02 PERCEPTION, PROCESS AND CREATIVE PRACTICES - The Spaces In Between

Creative practice does not begin with a tool. For Karen Mayo, it begins in stillness — in a deeper field of conscious awareness where spiritual connection, inner knowing, memory, experience and perception meet before language. In this reflective studio companion, Karen writes from inside her own artistic practice to explore how perception moves through process and into form, how spiritual and intellectual ways of knowing coexist within creative work, and how an artwork can become a signpost without prescribing what another person must see. The work may point towards recognition; the recognition remains with the viewer. In this reflective studio companion, Karen writes from inside her own artistic practice to explore how perception moves through process and into form, how spiritual and intellectual ways of knowing coexist within creative work, and how an artwork can become a signpost without prescribing what another person must see. The work may point towards recognition; the recognition remains with the viewer. The book also considers the Conversation Room, a reflective research space beside the work where dialogue can help articulate, test and extend ideas that are already active within practice. Although grounded in visual art, the book opens this reflective territory to creative people across disciplines — performers, musicians, poets, writers and others who know the experience of carrying something deeply before they can fully name it, and of bringing that inner movement into form.