Whatever subject or theme you are exploring, it's useful to think about the different types of research sources you use. It's tempting with creative making to look at other artists work as our inspiration and source material but I encourage you to avoid this if possible and investigate other types of sources. This is a revised version of a workbook that I first shared last summer (on the old website) and I'm re-issuing this now for more recent members and for anyone to revisit. There was a page about co-creation in here too which I'm reworking for another time.
What is the most exciting or appealing aspect of the sources and research that you are doing? What is the feeling or emotion that the research is creating? What can that tell you about the focus of your work?
An example: I shared my initial ideas about new work around deserted medieval villages here. My research sources are visits, reading about archaeology, reading about medieval life, archaeology tv programmes and actually a lifetime of interesting including a degree in medieval history! From this I have a huge amount of information and no clear direction to what I was doing. So I asked myself the questions above and found that was was bubbling away underneath this was about homes and loss of homes, about people being displaced and evicted from the place they were born. I thought about the archaeological evidence as actual homes and what it was like to live there. I thought about the evidence that we have of daily life inside the homes and that made me remember reading about nettles growing where the hearth was. The hearth, the fire as the heart of the home, for heat, light, cooking and cleanliness. So my focus for the work is around the hearth and the fire and the experience of displacement. And that has led to ideas for the work I want to make which tells the story that engages with me emotionally.
I hope that's useful in thinking about moving from research to making and the process of exploring and analysing your own ideas. Please do share some of your research resources and the directions that your research is taking you.
