October 11th, 2021
I Guess You Could Say This is Where I’m Currently at in My Practice
I, Samantha Moffatt-Sanz, born in Toronto, Canada and currently residing in Montreal, Canada, am a multimedia visual artist. Thus far my work has focused on visually showcasing relationships, with objects, people, whether it be romantic, platonic, familial etc. and the emotions associated with these relationships. By using a range of materials from film photography to sculpture and almost everything in-between I can physically express the “invisible” (emotions, feelings, hidden conflicts, emotional impacts) associated with relationships. My works typically follow the same trajectory, starting with a relatively concrete idea of what I wish to showcase, this typically comes from personal experience or a feeling I captured or get from one of my photographs, and then moving through various stages of planning, starting with the more obvious way of expressing the idea and finally landing on the more obscure expression. The obscurity allows viewers to engage with the work in their own way and take from it what they need or what applies to them. Soon I wish to create a large cohesive body of work looking at as many aspects as I can on a relationship with one thing. Looking broader and further away in the future I wish to connect with other artists who emotionally connect with my work and me with theirs and organize a show or collective that allows us to work collaboratively and impact a broader group of viewers. Additionally, I hope to represent likeminded artists in a gallery of my own, giving them a place to develop, collaborate and showcase their work in a setting that works well with what is being created.
April 11th, 2022
6 Months Later, this is Where I’m at in My Practice
I, Samantha Moffatt-Sanz, born in Toronto, Canada but currently living in Montreal, Canada, am a multimedia visual artist. My work focuses on visually showcasing platonic, romantic and familial relationships using objects, and people. I also focus on emotions, through abstract works such as paintings, sculptures and photography. Using a range of mediums such as film photography, painting, sculpture and mixed media works I can express the “invisible” associated with relationships and emotions. My works on relationships and emotions typically follow the same trajectory, starting with a relatively concrete idea of what I wish to showcase, this usually stems from personal experiences and feelings, or a moment/emotion captured in one of my photographs, then moving through various stages of planning, starting with the more obvious and literal way of communicating the idea and eventually landing on a more obscure or abstract expression of the idea. The abstractness allows each viewer to interpret the work in a way that pertains to them and their experiences or feelings, this way they can take from it what they need or feel pertains to them. In the future I wish to create a large cohesive body combining my work focusing on relationships and my work focusing on emotions. In a broader sense and further into the future I wish to connect with other artists exploring similar themes to me, as well as artists working in very different themes and mediums to broaden my perspective and expose myself to new artists and art. I also wish to create a show or collective that allows artists exploring similar themes to myself, that allows us to work collaboratively and impact a broader group of people. Eventually, in the future I hope to represent likeminded artists in galleries of my own, providing them with a place to develop, collaborate, experiment and showcase their work in a setting that works well with what is being created.
April 11th, 2022
The People, the Love, the Memories; the Last 5 Years
The Love, the People, the Memories: The Last 5 Years, is a self-made zine from my personal film photography archives. This zine is based on two key words working, an action or activity involving physical, mental or emotional effort and undertaking to achieve a result and the result of the production of action, labour etc., and archive, the collection of historical documents or records that provide information about a place, institution or group of people, with the objective of organizing and storing media. This zine, created in Adobe InDesign, utilizes my carefully archived and organized film photography collection in its digital format, and self-scanned jpg files. All the images are of people, places, experiences and moments of significant value and importance in my personal life and my artistic work.
I’ve been building my film photography archive since 2017 when I first got into film photography. I have both a physical and digital archive I maintain and continue to work on as I develop or have my images developed and later scanned. This zine uses the digital archive as it’s easier to navigate, filter through, select images and input the images into the zine. Sifting through hundreds of images and making my selections for this zine was much easier due to the digitized version of the archive. I was able to look at the images with ease and flag the ones I wanted to use. This process, although much easier than using the physical archive, was far more difficult than expected. All my photos are important to me and deciding on roughly 20-25 images to put into this zine was not only complicated for graphic design reasons, but complicated for my emotions and my personal bias towards select images.
According to the Art Gallery of Ontario, a zine is like a magazine but with a twist, that twist being, zines are typically not made for profit, but to add unheard voices into the mix.[1] Zines are also typically made out of interest and passion and are often self-published by the writer/artist/creator,[2] The Love, the People, the Memories: The Last 5 Years, adds my voice into the artistic and cultural world of zines. This zine not only allows me to work with my archive to create something new, but it allows me to share my voice and a snippet of my story with the zine community, in Montreal or elsewhere via social media and digital access. I have given myself a small platform with this zine, to be as open about the last 5 years as I wish and to share what I wish while also in an almost cathartic way exposing myself to anyone who sees this.
With zines being self-published and ephemeral underground publications it’s impossible to determine how many are in circulation.[3] With so many zines in circulation and so many zine subcultures, I felt welcomed into the space and that allowed the creation of my zine to flow so much better as I wasn’t holding myself back or worried about what people would think or who would see it. Just the knowledge of the plethora of zines out there gave me the mental freedom to express what I wanted and showcase the photos I wanted and not filter anything out.
Zines can be important parts of an artist’s art practice as they showcase art in a widely distributable and accessible manner.[4] They are also a method of diversifying practice, while also being a practice unto themselves.[5] The accessibility and zines being their own art practice felt right to me as an artist and as an artist working with specific keywords. The practice of archiving and the effort that goes into it in combination with the practice of creating a zine and all the work that requires felt like a harmonious way to bring the keywords together into one project. Additionally, the medium of a zine, its culture and history felt like an inviting place for me to put my photos and memories on display for eyes besides my own and close friends. This zine brings those keywords into fruition and provides a product to showcase their union, while also showcasing my archive and allowing me to express myself and my memories in a way I am comfortable with and proud of as an artist.
Bibliography
AGO. “What Is a Zine?” Art Gallery of Ontario, August 27, 2008. https://ago.ca/agoinsider/what-zine
Giannachi, Gabriella. Archive Everything: Mapping the Everyday. The Mit Press Ser. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Jimerson, R.C. (2003), "Archives and memory", OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 89-95
Matthews, Curt. “Self-Publishing Success.” American Libraries 43, no. 5/6 (2012): 12–12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23278067
O’Leary, Anne. “Self-Publishing: Say Goodbye to Vanity and Come in from the Cold.” Books Ireland, no. 365 (2016): 18–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/booksireland.365.18
Pickering, Megan. “Themes/ Politics: Zine Culture.” UAL, November 24, 2018. https://www.arts.ac.uk/partnerships/outreach/insights/topics/themes/themespolitics-zine-culture#:~:text=Zine%20culture%20fosters%20community%2C%20sharing,take%20place%20across%20the%20UK
Tate. “Archive.” Tate , January 1, 1970. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/archive
[1] AGO. “What Is a Zine?” Art Gallery of Ontario, August 27, 2008. https://ago.ca/agoinsider/what-zine
[2] IBID
[3] Piepmeier, Alison. “Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community.” American Periodicals 18, no. 2 (2008): 214 http://www.jstor.org/stable/41219799.
[4] Megan Pickering, “Themes/ Politics: Zine Culture,” UAL, November 24, 2018, https://www.arts.ac.uk/partnerships/outreach/insights/topics/themes/themespolitics-zine-culture#:~:text=Zine%20culture%20fosters%20community%2C%20sharing,take%20place%20across%20the%20UK.
[5] IBID
Moffatt-Sanz, Samantha. 2022. Digital Film Photography Archive, Screen clipping. April 11, 2022
Moffatt-Sanz, Samantha, 2022 The Love, the People, the Memories: The Last 5 Years. Zine, pg 4. April 11, 2022
Moffatt-Sanz, Samantha. 2022 The Love, the People, the Memories: The Last 5 Years. Zine, pg 6. April 11, 2022
personally, i find paint as essential as memories, relationships and emotions
It’s rich and opaque enough to hide what needs to be hidden
Yet so thin and transparent to showcase all the faults and blunders
Such a vast range of colours from fluorescents, metallics, and tints, to our basic colour wheel colours
But still, not quite enough of a range as colour mixing remains ever-present
Thick, beautiful and very secretive
Thin, washed out and an expose to all
All the colours under the sun
but lacking exactly the shade I’m looking for
The material I selected is paint, I work with a range of paints, acrylic, oil, gouache, etc. in most of my works. I have found this material allows me to express the emotions, moments, memories and relationships I wish to showcase while simultaneously reflecting all the emotions, moments, memories and relationships. I choose to write about the paint in a way that could allow for interpretation and a bit of mystery as to what’s being written about, like my work, it’s never 100% clear what the piece is about.
Open Yourself Up to Creativity Spontaneity
We live in a society where everything needs to be thought out, planned, scheduled and organized to a T. Whether you intentionally live that way or find yourself subconsciously following along and planning everything, the present, the future or even thinking back to the past and how things could have gone differently had you planned for something or organized a certain way. The idea of spontaneity seems to be slowly disappearing from our minds and lives, which is such a shame because some of the greatest ideas, memories, experiences, opportunities, relationships, projects and artworks stem from spontaneity. Allowing yourself to release the need to plan and schedule everything and open yourself up to spontaneity in life and spontaneity in creativity facilitates the mental and physical ability to live in the moment and be open to the ideas your mind generates with its newfound freedom. Creativity is organic, it ebbs and flows, and has a mind of its own, and often when you feel the most creatively blocked or stuck it’s because you have so much going on, so many scheduled things occurring at once, filling your brain with deadlines, expectations, constrictions, stress, and false boundaries or rules. Opening yourself up to creative spontaneity will change how you live, how you see the world around you and how you produce your creative work, whatever it may be.
The Three Tenets of Opening Yourself up to Creative Spontaneity
Creative Spontaneity relies on freedom of the mind, body and soul. Allowing yourself time free of expectations, free of scheduled events, to just exist in the moment and in your mind’s present ideas.
Creative Spontaneity requires patience and acceptance. It’s a process that might not feel natural or comfortable at the start. Allow yourself to experience the process and the uncomfortableness because it means you are in the moment, present with what you’re going through, not thinking about what’s to come.
Creative Spontaneity cannot be forced, it will happen when it happens. Allow those ideas and thoughts to linger in your mind, be open to them and accept them. Utilize them to create.
Living the Creative Spontaneity Tenets
Day one, November 29th:
Finding time free of things to do was difficult because I always have so much, I need to do or feel the need to accomplish in one day. But eventually in the evening I found some time for myself, to just exist in the moment and free myself of everything circulating in my mind. When I finally had that time to myself to be present with my creative side and my ideas it was very frustrating to find that my mind was blank, and I had literally zero ideas or thoughts. It was truly a “head empty, no thoughts” (referencing a meme) moment. But I tried to remind myself that it was ok, and I can’t force these ideas, and I can’t force spontaneity because that goes against what spontaneity is.
Day two, November 30th:
It was still a struggle to find time for myself, but it was slightly easier than the day before because I was kind of excited to see what would happen, to see if today I’d have some ideas that would come. I wouldn’t say I really had any specific ideas, but I had an urge to just sit at my desk with a pencil and paper and just doodle. This is something I haven’t done in ages, and it felt good to just create in the moment and see what would appear on the page and where it would take me.
Day three, December 1st:
Today I woke up excited to see what I would create; I started my day off with time to myself and my mind. In this time, I found myself looking through my old artwork archives on my laptop, getting inspired, remembering past ideas based off old projects. This led me to thinking about where I’m at in life, with the people around me, my relationships and experiences. For me and my work, since it’s based so heavily off my memories, experiences and relationships this was a big step, a positive one. I found myself diving deeper into specific relationships and people in my life and the moments I’ve shared with them, and I started getting a few small ideas of artworks I could create. I ended up doing some written brainstorming/flow of thought about these ideas so I could come back to the.
Day four, December 2nd:
Today was hectic and so busy and I was really frustrated I didn’t have time to myself. I also noticed I didn’t really have any new ideas today, or even the urge to revisit what I had explored yesterday. Overall, I felt like today was kind of a loss but then a remembered you can’t force creative spontaneity or ideas, so I just accepted the day for what it was.
Day five, December 3rd:
I woke up feeling good today, for some reason I felt creatively recharged in a way. I felt the urge to experiment and create which is something that for me hasn’t happened very often as of late with all the stress of school and working a job alongside school. I revisited the ideas from two days ago and started collecting materials I have in my workspace that I felt could translate my ideas into physical works. I was really drawn to mediums I don’t typically work with like embroidery floss and letters, but I ran with it anyways and started messing around with the materials.
Day six, December 4th:
Again, today I felt good and super unpressured to create, but also excited and ready to get creative and have fun. I continued working with the embroidery floss and letters from yesterday and today I got the idea to put those onto a canvas. I was particularly thinking about my relationship with one specific person, an ex who is now a friend, who neither of us wanted to be exes and we want to be together but due to circumstances of our schools being 3,000km apart it is what it is. I spent a good few hours seeing what I could do with these materials and what I was feeling towards this person with everything that was happening with them. I ended up settling on wrapping the thread around the canvas to create a ton of lines and textures and using the letters, in the form of beads to spell out what I was feeling and wishing I could communicate. Honestly, today was good and it felt good and freeing to just run with the emotions and ideas.
Day seven, December 5th:
Today I ended up doing a complete 180. I put the previous creative project aside and felt drawn towards my cameras. It was a little annoying because I wanted to finish the work, but I accepted that in the moment my creative spontaneity was leading me towards my cameras and photography. I ended up taking my camera out with me on a walk. I took a ton of photos and just focused on what I was seeing and experiencing in the moment. I have no idea how the photos turned out, because I shoot film and they’re not yet developed, but I feel good about just letting my creative urges and subconscious guide what I created today.