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Wellsprings
originally published in GASNews, March 2002

            One of the dynamic tensions that I find in the life of an artist is that between routine and spontaneity. Between a necessary continuity and the spur to innovation, we problem-solve our way towards a status quo that better reflects our vision, and then find new grounds for dissatisfaction with the new, improved status quo.
            The life that many of us are grounded in–that of producing a product for the marketplace, the design and production of multiples–has often produced a sneer from those who pursue another livelihood because it embodies the notions of routine and repetition. Operating at the far end of the spectrum that sets creative chaos at one end and a benumbed order at the other, the hard-won routines of the successful production glassblower garner no respect from a system that honors innovation and places the highest value on invention of the unique. (Never mind the inherent hypocrisy of such an attitude from those who work in endless, essentially undifferentiated “series”.)
            There is a deep-seated satisfaction that lies in creating a comfortable, productive workplace and, paradoxically, a danger in becoming too comfortable there. The Romantic notion that great suffering precedes great art may have been discredited but there is some underlying truth that complacency breeds no great insights.  Whether the inspiration for creative endeavor comes from your immediate physical environment, an internal process of discovery, external stimuli or a metaphysical irritation, we all need to keep testing our limits in order to keep growing as artists.
            I was lucky enough to have been recently awarded a three-month fellowship at the Creative Glass Center of America. The opportunity that the residency presents is a chance to agitate my own sense of complacency, to pursue paths that I would hesitate to take in my own studio, and to try and explore territory that I had tentatively mapped out ten years ago in graduate school. The intervening years have been spent building businesses and studios, devising products and equipment, filling in the gaps in my education, and essentially embarking on a course of self-study in several subjects that never appeared in my school curriculum (design, marketing, bookkeeping, studio construction, etc.). The security that this constructed life affords me has, I realize, narrowed the scope of the questions that I allow myself to ask.
            Because we all need to renew our creative energies from time to time, to seek out new input, to disrupt behaviors that have become habituated, to ask questions about our own routines, experiences such as attending the annual G.A.S conference become valuable. They are valuable not only for the discrete information that can be gotten or the networks that can be further extended, but also for the unexpected encounter that forces you to recalibrate your creative gauges in some important way. It may be something directly related to the conference program – a presentation of art work that inspires you, a new product that promises a new technical possibility, an idea that you hadn’t before considered – or it may be a serendipitous meeting of the sort that abounds at a G.A.S. conference.
            The very circumstance of being in a new setting, in a welcoming atmosphere peopled by fellow artists who share your interests, in itself holds a certain potential for positive change. The Amsterdam conference, with the city’s rich history and complex contemporary culture, will become an important event for many people for reasons that may be only tangential to the program itself.
            On the subject of unconscionable clones of his work, Bill Morris once said that artists shouldn’t be too concerned with people who steal the water if we, after all, own the well. The well is fed by many streams, one of which is the challenge of new environments and novel experiences. By seeking these out – whether a simple break in the routine, winning the Wheaton lottery, or taking advantage of the annual conference opportunity – we stretch ourselves, ensuring a creative flexibility that extends our reach as artists.

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