FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
An Intraview
Inner Monologue (IM): What's the matter with you?
Andrew Godwin (AG): I am fully present, doing my own thing. It's my affliction. What's the matter with you?
IM: Hey, I'm the one asking the questions. Moving on. Looks like you have a bunch of paintings around here. How do those happen?
AG: It usually starts when I'm on my morning walk or run, when I'm out doing something like that and I'll get a feeling of something big that's embodied in something small.
For example, let's say that I get a feeling about springtime coming and I'm walking or running and I feel the sunlight on my face and I see all the leaves in the undergrowth coming out and they're really bright green and they're moving in the wind and I'm hearing the sound of my footsteps and all these things come together into something that- in my mind- is meaningful. I experience all these things and I can sense the forces at work- automatic earth, a line from Paul Simon. I see something as meaningful, as worth developing, worth thinking about, worth exploring, worth creating something that embodies that.
I look around when that happens. In this example, I see all of these small new spring leaves in the undergrowth and I think "What qualities do those have?" because I'm trying to think about how to make a visual representation or visual embodiment of this sense of meaning, the leaves being one example. So, I'm looking at these leaves and I'm thinking "Well they are small and young so they are tender, they're not these thick robust leaves, they're very new". So, I think "tender", and they're blowing in the wind, and I think "playful", and they have energy because they're moving around- that's part of the playful thing- and I think "Let's start there. What kinds of forms associate with those words?"
If I make a sort of jagged shape like a lightning bolt- straight angled lines going back and forth- that has energy but it doesn't have tenderness. So, what about it has energy? It's the going back and forth in one direction. And what doesn't have the tenderness, specifically, is the fact that these sharp angles don't communicate this tactile sense of something delicate. So, how can we keep the energy but get rid of this other quality that isn't congruent and also add the tenderness in? What would happen if I added a curve to it? Yeah, that helps, but it isn't playful yet. It has a type of softness, it has a type of energy, and now I try breaking it apart so we have these curving individual pieces set energetically against each other. That's getting more playful.
This sounds methodical or prescriptive, but really it isn't. It's a process of thinking "What am I feeling, what is making this meaningful, how might that be described in written or verbal language, how might that be translated into a graphic language?" But it isn't a simple and linear process because you start combining words and feelings and sources. It's easy to represent a single emotion or a single word: like how do you draw something that looks mean or happy or soft or hard or whatever? But then what happens if you try to make a form that is both kind and hard, or soft and mean, at the same time? All of these contradictions can be embodied in one feeling.
And then: how does that connect you to the larger universe? Is there some kind of universal truth or applicability or denominator that fits into lots of circumstances, to lots of different forms of understanding? So, it's like going from big scale to small scale over and over, or universal to particular and back again, over and over. I feel this big feeling and then I find that big feeling in this small thing and then I describe this small thing using big words, words that are not just about that one thing but that might relate to lots of other things, maybe things I never considered as related. I'm building up from those qualities to something that hopefully feels big again, that hopefully contains something of the wholeness of that original feeling, that hopefully goes beyond it and forms other connections.
IM: So, what, do you think everyone should look at your work and ooo and ahh and be so impressed by your almighty insight?
AG: I make the work for myself because I feel compelled to do it; it brings me joy to practice in this way. Not a bad philosophy for life, right? For the work to fulfill its potential, it would end up connecting with others and embodying meaning beyond my intentions. So, ultimately I do want it to get out the door.
IM: Ugh. Look, don't you think you should get a real job?
AG: All jobs are real jobs, and suffering isn't necessary to validate one's work, though there's a specific type of suffering involved in being an artist that I happen to enjoy. I appreciate you for asking these tough questions. It gives me an opportunity to explore my thinking.