Sean Scully Deconstructs His Various Artistic Processes | Big Think

Sean Scully Deconstructs His Various Artistic Processes

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The artist describes how he “gets ready” to paint.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What is your process?

Scully: I… work along media. I worked in prints. I take photographs. I do little sketches. I do water colors, the pastels, small paintings, big paintings and of course most important I’m looking and thinking. When I start to painting for example I draw with the carbon on the end of the stick, charcoal on the end of the stick then I make the paint and it’s in buckets and now [waiting] to wet and hopefully I get it in one session, and if don’t I have the difficult task of waiting so I can revisit the painting which sometimes, well, no actually often hands and then I go back again. And I keep doing it until it’s, until it’s mine.

Question: Do you have a specific routine?

Scully: Yeah, I’m very habitual. I get up in the morning just like everybody else and then I do something that I guess it’s called getting ready. Because my work is extremely dependent of being ready because it is much a dance as it is visual. So, I do my correspondence. I mess around. I walked around. I play with the cat. I had my telephone calls. I go in the studio. I nearly start work. I leave the studio out. I go back in the studio again and I try to start work again and maybe on something small and then I’m kind of into it, maybe I stop for lunch and then I’m ready. So, afternoon is crescendo time.