I’m not talking about reference images. I’m not talking about scrolling through other artists’ work for inspiration. That’s surface-level inspiration at best.
Research, as I’m defining it, is any sustained act of curiosity about your subject: what it is, where it comes from, what it means, how it behaves, who has cared about it before you and why.
It can look like visiting a place, reading about a historical period, interviewing someone, observing something over time, or working with a material you don’t yet fully understand.
For artists, inquiry and making are distinct activities but inseparable. Each feeds the other.
The question to keep returning to: What don’t I know about this that I should?