ABSTRACT
Drawing on 33 interviews with professional artists, this chapter explores the way in which the seeds of a new artwork are sown in the mind of the artist. It introduces the term ‘pre-sense’ and defines it as the desire to create an artwork arising from the artist’s strong personal response to some element of the outside world. The chapter draws on psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s theory of transitional phenomena for an understanding of the way in which the artist imbues this outer element with her own inner experience. The artist’s sense of personal boundaries is temporarily affected so that there is a sense of being at one with, or encompassing, the element of the outside world to which she has responded. This can be thought of as the artist taking something from the outside world into herself. Marion Milner’s writing about her experience of painting and Christopher Bollas’ concepts of the ‘aesthetic moment’ and the ‘transformational object’ are referenced in relation to this experience. The chapter includes quotations from artists Hayley Newman, Sharon Kivland, Hughie O’Donoghue, Henrietta Simson and Laura Malacart.
