WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 [New York Close Up] 00:00:07.529 --> 00:00:09.189 I have been collecting images 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:11.880 putting things into books- 00:00:13.920 --> 00:00:16.500 i don't know, probably since high school 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:29.400 Before, it was more about coming across an image 00:00:29.409 --> 00:00:31.069 and if it struck me, I would put it aside. 00:00:31.069 --> 00:00:31.839 [Louise Despont, Artist] 00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:36.380 And then later, it became searching for specific images. 00:00:36.380 --> 00:00:38.900 Looking for specific examples. 00:00:48.910 --> 00:00:52.510 I've been thinking about where ideas come from, 00:00:52.510 --> 00:00:55.559 what the source of inspiration is, 00:00:55.559 --> 00:00:57.839 what that communication was about. 00:00:58.020 --> 00:01:01.060 ["Louise Despont According To The Universe"] 00:01:04.930 --> 00:01:07.490 I'm really drawn to images that are very full 00:01:08.880 --> 00:01:10.120 and very packed 00:01:11.340 --> 00:01:14.440 because I want that energy to feel strong 00:01:15.220 --> 00:01:17.360 and present in the work afterwards. 00:01:22.780 --> 00:01:25.220 Most of them come from the Internet. 00:01:25.229 --> 00:01:26.810 Some are Xeroxed out of books 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:30.040 and some are travel photographs. 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:33.240 These are chicken baskets in Bali. 00:01:37.460 --> 00:01:39.820 Collecting images and storing them 00:01:39.820 --> 00:01:40.980 and looking through them, 00:01:41.540 --> 00:01:44.460 there's a large amount of it that's unconscious. 00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:49.560 It’s just about looking at work that vibrates for you-- 00:01:50.320 --> 00:01:53.229 that you say "Whoa!" that is so powerful-- 00:01:54.260 --> 00:01:56.680 and you're moved by it and you're changed by it. 00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:03.659 Ten years ago I would spend most of my time 00:02:03.659 --> 00:02:06.059 looking for images and collecting them 00:02:06.060 --> 00:02:07.980 and a little bit of time drawing. 00:02:09.100 --> 00:02:10.520 It's nice to look back. 00:02:10.520 --> 00:02:11.600 It's like bread crumbs. 00:02:12.340 --> 00:02:15.380 Reminds me of all the steps along the way. 00:02:18.540 --> 00:02:21.590 What those first images were that caught my eye, 00:02:21.590 --> 00:02:24.400 and which ones still feel significant, 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:27.180 and which ones aren’t interesting anymore. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:33.280 [LAUGHS] 00:02:39.720 --> 00:02:43.960 This is an old portfolio from 2009 in India. 00:02:44.890 --> 00:02:49.150 I visited astronomical observatories in Jaipur and Delhi. 00:02:50.340 --> 00:02:51.940 They're just beautiful geometry. 00:02:53.380 --> 00:02:55.500 This is a collage I was making 00:02:55.510 --> 00:02:58.790 from Xeroxes of books on textiles. 00:03:01.100 --> 00:03:04.800 This idea came back into my work six years later 00:03:04.810 --> 00:03:07.150 in a piece that I made for Pioneer Works. 00:03:08.260 --> 00:03:09.720 [Pioneer Works, Red Hook] 00:03:09.730 --> 00:03:11.650 For my show, "The Six-Sided Force," 00:03:11.650 --> 00:03:14.110 I was thinking about beehives-- 00:03:14.110 --> 00:03:15.890 their systems of communication, 00:03:16.920 --> 00:03:19.280 their use of architecture, 00:03:20.140 --> 00:03:21.719 the energy of a hexagon. 00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:25.080 [MAN] Wow. 00:03:25.460 --> 00:03:28.620 [DESPONT] And then starting here, three hives, 00:03:29.390 --> 00:03:31.170 then a big piece. 00:03:33.180 --> 00:03:34.710 Wow. Amazing. 00:03:36.460 --> 00:03:37.920 Oh, it looks great! 00:03:37.920 --> 00:03:38.959 [WOMAN] It looks amazing. 00:03:40.640 --> 00:03:44.120 [DESPONT] A body of work sort of develops its theme in different ways. 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:46.980 One way is simply that, 00:03:46.980 --> 00:03:50.180 because the work is so slow to make, 00:03:50.620 --> 00:03:53.019 one year equals one show. 00:03:53.020 --> 00:03:55.900 It's kind of just the state of mind of that year. 00:03:57.069 --> 00:04:01.319 I am suspicious of having to decide on the subject of a show 00:04:01.319 --> 00:04:03.219 before starting the work. 00:04:03.819 --> 00:04:06.670 The process of drawing is such a learning tool 00:04:06.670 --> 00:04:10.120 that the work will guide it much better than sitting down 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:12.300 and trying to make a decision. 00:04:23.080 --> 00:04:26.260 [Nicelle Beauchene, Lower East Side] 00:04:26.260 --> 00:04:28.280 For my show, "Harmonic Tremor," 00:04:28.280 --> 00:04:31.720 I'm thinking about vibrations, sound waves-- 00:04:32.460 --> 00:04:37.100 specifically volcanic vibrations that encircle the world. 00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:39.320 In terms of Krakatoa, 00:04:39.330 --> 00:04:41.410 I was interested in that one specifically 00:04:41.410 --> 00:04:44.380 because it was such a huge explosion-- 00:04:44.380 --> 00:04:48.160 that the sound waves travelled around the earth four times. 00:04:55.500 --> 00:04:57.000 A seismograph-- 00:04:57.900 --> 00:05:00.320 it's a drawing that the Earth is making. 00:05:02.820 --> 00:05:04.400 Everything is vibration. 00:05:05.030 --> 00:05:08.690 Everything is made up of waves of energy. 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:12.880 Things that are alive have a hum 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:16.780 and there's a way to visually represent that. 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:21.320 What are the patterns of an emotion? 00:05:25.680 --> 00:05:29.600 What are the vibrational waves of a relationship? 00:05:32.610 --> 00:05:33.600 When I look at the drawings 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:37.000 and I feel the examples that are the most successful, 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:38.860 it really feels like they hum. 00:05:42.220 --> 00:05:44.680 That the drawing starts to vibrate in this way 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:48.820 where the energy has been translated in the correct way. 00:05:50.960 --> 00:05:53.160 It's taken on its own life. 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:58.140 Yeah, the vibration of it just becomes alive. 00:06:05.180 --> 00:06:08.000 What's so interesting about the creative act 00:06:08.010 --> 00:06:12.710 is that you can access something completely outside yourself. 00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:16.620 It's a communication with awareness 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:18.580 rather than consciousness. 00:06:19.660 --> 00:06:21.920 You put them all up and then maybe two 00:06:21.930 --> 00:06:23.880 or a connection between four of them 00:06:23.880 --> 00:06:26.620 will find some reference into a work. 00:06:27.580 --> 00:06:31.860 And because the work is not an illustration of a concept or an idea, 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:33.440 there’s enough freedom to say, 00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:36.080 "If it's contained within me, it'll make sense." 00:06:36.620 --> 00:06:38.700 There will be some unifying force. 00:06:39.940 --> 00:06:44.000 If you offer yourself up as the hands to make the work 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:49.680 the relationship you form with what you communicate with 00:06:50.420 --> 00:06:52.440 has its own voice. 00:06:54.040 --> 00:06:58.060 Sometimes that voice comes through research and combing through images. 00:06:58.070 --> 00:07:01.110 And sometimes it's direct on the paper. 00:07:04.150 --> 00:07:05.290 In terms of inspiration, 00:07:05.290 --> 00:07:10.030 for some reason I had this image in my head of an eyeball. 00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:16.140 If we think of the pupil and the iris as the ego and the conscious mind, 00:07:16.710 --> 00:07:19.560 and then you imagine the white of the eye as awareness-- 00:07:21.320 --> 00:07:24.560 as energy that you can access outside of yourself. 00:07:26.840 --> 00:07:30.720 That's what I think is the most exciting part about making work, 00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:36.680 is that you start to build a relationship with accessing this awareness. 00:07:39.060 --> 00:07:42.680 That work isn't coming from your personal life story. 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:44.130 It's not coming from your background. 00:07:44.130 --> 00:07:45.630 It's not coming from your ego. 00:07:46.380 --> 00:07:49.540 It's coming from some universal energy, you know? 00:07:50.860 --> 00:07:54.060 And that relationship is so sacred. 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:00.900 Finding what those really interesting connections are, 00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:04.200 it's sort of playing with memory. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:21.300 Because I have a very bad memory, 00:08:22.070 --> 00:08:23.410 I think I remember what it is 00:08:23.410 --> 00:08:25.650 but then I'm afraid to really say what it is. 00:08:26.520 --> 00:08:28.980 It's like the reference sometimes disappears. 00:08:30.060 --> 00:08:32.960 Then, you're just looking at one specific thing about it. 00:08:33.380 --> 00:08:35.440 It's not really about it’s context anymore. 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:40.100 [DESPONT] Should I start burning down here? 00:08:40.100 --> 00:08:40.780 [MAN] Left. 00:08:40.780 --> 00:08:42.780 [MAN] Okay. You're good. 00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:45.500 [DESPONT] It’s really hard for it to get through the black ink. 00:08:45.660 --> 00:08:46.820 [ALL LAUGH] 00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:48.080 [MAN] Hold. 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:50.220 [DESPONT] It looks like a devil's face! [LAUGHS] 00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:52.459 [MAN] Wow. 00:08:52.620 --> 00:08:54.660 [DESPONT] That was so nice!