Make a Mini Zine
I make art. Within that description I include paintings, drawings, masks, models, music, animations, videos, installations, social experiments and loads more. I am a prolific maker and when I’m not making something I get restless/anxious. It’s probably also true the other way round in that I am a restless, anxious person but I find a more peaceful place when I’m making. The process is the most important thing to me. It is a process of discovery. I make in order to find out what I’ve made when I’ve finished making it. But the thing that makes me most happy about it is if somebody else falls in love with the output and wants it on their wall.
I was a prolific maker up until the age of 11 and then everything changed. School valued making less and less as the years went on and as a young adult my experience was that making for the sake of making was something to be left behind in childhood so I pretty much gave up. I dabbled with making the odd radio show here and there, but it wasn’t until in my early 40s that I really started to reconnect with the maker within me. For me, making is an essential part of being human. I mean, look at old cave paintings – I’m sure they were important experiments in creative expression rather than a PowerPoint presentation. Nowadays, making is my therapy and helps me to continuously explore who I am and what this human experience is all about.
My brain is wired in a way that it can’t not have ideas. My daughter and I are both dyslexic and call this our “monkey mind”. An ability to crash together everyday experiences and let them run off at tangents until they become something weird and magical. This was always a problem at school and for the many years I worked inside the corporate world, but outside of these limiting environments it is a super power.
I start almost always with a gut feeling that something is worth exploring. Or an impulse like “I fancy drawing a pig”. Many of my bigger creative projects begin with a question. For example, Sound of Silence (the world’s first silent podcast featuring special guests) began as a question that popped into my mind whilst out running – “I wonder what the opposite of a podcast would be?” That question led to an amazing 2.5 year project that has been downloaded by thousands of people around the world.
I do have a process but not in the traditional way we’d think of a process. Less like a production line or a flow chart and more like a process in nature. It’s something like……
1) Have an idea/impulse/question
2) Start before I’m ready – minimal planning so I don’t talk myself out of it
3) Make a mark/sound/movement,
4) When it feels like its done, its done
5) Show my work.
I think I only become consciously aware of the process around step 4!
It’s all about interest for me. I think grit and determination is overrated. If I’m not interested in the thing I’m making I know I’ll never finish it. I allow myself to not start stuff I’m not interested in or abandon projects that I lose interest in. I also think that if I’m not enjoying it then it is less likely that anyone else will enjoy it. I’m less interested in answers and more interested in questions so if something maintains a sense of mystery it keeps me captivated. I wrote many years ago that an exclamation mark is a question mark with rigor mortis – there’s no life left in it. If my process keeps revealing more and more questions to explore then I’m naturally engaged.
There’s always a moment when I suddenly stop and say “it is done.” This might be when a piece of art is complete or when an ongoing project has reached its natural end. I like to plan impermanence into my projects right up front to make sure they end well and don’t fizzle out and die because they’ve gone past their sell by date. Sound of Silence was a good example of this – right at the beginning I said it would only have 100 episodes and never any more. Or the Inexpert 2018 conference I ran (designed to be the opposite of TED) – before it happened I said that it could never happen again, it must be a one off. I think it is more important to end well than to begin well. The beginning can be messy and confusing and all over the place but I like my endings to be precise.
It’s always interesting to see what pieces people like when I post them on Instagram, but I don’t really mind whether they get 7 likes or 700 likes. When somebody buys something it feels different. I always take great care to make sure the piece is in top condition and lovingly packed. Sometimes I miss a piece when it’s gone, especially if it’s one I’ve had on display in the Art Bunker (my studio). But overall, I’m never really that attached to any of them as the process was the important bit and the artwork is just an artefact of the process – a bit like a seashell. I’ve made hundreds of pieces of #FREEART and left them in cities around the world for people to find. I think the process of doing that for many years has made me less attached to the stuff I make.
I tend to not like anything I’ve made that’s older than 2 years, be that artwork, a piece of writing, a talk, a song. I think that’s because my taste and style is always evolving. But that said, there are a couple of bits that seem to be standing the test of time. One is The Hungerford Bridge Gallery of Outsider Art – an illegal gallery I installed on a bridge in London that for 95 days was London’s smallest and most visited independent art gallery. That and the Sound of Silence podcast are probably my favourite pieces.
If I didn’t make things, I’d have to distract myself in other ways. Like getting a job and pursuing a career or something. I think I’d die with many regrets if I didn’t make.
Steve Chapman