Today we’d like to introduce you to Griffin Cordell.
Hi Griffin, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My father gave me a sketchbook when I was three, and I drew in it every day. I have kept one ever since and it still gives me an outlet to put all of my ideas and ambitions to paper. When I was little, I wanted to be so many things. One week I would want to go to space, the next I would want to dig up fossils in the desert, and then I would want to be the president. Having a sketchbook gave me a way to explore all of those ambitions in a creative, very imaginative way. For the next several Christmases I started getting cardboard and duct tape every year and was encouraged to make the things that I wanted. Constantly, my room was taken up by giant cardboard robots and monsters of my own creations, and from there it never really stopped. By the time I got to high school, I was still drawing constantly and even got involved in the theatre making costumes and set pieces. Later I got into the South Carolina Governors School for the Arts and Humanities and fell in love with learning traditional sculpture techniques and processes like casting bronze, making molds, welding, carving stone, and firing ceramics. Then when I got my undergrad at Winthrop University the work I was making became very conceptual. I was exploring sculptural concepts rather than processes. These experiences have both shaped my work into what it is now.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
No, it has been full of difficult challenges. I feel like the nature of being an artist is learning to see your failures as successes. Forgetting your expectations for what something is supposed to be, lets you accept your worst failures as seeds of potential for the next thing you attempt to make. Your time is never useless. I have had sculptures explode, catch fire, collapse, and every time I have found the beginning of something to pull out of the rubble.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My artistic process and my life are interconnected, and creating artwork provides me opportunities to make discoveries and relate to the world around me. The creative process has led me into researching many subjects, but the relationships we have with our own dreams, memories, and spirituality is a concept that consistently shows up within my work. These concepts often deal with ambiguity, intuition, absurdity and other ideas of the unknown which heavily influence my creative process. I aim for my work to be spontaneous, suggestive of narrative, and speak in a language that encourages an unfamiliar dialogue, challenging our perception of the sensical world we inhabit. Formally I work in any medium that is available to me, but often drawing, sculpture, video, sound and installation components are incorporated within my work. Most of my project ideas start in my sketchbook, but the end result will never be the same as my initial idea which excites me. I like to live in the process of creativity and I value asking important questions rather than finding correct answers. Some questions are worth asking even when you know they have no direct answer. I hope that by following my creative intuitions, I can continue learning and understanding the importance of life and sharing my experiences with people around me.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
I want my work to ask questions. That is all artwork is, its questions that are posed and unable to be answered by just one person. I love when people want to talk about my work or interpret it with me. I want to keep people together and connected through the things and work that I believe to be important, and I think other people find important too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.griffincordellartwork.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/griffincordellartwork/
