Back when I was still teaching in high school, I wrote a teaching unit with the title Alchemy. I was using it to describe the process that happens in art that allows us to combine some fairly ordinary tools and materials and make something...well...magical!
Originally, Alchemists were "sourcerers"; people who were concerned with turning "base materials" via chemistry and "scientific spirituality" into something precious and important. So, essentially, they were trying to turn things like iron ore into more valuable materials such as gold. I don't know how often this was successful (I'm guessing not much!) but if we think of the alchemical process in somewhat more metaphorical terms, we can use it to describe quite accurately the process of making art.
Essentially, when we make art, we are taking a bunch of ordinary materials: paper, canvas, pigments made from all sorts of things, mostly fairly ordinary substances such as oxides or dirt from the ground and using also fairly basic tools - brushes, pens and our hands, we make something that is so much more than the sum of its parts. It is a kind of magic, whereby an artist takes a pen with some ink in it and creates the illusion of a fantastic three dimensional world on a piece of paper. Alchemy.
No matter what kind of art it is, the same thing is true. Potters literally take dirt and make it into something useful and beautiful, jewelers use ores and other materials to create precious objects, assemblage sculptors take ordinary, often discarded objects to make something new and special from their imaginations that goes beyond either the intrinsic worth or meaning of the original object. A good example of this is the subject of my last blog: Rosalie Gascoigne.
Alchemy doesn't just describe the process of art making, though, it also describes what happens to the maker when they undertake the creative process. As we draw near to the close of what for most of us has been a difficult and challenging year, I want to talk about alchemy as it applies in both areas.
When I was trying to explain the concept of alchemy to my teenaged students, I often used Gascoigne as an example. I also told them about a woman suffering from Tourrettes syndrome who turned her ticks and sporadic movements into a dance routine (you can see an example of Tourettes dancing here), Frida Kahlo who used the pain and suffering caused by her physical and emotional trauma as grist for her artmaking and Stevie Wonder; blind from birth, which heightened the development of his skills in music and allowed him to use it as a voice for social justice.
Alchemy is arguably also what happens to the art maker so that they move a step closer to becoming their higher or truer self. Art making requires imagination, inquiry, and exposure to philosophies and theories surrounding existential issues. It allows a person to begin to truly understand who they are, what they are on about and where their strengths lie. Mindfulness and flow are part of the creative process and natural bi-products of it at the same time. Over time, the constant exercise of your right brain decreases binary thought processes, turning you into a more tolerant and lateral thinking, less judgmental person. And of course the actual chemical reaction happening in your brain when you are making art is that more of the good chemicals like Serotonin and Dopamine are released, giving you a greater sense of well being.
Another of my favourite artists, Yayoi Kusama, is a great example of alchemy in art. Not only does she create magical installations and artworks using fairly ordinary subject matter (e.g. flowers, pumpkins and spots) using fairly ordinary materials (fibre glass and mirror), but she uses what some people describe as her "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome" as the core to her artmaking process, both in terms of what she is examining and who she is. This "syndrome" means that she sees the world through spots, in a surreal, almost hallucinogenic way, perhaps making the world more child like to her. This child like view of the world is both her artistic subject matter and self expression which in turn contribute to her being her most unapologetic authentic self. That is, a ninety-something year old, with bright red hair, living in a mental hospital (voluntarily) and continuing to make her art which fascinates and delights the old and the young all over the world.
So to access the alchemical process that is art making, all you have to do is make art. I've said it before and I'll say it again...it doesn't have to be "good". Just do it...the chemical process of alchemy can't start in you until you do. Perhaps your processing of 2024 and preparing for what might come in 2025 relies on your ability to alchemically develop your mind!
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