This Thing About Making

This output is my contribution to a publication resulting from a collaboration which set out to investigate the practice of making art as research in its own right. Our collaborative intention was to introduce an alternative to the conventional approach to research in fine art, which is to employ critical analysis in order to place and fix the work of art. This ambition was effected by a series of conversations exploring the 'process' of making an artwork, and bringing it to fruition. In this way the fluid and open conversations act upon the artwork in ways that are similar to the processes of actually making art. The aim was to mobilise present understanding of the processes of art practice. Conversations are printed and run through the book alongside individual texts from myself and the other three artists. My text is titled ‘This Thing About Making’ and consists of a transcribed text taken from a recorded dialogue between myself and a specific work while actually in the process of making it. The text reflects the influences, thoughts, and references that come up in the processes of making. It also refers to current dilemmas in the practice of sculpture, which have a direct effect on my sculpture practice, referring specifically to Gabriel Orozco’s 'Yielding Stone' as a source of inspiration. It reads as a narrative but is a dialogic text exploring issues in sculpture today. At the end of the text a piece of work is completed. In this way the relationship between thoughts, spoken words and sculpture process are totally connected. The text contains photographs from the video 'Something About Making' as well as an image of the completed work