask an artist, what spins their wheels, what they are reading, what bee is in their bonnet. There will always be some that say, “oooh I just love the way the paint feels.” But… maybe… their answer is simplified as they do not expect the interveiwer to be worthy of their thoughts.