Last Night: Episode 57 recap and thoughts
Life has been a flurry of activity these last few weeks. With both Terri and I having other jobs, kids in school, an old house that needs work regularly there is a lot that gets left undone. It is hard for us to stay on track and we often overlook things. We had full intentions of running a different artist on this episode and ran into some snags with that content. We still want to run that artist, but will have to do so down the road. We have a back pocket of artists that we keep in reserve for just such an emergency. Raymond Saa was one of them.
Originally we had asked him to come on the show live a while back. Given the beginning of the semester (he teaches) and the fact that he also has a busy life and studio practice, it didn't work for him. We can relate to that not wanting to add another thing to the plate right now state of mind.
Overall, I enjoyed featuring his work and getting some conversation going around it. I would however really enjoy having that conversation with him personally. I would like to hear more about how his life and influences creep into his thinking when he works and what drives his decision making. I think the viewers of the show would like that too. Our chat makes a lot of fantastic references along the way and they manage to point out a ton that I am not prepared for. "63" and Scultore1 (two of our viewers) were making references to Hans Arp when we were talking about shape and form, looking at Ellsworth Kelly's plant drawings and considering these things in relation to Saa's sewn constructions.
Racing to pull up an Arp work on the screen filled that out a bit. The ability to access that quickly makes the show's references that much more robust. I love that about these synergies between the subject, the chat participants, Terri and I and the conversation as a whole.
Saa's earlier work has a very different look to what we are seeing now... and good for him for evolving. There are elements that I can pick out in that work that point towards these newer pieces for sure. I do love however to hear about how a particular step or iteration pointed the way for that. How one moment in something familiar points the compass in a new direction. That is creativity in action. That is the artist brain at work. That is the unknown being born.