Repetition, The Artist Sketchbook

A page from the sketchbook can often be as challenging as
grasping smoke with an imaginary hand. - Slatton, 2011

This morning is a good time to discuss creativity, as it relates to sketchbooks.  How does the artist use the sketchbook as a tool to grow and prepare for the major works yet to be created?  What are the pitfalls and self doubts which must be overcome in the planning stages of gathering visual ideas?

As an artist, I sometime use my sketchbook as a good indicator for advancing my creativity.  However, the most dreaded outcome is to see page after page of repetitious imagery.  It is so easy to be complacent and allow the more comfortable ideas to fill its pages.  A particular style of drawing is so familiar that it becomes the dominant technique, regardless of the subject.  A blasé use of line, the swipe of the pen, or a comfortable hatching style can become horrible impediments to growth and originality.  I must challenge myself to go beyond the comfortable areas of drawing, the more comfortable observations that lead to complacency and repetition.  It is said that nature never repeats itself.  Take the grain of wood; you see a similar pattern, but you can never exactly pin down its aesthetics.  What makes it so unique among billions of similar patterns?  Yet, each arrangement is somehow different, having its own story to tell.  I want this to be the kind of process that drives the sketches in my sketchbook.

Observation:  Ralph Slatton sometimes refers to himself in third person.  It's kind of like holding a mirror up against one's drawing.  A mirror image always discloses imperfections and distortions in the drawing.  Ralph Slatton must do this with his sketchbook, holding his drawings at third person distance and make his observations objectively and truthfully.  Slatton is his greatest creative force.  Unfortunately, he can also be his greatest obstacle.  Fear of beginning new things is at present the most challenging prospect for Ralph Slatton.

Asphinxohymenoptra

Ralph Slatton is a printmaker and educator at East Tennessee State University.  This is one of his early prints that was based on an African motif, a stylized lion crushing the head of a snake.  This is a icon that has appeared in several pieces and yet uses unconventional symbolism for Slatton.  Slatton enjoys exploring ideas about the protective spirit or talisman.  What this talisman references in his personal imagery is perhaps unclear.  However, he often states that his work substitutes animal iconography for the foibles and successes of humanity.  This concept is probably internalized in Slatton's case and if it holds general social commentary, it is especially applicable to his analysis of self.  The powerful form of a lion spirit appears to vigilantly guard for some unknown goal. The animal holds the head of the snake, as a symbol of dominance over potential intruders.  This piece utilizes the aquatint process and has diverse techniques, such as open bite and also marbling.  These are often seen in Slatton's pieces, as a kind of signature style.  He feels that the raw application of material help convey primitive emotion and an atmosphere of foreboding.