Ethan Hayes-Chute, studio view, December 2017.
When in the studio, and when not, it’s a constant, continuous cavalcade of mixing and mining the ins and outs; making new connections and reinforcing existing ones; building the cribwork ever higher, erecting bridges on bridges, developing the infrastructure of a messy mind.
It’s carrying as much as possible on your back at all times, yet only offering a few small findings on the table at once; kneading, forming, nurturing, pruning: turning the clippings into their own small growths, watering them, and milking them. Folding them, with or without creasing: careful, most of the time.
It’s digging deep into the couch cushions, pulling out long-lost, temporarily forgotten nuggets of past ideas, all the while shifting to get comfortable, only to shift again when the coziness fades to numbness. Shift.
It’s following something down rabbit holes and over lily pads, under trees and over moons. Hiding nests in caves in burrows in webs.
It’s hanging on to a cliff with your feet on the ground, or getting out of bed when you’re still in the clouds.
Ethan Hayes-Chute, studio view, December 2017
It’s making noise, making dust, making a thing, or thirteen.
It’s recalling an old flash, an old pan. Recall, recall, recall.
Forget and recall, again.
It’s playing, plying, pining, picking, pursuing, pressing, pushing, pulling, pouring, pausing; it’s pooping.
It’s balancing 16 points of contact on one fingertip, while making lunch. Sketch things out and scratch them in. Press things flat, and roll them up; sort the collection, create distance between your time and your work. Join the edges, and leave the seams.
Show your work.
Keep notes.
Ethan Hayes-Chute, studio view, December 2017