Missigman - Paint, play, explore: expressive mark-making techniques in mixed media

Rae Missigman

artistsnetwork.com

TO FELLOW MARK MAKERS EVERYWHERE.

WE ARE, INDEED, ARTISTS IN OUR OWN RIGHTS.

A fingerprint is a distinctive mark that identifies you as an individual. It separates you from the rest of the world, allowing you to claim for yourself that which makes you unique. Like a fingerprint, the impression you leave behind when you create is a clear and simple way to leave a deeply personal mark within the art world, if you are open to the possibilities.

Opportunities surround you to insert a bit of yourself in the work you create, but first you must collect, tinker and explore. Gathering a variety of implements and shaping them into the tools you need can be both gratifying and enlightening. Collect what you love and think outside of the box. Tinker with your tools and uncover their workings and limitations. Explore what you can do as an artist with tools in hand. Mold your tools into something that defines you as unique.

When your tools are gathered, youll begin to make your mark. Part of the creative process is doing what you love. For some that will mean the steady hand of repetitionslow and soothingfor others it will be the chaos of eyes wide shut, brush to canvas. The shapes you choose to etch into your work, free-flowing and heartfelt, are a part of what makes the art your own. Tools in hand, your marks will find you and you will begin to recognize yourself in your creations.

Beautiful and moving pieces often begin with a solitary mark, a singular fingerprint on canvas. How you choose to build upon that fleck is up to you. Stacked and hidden or in plain sight, threaded together these become your methodology. All you have to do is claim it as your own.

Believe it or not, my years-long love affair with art marks (my name for mark making) began with a single digit, and I wasnt even making art when it happened. The event that introduced me to my sweet friend, repetition, was not a happy one, but it served to open up a line of communication between my heart and my mind that changed me forever.

That one unhappy moment in time seemed to be swallowing me whole, and I needed a way to get through it. I told myself that if I counted to one, made one mark, I would be one moment closer to the event being in the past. And if I could make it to two then I would be twice as close to making the entire event a memory. And so it went. I counted. And then I counted and counted and counted. Soon that one moment was behind me, and I was rebuilding my life and reshaping my heart to be whole again. The entire process of making marks was a coping mechanism, and while it seemed odd at the time, it worked for me. I learned in that moment that this was a way to comfort my mind, my heart, my soul. All I had to do was count.

Finding art came later, and my love of mark making fell into place like a long lost friend. The art made me happy. I was creating everything in saturated color, something that was freeing to me as I surrounded myself with a studio of white. I gravitated to anything that presented itself as a pattern. I never really worried about the rules of the art game; I allowed myself to explore without boundaries and found that my unchecked experiments often resulted in collections of works that were unique and interesting and full of life.

Repetition in my art allowed me the opportunity to create in a way that quite literally calmed me. Tiny dots, dashes and lines were my own crazy way of sorting out the chaos of my daily life. But it was more than the act of making the marks that helped shape me into the artist I am todayit was the story behind the marks.

The art I created in the past didnt always clearly reflect the marks that made their way into my work. Like my story, I kept them hidden, buried beneath layers of paper and paint and ink. They werent to be shared. These marks, to me, were signs of weakness and vulnerability that were better kept concealed. On the surface the art was bright and happy. I never dreamed of sharing the marks that had left such deep scars on my life as a woman, as a mother and as an artist.

But time has a way of altering our perspective on all things. I found myself in art and not just in painting or art journaling. I began a long slow walk through many art forms and found that each time I experimented, I circled back to mark making.

When I stitched, it was in long repeating lines. When I painted, the surface was veiled with symmetrical patches of color. When I worked with textiles, my patterns were variations of reiterated marks and color. Time and again those hidden marks, all born from the silent act of counting, were making themselves present in my work. And still I ignored them. I pushed the marks aside and made something else the star of my work. The color, the pattern or the wordsbut never the marks.

It was years before I realized that all of the paint and ink layers were just filler for me. They were beautiful, but it was really the marks that made me happy when I sat down to create. I was happy and I was grateful. I was grateful for the act of creating. I was grateful for the art and the process and how it made me feel. The art marks were a major part of that process. I realized, too, that I was spending a huge amount of time covering up those small details that I loved so much. But I was still afraid to make those marks, and all they stood for, front and center.