Twelve or thirteen years ago, over dinner with a large group of friends and other friends of friends, I was asked earnestly – and quite out of the blue – by a young woman I had only just met what, in my opinion, might differentiate comercial art from fine art and which one of the two might be more valid. The room went silent and all eyes turned to me to see what I might say. The question she raised is a vast one at the best of times. She brought the matter up at the end of the meal after we had all drunk far too much red and I was quite unprepared, and too drunk, at that moment to answer it coherently… even if only in my own name and in my humble opinion. I seem to remember stammering my way through a load of nonsensical bollocks that convinced no one, leaving her to answer me with a pregnant “I see…” as conversations around the table drifted off in twos and threes to other topics.
I still don’t know what I would reply were I to be asked the same question today although I have given it much thought. What is the creative process in its broadest sense? I suppose it is about something being observed or felt and then ingested, to then be savoured and reprocessed and exhaled back into the world…taking with it a part of your soul. Would that be fair? I believe its validity, however, is measured by a single absolute; is it engaging to someone else, or is it not. There is much joy and freedom and pain in this process of synthesis.
oliverhuntrods 