the wax kettle takes an unseasonably long time to melt the wax contained, Dubai is currently much colder than usual.
My patience is tested as I check, and check and check again. I takes 5 hours to melt, so I turn the temperature down and leave it to melt and keep warm while I sleep.
Fresh the next day I can begin casting. The molds are ready from the day before and I pour. The wax is clear when liquid, its viscosity it tempting and I want to place my hand under the stream. The heat deters.
The experience of pouring the wax provided the knowledge of its changing viscosity as it cools, and how its opacity becomes more dense. The audience of the final pieces do not have that experience, it is mine alone, unless I offer it to them, perhaps via video. But do I want them to have it? Do they need it? Does it add to the work?
garden wax set up
In providing the audience with work that is produced without the method of production visible is mirroring the consumption of goods that we take part in daily, without question. Why is it art demands some questioning of process when consumer goods do not? How does it change our consumption of products when we know the methods of manufacture? Does it change them? Does it change our consumption of art if we see process? This brings me back to the piece by Hassan Sharif pictured below:
Hassan Sharif, Cotton (still), 2013. Cotton and single-channel HD video, silent, 20 x 67 x 46 cm, 8 minutes 26 seconds. Courtesy Estate of Hassan Sharif and Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai.
http://sharjahart.org/press/sharjah-art-foundation-presents-landamrk-hassan-sharif-retrospective-i
Is process about the work or the artist? is it selfish? Self-indulgent? What does the audience take away from process, or observation of process? What is the artist trying to say by showing process? How does the audience actually read the sharing of process?
I can only speak from ones own experience, in that, process is intimate, it's quiet and focussed moments with material and surface. Process is the out pouring of thought into a visual/physical format; a moment captured in structure of paint or material. An attempt at dialogue with surface, not always completing the intention, sometimes a miscommunication.
