Sunset, Sunrise- However you prefer: A Conversation with Aaron Jordan Gabaldon
So, we improvised. A few days later, I sent Aaron some interview questions online, and he sent me back his answers in the form of voice notes.
What follows is Aaron, in his own words, on art as process, the teachers who shaped him, and the value of making “ugly art” on the way to something beautiful.
*******************
Q: The print I have in my house (and still on my phone home screen!) Has your perception of it evolved over time?
Aaron:
When I first did it, it was just for Huevember. There’s a part that is like “ok keep going, make the next one, make the next one” and I just remember it was such a beautiful, glowing orange color. It reminded me of a sunset, or sunrise however you prefer lol Although it wasn’t necessarily a masterpiece, what I was trying to do was simply for the process with the challenge. I didn’t have a huge emotional connection to it at first. Then over time going back and looking at my work, I do see the love that’s in there and I do see that there is this serenity, that it captures this feeling of, it’s gonna be ok.
Q: How do daily art challenges like Inktober or Huevember influence your creative process?
A:
It starts out as, I just want to keep my skills going but I also don’t have the creative energy to come up with the idea lol But then that’s, I think, the beauty of challenges like that. They just give you a word or a color and that in itself is meant to spark something, to spark that creativity. It allows me to get out of my head. I think sometimes we think like, Oh it has to be perfect. Even in the idea stage. It has to be perfect even in the conception. When things like this, they’re not meant for you to make them perfect, they're meant for you to just make them.
Shifts in Style and Process
Q: How has your style or approach to art changed since you first started? Are there any particular moments or works that marked a shift for you?
A:
I used to focus so much on the final product and there would be times where I would lose sight of the act of doing it, which if you stop thinking about your art as a product, which I think is a problem that a lot of people have. You start to see it as a process. And the process in itself is the give and take, the back and forth of making something. It allows you the room to surprise yourself. The other day I did this painting of a swan and I was surprised at how it came out. It was something that I wasn’t really planning on enjoying, I was just planning on doing. And then at the end looking at it I was just like wow, that’s actually kind of beautiful.
Q: Are there artists or mentors who have significantly impacted your work?
A:
Miss Turner was my art teacher in high school, and I just loved the way she explained how to do things and now that I’m also getting my master’s degree, there was this other professor named Yohey Horishita and he also did a similar style of teaching and that really resonated with me. First were projects where everyone was assigned the same thing. Just exercise projects. Then after that we were given the full reins to take what we learned from that project and apply it to something else we actually wanted. I think that’s the best way to learn because you can learn a technique but if you try to start your technique right away with the thing you want, I feel like you’ll get discouraged. Because you’re not seeing the form come out the way you want it to, whereas the practice allows you to make those mistakes and see what works and what doesn’t and then you can move into a project that you actually really like.
Advice for Emerging Artists
Q: What advice would you give to artists just starting out, especially those looking to find their unique voice or community?
A:
1- Draw what you don’t know how to draw. That’s something that Rebecca Sugar (the person who makes Steven Universe), said and it stuck with me forever. If you don’t know how to draw something, just keep drawing THAT in every way you can think of drawing it. But also remember that this is about the process, not about the product. You will make ugly art. And that’s ok :) Ugly art is art that’s made. Perfect art is art that‘s never made. The doing and the having done is better than thinking about all these things and waiting for perfection. The perfection in itself is the process, it’s the learning. It’s how you can take more into the next project of what you’ve learned.
2- Sketch out in the world. I think that we take so much time like, oh let me just find this reference photo when I think that having that connection to being physically there or even taking your own reference photos, helps you to see more of what you are looking at. If you just find something online, it’s divorced from you completely. It’s just a photo on the internet. Whereas I think having that in person or your live references for yourself makes a difference in how connected you feel. You are involved- from start to finish.
3- Take live drawing classes. Life drawing is really great but also (and I’m currently getting my master’s over Zoom, so I have no room to talk lol) but I do think going in physical person allows you to also connect to the other people who share the same interest and a lot of artists find each other in the practice. It’s not just you run into someone at a gallery it’s like, I went to this ceramics class, and I met this person and I really liked what they were doing. Connecting with other people is so important because art in itself is a very solitary thing. Finding a way to make the solitary into a community event is something that even now, I want to do more of.
To me, this interview demonstrates why I wanted to sit down with him in the first place. His art radiates beauty, magic, and light, but his words remind me of the work underneath. The daily practice, the “ugly art,” the lessons of teachers who insist on exercises before masterpieces. And maybe that’s why, even in a noisy restaurant on Bingo night, our conversation found its way.
"There’s a part that is like “ok keep going, make the next one, make the next one” " - ABSOLUTELY
ReplyDelete