Andrew Osta
2011
I wish to take this time now to write about my creative method and its applications. It has crossed my mind many times that my art simply cannot be appreciated for what it is if the methods used in creating it are unknown. Granted, persons exceedingly sensitive and conscious will understand and appreciate the art on a very deep level without knowing the method. Still, I believe that an explanation of my methods will facilitate greater insight and appreciation of my work. I also see such an explanation as a contribution to the world of art.
The methods developed and used by me, which may or may not be new, have an educational value. I have never taken an art lesson in my life, with the exception of art classes in elementary and middle school. Yet I have learned to apply particular techniques to create art which is balanced, meaningful, and exciting to look at. The same methods that worked for me can certainly also work for others.
Thus far, I have simply not had much time to put my methods into practice in an educational environment. I have been too heavily involved in other things. However, I did lead a workshop at McMaster University in early 2007, and the results were very pleasing. I found that the workshop rekindled the interest in art in people who have studied art in the past and later given it up. The workshop also instilled interest and confidence in those people who considered themselves to have no artistic ability. I personally observed such students create beautiful and intricate art right before my eyes, and several of them later continued creating art at home.
The McMaster University workshop’s participants ranged from children of about 10 years of age to university students. Almost everyone enjoyed the experience, and I strongly feel that many of the students have taken something valuable from it. This gives me reason to believe that my techniques can be applied when teaching almost any age group. The principal methods I use for creation of my own art are simple enough to be taught even to children.
I would like to put the techniques and methods discussed below to further practice in various educational environments and observe the results. I am hoping to have the opportunity to teach them in classes and workshops within the next few years. As a self taught artist, I can honestly say that the methods I use are my primary teachers – I don’t learn from books or from studying the works of other artists. I am taught by the art itself, and the techniques I use make this possible. Based on my own experience, the creative methods I am about to describe are very valuable. Among other things, they facilitate creativity, provide exercise for the brain, lead to improved artistic ability, add depth to ones art, and assist one in expressing and understanding the symbolism of ones subconscious mind. These methods may even act as doors to the collective unconscious, to other dimensions, or to extra terrestrial or spirit intelligence, if such things exist.
Method One – Automatism and Word Art
The first drawings I ever created were spontaneous expressions of strong emotion. I had just witnessed my own insignificance, the unreality of all my hang-ups and worries, and the inevitability of my own death in a profound spiritual experience. The resulting mix of emotions was so interesting that I instantly picked up a little notebook and a pencil, and began drawing. This must have been in late 2004 or early 2005. My art started there.
The first picture I drew was entirely automatic. It flowed out of the emotions I felt. I felt like a grain of sand in a desert, so I drew a desert, but I could not draw myself as the grain of sand. I felt like a drop in a river, but I could not draw the drop separate from the river. Confronted with this dilemma,, I felt like the very existence of “I” was questionable and highly doubtful. How does one express such things in a drawing? My answer was to use words. So that first picture was an automatic drawing with symbolic images and words united into a single composition. While the picture was not a masterpiece, it did capture the emotion I felt sufficiently enough for me to recollect it at later viewings.
The drawings that followed utilized the same principle. They were also guided by emotion, and created either after having a profound realization or an intense feeling of some sort. The words became stylized, and very soon my letters, words and sentences turned into pictures in their own right. Eventually, everything other than words and sentences fell away. At this point I was creating double images – messages written in English, which also formed various pictures, mostly faces and bodies. I spent several months working exclusively with this kind of art. It peaked in 2007-2008 and then I moved on to other things.
Applications for Automatism and Word Art
Since I have not taught the word art method before, it is difficult for me to say how easy it is to learn this particular technique. I do have a good friend who, after looking at my images, began to make his own. His images integrated words and images. I suppose there are really two ways of using the automatic word art method. The first way is to use only words, and to make their letters form images. It takes some practice to learn how to use letters in this way, but the learning process is fun and exciting. Drawing such pictures gets exponentially easier with time. I am able now to create, without much effort, pictures out of almost any word, phrase or sentence.
The second way of using the method, which is easier, though perhaps less intellectually exciting, is to mix words with other images. Perhaps the best way of doing this, without detracting too much from the words is to use personal or collective symbols in conjunction with the letters. For example, symbols of hearts, fish, birds, mushrooms, flowers, the sun, the moon, and other such natural symbols can be used in the image without detracting from the word art.
The principle of automatism is for me an important element in this method. It allows one to make new discoveries as to how letters can be used to form images. Furthermore, images resulting from automatism are usually more exciting and unexpected than those which are premeditated. They contain a greater truth within them, and touch the viewer on a wholly different level than ordinary, mind-created images do. Finally, and this is perhaps most important, the average human mind simply cannot imagine images that are simultaneously entirely novel, complex, harmonious, and deeply symbolic. Such images are to be imagined by geniuses and visionaries, and I will be the first to admit that I am not capable of such imaginings. However, I can create images of the same quality as those created by the artistic geniuses and visionaries by applying the process of automatic drawing or painting. The subconscious mind is able to create wonderfully intricate, appealing and meaningful art when given the chance and with proper practice.
At times, the images I have created during automatic drawing or painting sessions are so incredibly unified, solid, intricate and complex that I feel as if they came to me from a dimension far beyond this human world. Perhaps the method of automatism can be used to develop extrasensory perception. I believe that at the very least, automatism provides a link to ones own deeper levels of self, and possibly also to that mysterious field of information known as the collective unconscious. It also undoubtedly provides a much needed stimulation to the brain. As we now know, the brain grows and develops with exercise, just like a muscle, and deteriorates from lack of stimulation. This is another reason why I believe unconventional and novel methods of doing things have a great inherent value.