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THE ARTIST's CREATIVE PROCESS: a Winnicottian View

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THE ARTIST's CREATIVE PROCESS: a Winnicottian View THE ARTIST’S CREATIVE PROCESS: A Winnicottian view Patricia Mary Townsend Slade School of Fine Art University College London Ph.D. Thesis 2017 1 DECLARATION I, Patricia Mary Townsend, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT The existing body of psychoanalytic literature relating to the process of making visual art does not include formal studies of first-hand reports from contemporary artists. This thesis addresses that gap through the creation of a new series of artworks and through a qualitative study of artists’ accounts of the states of mind they experience as they work. It aims to provide new evidence relating to the artist’s creative process and to question the extent to which psychoanalytic theory in the Winnicottian tradition can account for artists’ experiences. My methodology was two-fold: I kept a written record of my own states of mind as I created six video, installation and animation artworks; I also conducted thirty in-depth interviews with professional fine artists. The testimony of the artists and myself was interrogated using psychoanalytic theory from the Winnicottian and British Object Relations tradition. Winnicottian theory was chosen because it offers a particular understanding of the inter-relationship between inner and outer worlds and the thesis considers the artist’s process in these terms. Drawing on Winnicottian theory, the thesis presents the artist’s process as a series of interconnected and overlapping stages in which there is a movement between the artist’s inner world, the outer world of shared ‘reality’ and the spaces between. The research reveals aspects of artists’ experiences that are not fully accounted for by the existing literature. To address these gaps, the thesis proposes the introduction of several new terms: ‘pre-sense’ for an as-yet undefined first intimation of the possibility of a new artwork relating to a particular aspect of the outside world; ‘internal frame’ for a space within the artist’s mind, specific to a particular medium, which the artist ‘enters’ when starting work; and ‘extended self’ and ‘observer self’ for two co-existent self-states that constitute the artist’s working state of mind. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................... 9 Introduction ................................................................................ 10 Overview .............................................................................................................. 10 Personal Background ........................................................................................... 10 Aims and Research Questions ............................................................................. 12 Definition of Terms ............................................................................................... 12 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 13 Theoretical Background ....................................................................................... 18 Outline of Chapters .............................................................................................. 26 Chapter 1: Taking It In ............................................................... 29 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 29 The Pre-Sense ..................................................................................................... 29 Preparation and Research ................................................................................... 42 Gestation .............................................................................................................. 47 Illumination ........................................................................................................... 53 Other Beginnings .................................................................................................. 61 Chapter Conclusions ............................................................................................ 63 4 Chapter 2: Oneness and Separateness ................................... 65 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 65 Disillusionment and the Idea ................................................................................ 65 Artist and Medium ................................................................................................ 67 Medium and Developing Artwork ......................................................................... 75 The Artist’s State of Mind ..................................................................................... 78 The Extended Self and the Observer Self ............................................................ 82 Chapter Conclusion .............................................................................................. 89 Chapter 3: Play, Creativity and Destructiveness .................... 91 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 91 Play and Playing ................................................................................................... 91 Aggression/Destructiveness towards the ‘Subject’ of the Work ......................... 102 Aggression and Destructiveness towards the Medium ...................................... 104 Aggression and Destructiveness towards the Developing Artwork .................... 111 Chapter Conclusion ............................................................................................ 115 Chapter 4: Spaces and Frames ............................................. 117 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 117 The Studio .......................................................................................................... 117 The Artist’s Internal Frame ................................................................................. 121 5 Crossing Over .................................................................................................... 125 The Space of the Artwork ................................................................................... 131 Chapter Conclusion ............................................................................................ 139 Chapter 5: Out into the World ................................................. 141 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 141 Knowing when to Stop ........................................................................................ 141 Separation and Letting Go ................................................................................. 151 The Sense of Loss ............................................................................................. 153 The Relationship Between Present, Past And Future Works ............................. 157 Artist and Audience ............................................................................................ 165 Chapter Conclusion ............................................................................................ 168 Conclusion ............................................................................... 170 Results and Conclusions .................................................................................... 171 Difficulties Encountered ...................................................................................... 174 Possible Future Research .................................................................................. 175 Lessons for My Own Art Practice ....................................................................... 176 Postscript ............................................................................................................ 177 Bibliography ............................................................................. 178 Appendices: ............................................................................. 184 6 Artist Consent Form ........................................................................................... 184 Topic Guide ........................................................................................................ 185 Recent Publications ................................................................ 186 List of Artworks on DVD ......................................................... 187 7 Table of Figures Figure 1: The Quick and the Dead. Video still. ......................................... 57 Figure 2: The Transience of Wonder. Work in Progress 1 ....................... 86 Figure 3: Bay Mountain. Video Still. Work in Progress. ........................... 95 Figure 4: Bay Mountain. Installation view. ................................................ 96 Figure 5: Under the Skin. Installation view, Brantwood, Coniston, 2013 138 Figure 6: The Transience of Wonder. Work in Progress 2 ..................... 145 Figure 7: The Transience of Wonder. Work in Progress 3. .................... 147 Figure 8: The Transience of Wonder, Slade School of Fine Art, 2017. .. 148 Figure 9: Black Sun. video still. .............................................................. 150 Figure 10: On the Shores.
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