Earlier on in the day we were lucky enough to hear a lecture by Will which discussed his progress as an artist from humble beginnings in New York, through San Francisco, then London and onto Sheffield where he now currently resides.
The first question given to will was, "can being part of a particular community and later comment upon the black community at the time, or is this something retrospective?"
Will… "In, the ideas are generated within a community, but usually, how those ideas manifest themselves into art comes later. In my case, in New York, most of the artists that were based there have now moved out of New York City and live in Philadelphia, as a result, the community has now dispersed, and so ideas don't flow the same way.
Being in Sheffield is influencing the work that I am doing there, for example, I'm getting really interested in psychogeography. The original ideas of psychogeography came from Paris, in the way that Paris was built after the original revolution, and the observation that the way,'s appears to come out of the centre of the city along particular pathways, that the main highways into and out of the city centre. In French, this is known as "Derive", with an accent on the "e".
Now we are looking for things around the "non-capitalist" ways that "desire" migrates out of the central point geographically, which could be something as simple as a bus stop, and then traces of commerce or in this case things that one desires, seem to be built upon particular pathways all centring on the humble bus stop.
Will then went on to discuss some of the psychology topics that he researched such as "Brokers area" and also "Broadman's area 44". These are specific parts of the brain that when inspected through a magnetic resonance scanning machine (M-RS), these specific parts of the brain light up whenever you are creating stuff.
Interestingly, when somebody is working with their hands, this is part of the process of thinking. Both the Brokers area and Broadman's area 44, are very much hard at work and highly activated, particularly when you are experimenting with new materials and with touch.
Question two. "How do you write, and creating art at the same time?
Will.... well to carry on with the previous conversation, a lot of artists seem to think with their hands, and although some people say that that's not possible, science has proven that it is. The tactility is necessary.
Writing also, though, helps to create physical work. Donald Judd, & Smithson, are now art critics, but originally they are in fact artists. Therefore, they know about how work is created. These two individuals are really important in order to read about how they themselves read about other artists and how they work.
Everyday occurrences can feed into a body of work. It may actually be 10 years later before you can start thinking of a body of work which may relate to that everyday occurrence that occurred much earlier. It was, as an example, years afterwards that I started to create ceramics, after my ceramics course.
Question three. "How do you measure success"?
Will… "It's the stuff that makes money!"
"But that feeling, that initial elation, doesn't last very long. A lot of work that does well in the market is actually very close to what the mass public actually wants. Therefore in order to keep living, you have to make money, so some of what I do is a very much attached and influenced from what is in the marketplace. However, don't be afraid of failing. There are so many things that fail as part of the process of exploration, and you should always re-examine them as these are not failures. They are experiments. It's what comes out from them that is important. The willingness to fail is more important than the willingness to succeed!
For example the writer Beckett, he'd used to describe his writing about "failing better"!
Question four. "What is the most enjoyable part of working?"
"Creating something new, and not having any idea what it is that you're going to make. I hate being a robot, but sometimes it's really necessary to just keep on making. Push and push and push yourself something comes back, which I think was quoted by Jasper Johns or perhaps Rauschenberg.
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