The doing, not the done

(Some of the prints I’ll be packing up and maybe putting on the wall…or not…next week.)

I am one week from finishing my fourth (of six in total) semester of my MFA. Each semester has brought its own learning, its own frustrations and challenges, and its own rewards. This last semester has been the one where I’ve learned the most, I believe. (Do I say that every semester? Possibly…)

When I say that, I don’t mean that I’ve acquired more photography-related technical skills. Or that I’ve learned a new software program. Rather, I mean that I have grown as an artist. For starters, I say “I’m an artist,” and I no longer feel the need to make a bunch of disclaimers. The growth has come in understanding what drives me and what matters most to me. In short, why I have my practice. Why I do what I do. 

The biggest thing I learned over the last five months is that the act of creating — the process — is the point of it, and NOT, contrary to what most people (including me up until recently) think, what comes out at the end. The output. 

Before I started the MFA, I signed up for a number of workshops. And some of them were great. Really helpful. A workshop typically runs 5-8 weeks so, by necessity, it has a fairly short shelf life. The end is clear from the beginning. As a result of this design (and there are variations — weekends, multiple weekends, destination experiences, etc.), there is an assumption that students will complete something by the end of the term. The arc of the experience is set: you work toward completing [     ] — a zine, a book, a short project, a portfolio — and you share it at the end of the period. The output is the measure of accomplishment and, critically, is the focus of the exercise. 

Developing and sustaining a practice is different. It has no end. It keeps going.

After working for five months on a new aspect of an ongoing body of work, I found myself wandering into old territory: how do I arrange this for presentation? I was the old Amy Selwyn again, getting ready to host a world event and scrambling to figure out the production requirements so that the “show” goes well. Lights, music, interactive audience experience. Jazz hands! 

I came up with a bunch of ideas. Each of them was designed to create an interesting audience experience. And I was already thinking about what I needed to order from Amazon as a matter of emergency. 

One of my mentors pointed out that I was using my producer brain again. I was coordinating, choreographing, replacing “let’s try it” and “what if” with “it goes like this” and “on the count of five…”

Funny enough, just as she was writing the email that pointed this out, I was having something akin to a major lightbulb moment. I recognized I was feeling the need to perform. To earn praise, even. And I was already feeling the heavy weight of how much I do not want to do that. (In any aspect of my life.)

So I decided to just focus on process. And I am asking myself, What are the questions I want to pose to my colleagues to help me resolve some of the difficult parts of this work? What do I need? And that’s a decidedly different question from, What do I show?

All of this reminded me of my former life. And how for so many years I believed my greatest strength was in knowing answers to clients’ questions. My expertise was my selling point. Or so I thought. Actually, not having all the answers and — big one here — not pretending to  — is a huge advantage. Because starting from a place of not knowing is starting from a place of curiosity. Asking people to participate in the problem solving is collaborative. It’s powerful. I figured that out by the end of said career 🙂 

Same thing here. Instead of givin’ ’em the old razzle dazzle, as the expression goes, I’m heading up to our Retreat with a box of prints and a series of mP3 files (audio). I’m going to wait until I get up to Maine before I decide how to talk about and share the work. I’m going to invite my colleagues and the faculty (core and guest) to come think with me. 

This is the process of an ongoing practice. This is the day to day work. It’s what gets the work done. Resolved, at least for now. And that’s a really important thing I learned this semester, too. That the work is never fully done. Part of my practice is to embed within the work itself ways of “updating” and continuing the dialogue. Iterating and reiterating. 

Process, not product.