The Art of Combination

 

I have always worked combinatorially, i.e., each creative act is somehow connected to others, either spontaneously (when I am aware of them) or later when I associate them with existing works. This works the same for my music as well as art projects. I also have always kept lists of ideas, titles, strategies, and so on, which I go back to very often. Electronic notebooks, such as Evernote have made this easier (perhaps too easy), but I used to keep paper journals and sketchbooks.

There are two basic ways to add cohesion to creativity: 1) create the work then serialize; 2) create similar pieces in an existing series. This also works in music where you can compose first, then add to a collection (album) or define the framework for the album and fill it in accordingly. 

I don’t think there’s anything that I do, either through design methodologies, or through improvisation that doesn’t fit with something I’ve done before. I know there are some artists who like to make something they’ve never made before, but each time I’ve approached it that way, it ends up in a series with something else. Either I’m doing that consciously, or my way of working has me in that routine. This routine typically leads to a ‘signature style’ with other artists, but I’ve never had just one style, but rather a series of them sharing one or two core elements that I’ve always used.

8/31/2017

[8/31/2024: Now working on the Songday series I have a myriad of different styles emerging, which makes it difficult to produce as “albums” per se. But they remain in a series, Sum I, Sum II, Sum III, Sum IV, which is how I worked on visual art or photography where the titles are “Untitled No. 1”, “Untitled No. 2”, etc. A framework gives you myriad ways of “decorating” it, as the steel skeleton of a building can be skinned in different ways. But albums require a specific framework that informs the decoration. A rectangular framework will be decorated differently than a more free-form or parametric shape. Video playlists ("PL") are the new LP ].