Ideation Some Resources for Getting Started

Read about my complicated relationship with ideas

Where do I begin a project? How do I sustain a creative inquiry? These questions haunt many creatives.

In recent years art and design practices have gained recognition as legitimate modes of inquiry and ways of producing new knowledge. This recognition has also drawn attention to the ways that art and design practices are notably distinct from other disciplinary traditions. While most other disciplines have well established processes for defining a research question and rigid standards for conducting research and determining what constitutes research, art and design practices remain more fluid, resisting rigid methods and seeking to retain a subjective and embodied quality as a key principle of their research methodologies.

This poses both a challenge and opportunity for creatives, who, on one hand have freedom and flexibility to determine and define their own research methods, and on the other hand, have far more decisions to make as the path of creative research, while not completely uncharted, is without fixed procedures. The creative practitioner is tasked then, with determining both the research question and method by which to carry out their inquiry.

As a senior studio student embarking on the new territory of studio practice I tortured myself trying to determine the “right” idea and approach to my artistic practice. Without the usual parameters of a project assigned by a professor which in some ways provides a structure or “methodology,” I experienced a profound sense of groundlessness. I was paralyzed. I began and discarded many projects in search of the “right” idea, never fully committing to one. Two weeks out from the senior show I was still without a project to show in the exhibition.

Tharp diagnoses my senior studio paralysis as looking for a “big idea” rather than a small idea to just get me working. I was looking for a perfect idea, one that would get me into graduate school, rather than simply an idea that would get me into the studio the next day.

Earlier that year in the midst of my turmoil I had asked a very senior artist, “How do you know what to make? I have so many ideas all the time, how do I choose the right one?” From the wisdom of a 40+ year studio practice she responded “It doesn’t matter what you make now, whatever you do it will all lead to the same place, the same inquiry.”

Though no one can tell you the right way to conduct your creative research there are many creatives who have identified landmarks in this wild landscape. Designers especially have provided useful insights as they have sought to identify landmarks of creative practice and extend design method into other fields. In this unit I have compiled resources from artists and designers who may be useful guides to your creative practice as you step into this unknown territory.

A good idea is one that turns you on rather than shuts you off. It keeps generating more ideas and they improve on one another. A bad idea closes doors instead of opening them. It’s confining and restrictive. The line between good and bad ideas is very thin. A bad idea in the hands of the right person can easily be tweaked into a good idea.

-Twyla Tharp

Consider your starting place: Process vs. Concept

One of the most helpful ways of thinking about your artistic process is to consider whether you are conceptually driven or process driven. Of course few of us are only process or only conceptually driven. It might be more helpful to think of this as a spectrum. Knowing which way you are oriented can really help you in understanding what kind of creative nourishment inspires you to get working.

If you are conceptually driven the idea and meaning arises first. Your task as artist or designer then, is to translate that concept into visual, material form. Artists and designers that work this way usually start with a concept, the creative work is then determining the process by which to translate that idea into visual form.

If you are process driven you typically start from the process of making. You may be unsure why you make what you make. You begin from the materials and processes and as you work meanings emerge.

This does not mean that conceptually driven artists don’t value material or that process driven artists don’t care about concepts and theory. Rather, this distinction describes a difference in process rather than the manifestation of the finished work. Consider how Kerry James Marshall and Tara Donavan talk about their creative process and what drives their practices. Which way of working do you resonate with?

Kerry James Marshall is an excellent example of a concept-based artist. Though he has a profound reverence for the tradition and process of painting, the starting point for his work is always the idea, and everything in the work supports that idea.

Listen to how he talks about the starting point for his work. It’s from books, big ideas, social issues. Then as a painter he finds ways to incarnate these ideas in visual form.

Tara Donavan exemplifies a process-based approach to art-making. She starts from the place of engaging with the physical materials in the studio. Notice how she resists a big vision or conceptual framework but allows the materials to lead the way in her process.

Ideas and concepts emerge from her work but they are a result, rather than a starting place.

Scratching

When I first read about Twyla Tharp’s idea of scratching the image the immediately came to mind was chickens scratching in the dirt. It turns out that her intention has more to do with scratching away at a lottery ticket in hopes of winning big. Both metaphors contain this sense of hope and futility that often accompanies the process of trying to come up with an idea.

In this chapter Tharp offers a collection of active ways to spark that initial idea that gets you working.

Skim “Scratching” by Twayla Tharpe and consider which practices might be useful to you. Which are you already doing? Which would you like to add to your repertoire?

Ideation

Rules for Brainstorming:

Be visual
Wild ideas
Quantity over quality
Defer judgement (no idea is a bad idea)

Source: https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/ideation-in-design-thinking–cms-31557

Ideation Worksheets

Wondering where to begin? Here are some prompts that might help you get going.

Main idea
Working title
Describe the work
Describe the materials and process
What’s your question or line of inquiry?
How does your choice of materials support your concept?
Scale- how big? How many? Is the scale realistic to complete for March?
What experience inspired this work?
Imagine a viewer standing in front of your work. What do you want the viewer to feel when they encounter your work? What do you want them to think about or experience?
How does form support content and content support form?
Imagine you have a 14 foot wall to create your project. Draw what your show of this work would look like. Use a full sketchbook page.
How will the work be evaluated? How will we know the work is successful? Outline some criteria that you will use to evaluate the success of your project
Why does this project matter to you? How does it connect with your interests and passions?
What other artists are inspiring this project?