What is a Practice? Discussion

We spent this mornings session discussing the question ‘what is an illustrator’s practice?’. The word practice is one which I am familiar with but have never really picked apart before. It is clear that ‘practice’ is quite a broad term relating to something far bigger than simply an artist’s ‘style’. It includes things like where they live, their knowledge, interests, family, ethics and their hobbies, all of which feed into their style. It also includes the business side of their work, their client base and how they make a living from the work they produce. 

Someone in the session talked about ‘expanding knowledge’, which I thought was interesting as I wasn’t sure what they meant by this. Were they talking about the illustrator’s own knowledge forming a practice informed by research? Or were they talking about the knowledge of practice and our expanding knowledge of the subject area? Either way this is an interesting idea.

I also thought that the way we looked at and attempted to define ‘style’ was interesting. It is not simply a visual outcome but something which is fuelled by a range of sources within the artist’s practice. It is defined by the artists influence, subject matter, media, motives and the way in which their work reflects their personality, life experience, ideology and many other things. Matt also talked about the fact that we should also all stop thinking about ’style’ so much and should never try to force one upon ourselves. Instead we should try lots of different approaches to different briefs and a way of working will develop in time. This is something which really resonated with me as it is exactly how I was planning to work. I was finding everyone talking about their personal styles quite intimidating and it was making me feel at a disadvantage.