Art is not the art you thought was art, sometimes

Art, what is it? That's a tough question really. How can one even answer that? Is it subjective? Does it have rules or guides or some qualitative objectivity? The question has at least two parts, what has it been and what is it becoming? There are a thousand permutations from the tangents, but let's just think about two halves since we are in the middle. There is art that will be and art that was. If art will be produced in the future and if that is different in any way from the art we now know or did know, then you have to resort to some other metric to discern the answer to 'what is art?'. Half of the answer could be a legitimate review of what has passed as art before historically, but that is only half. And how can you really compare the art of the past with art today or tomorrow? The context alone is all off.
In that first half it is easy enough to go back and observe the current world's consensus on Van Gogh, Modigliani, Bernini, Rembrandt, or Mozart to name some examples. Not all of these artists were considered artists in their time nor was the body of work recognized as art. Some yes, but not all and this has given modern (not necessarily modernist) artists a sense of safety in the notion, "well, I am misunderstood in my time," or "my work will be recognized after I am gone, but it IS art".
It is here that artists rely on the other half of the question about art in the future because no one knows. There is also the expectation for artists to do something new, to pave new ground, to discover something.
That's all fine. I believe art does discover, but I don't believe that is it's purpose per se. But I digress.
What is it then? Let's start with what it isn't. Art is not an oil painting. It isn't a sculpture or music composed. It isn't effort or toil or time spent on a piece. Art is not concentration and it is not beyond us. Art is not a pencil drawing. It is not charcoal, ink, a brush stroke, hype, hyperbole, price, or showmanship much in the same way sex is not pregnancy or birth.
Yes, bad sex can lead to a baby (jeff koons), but a baby is art. Yes there can be pretty babies and ugly babies and we can disagree on which is which. There can be abnormal babies and a huge variety otherwise. Some babies die. Many become something after being a baby. Are they still art then?
This question and all of those implied in the previous paragraph is much easier to answer than to come up with a definition of what is art? No, I will spare you my answers for those questions too. Not to ruin the day, but I alone cannot create the definition of art. It changes and it requires participation with all that observe it to define it.
But, the next time you view something that could be art, whether hanging in a museum or in a pile of trash under a bridge or in a garage in Glendale ask yourself, "is this life or is it the wet spot that almost was?"

First Friday at the Just Breathe Wellness Sanctuary

It's First Friday again, the monthly Scottsdale art walk. Please come down and take in the art and atmosphere in downtown Scottsdale. This is the best time of year for this event so it should prove to be a good turn out.

This month you can find some of my earlier work displayed at the Just Breathe Wellness Sanctuary ( www.justbreathewellness.com ). It can be found online or listed on the free gallery maps distributed throughout the stops.

Now get out there and get some art!

In my heart is a knife man

Tonight, I am a knife man. That's all I can commit to right now, but I may really be a knife man in 2009.
There are a million arguments against; isn't it like cheating? it is for the impatient, it is without discipline, it's primitive, it's bound by opaque etc.

A knife delivers the brush strokes I want a brush to stroke. A brush is indispensable make no mistake, namely in early stages among others, but a knife can be subtle and always strong and nuanced. Every stroke is spontaneity of energy yet imbued with intent. Every stroke is a thought first and a life of its own thereafter. If the color is not worked out ahead of time it will distract. But if you create the right color by mixing it on the canvas it too looks brilliant. On that note, it stands up strong and bright if you intend it to. It randomizes pattern. It unifies disparity. I'm almost always satisfied if I use it with confidence. That's the key, confidence. The false kind will expose itself right away. It has to be the real thing. The kind hailing from knowledge and experience.

My knife is at times like sculpting while at others the opposite. It is at times like sculpting in that I chisel at the surface to reveal or expose something. It can dig out the truth under the surface. This comes early in the knifing stages. This is usually responsible for atmosphere and improving edges. I tend to bend knives in this stage.

The opposite of this technique is the whipped topping, the dance of texture. This is a build up stage, not a cutting one. It is the staging floor of color. It is the spire atop the monument and good ball bearings in the wheel of a homeless grocery cart. It is the moot in smooth. I tend to drop knives often in this stage. I hold it so lightly the surface of the paint pulls it from my finger tips.

In my heart is a knife man me thinks.

Passion

Passion has many voices and even more iterations. It has results and a pulse and can be related to as most people understand what it means or what it feels like, but few understand where it comes from or if it has a source. I don't propose to explain this now for all to see, but in reading a great thinker's post this morning I am choosing to resubmit his post here, fully credited of course. He just explains it well enough that it should be hoisted up as a rounded enough explanation for all to see.

"People often ask me where I got my inspiration for one thing or another. Or what possessed me to do something. Or why I have a passion for a particular project. The assumption behind those questions, I think, is that if one could find out where such causes originate, it would be possible to pick a promising field of endeavor then activate the inspiration to spark higher levels of achievement.

But it doesn't work that way. In my experience, I do the project I can't stop myself from doing. Passion is the thing you can't control, by definition. It's the same with inspiration. At any given time there are dozens of projects that I think make sense, but sooner or later one bubbles to the top on its own, logic ignored, and takes over my schedule.

Dilbert was like that. It drove me; I didn't drive it. It felt as if some invisible hand was pushing me. You can label it passion or inspiration if you want. Religious folks might have a different interpretation. The only point is that it controls the person, not vice versa.

If there is a logical component to chasing these passions - beyond the thin rationalizations I tend to layer on them - it is the fact that sometimes you have to get them out of your system to free yourself for the next one. For me, this was most true with my book God's Debris. It was my first non-Dilbert book, at a time that writing such a thing seemed like a really bad idea to all observers. But I had no choice. The book sprang fully formed into my head one day while I was showering, and I couldn't do anything else until I got it out. That meant writing it.

So when people ask how they can find their passion, the answer is that your passion finds you, as long as you can free up your schedule from the "must dos" enough to let it in. When I had a full-time job, before Dilbert, I awoke at 4 AM, sat alone in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee, and waited. I did that for a year or two, just emptying my mind and freeing my imagination. I don't remember the day I picked up a pencil and started drawing instead of sitting during those hours, but I'm sure I didn't have a choice." -SCOTT ADAMS

My painting comes from a similar direction. Between painting stages I often sit and ruminate on a new idea or thought. This usually culminates in new images that HAVE to get out. This process can get pretty efficient in that images and ideas come at any time; sitting at a stop light, the shower, elevators, anywhere. The stronger the idea the more intense it forms and the more it wants to get out. I would hate to think what would happen without this outlet.

Neutral

Crisis averted. There is nothing like a period of reexamination to clarify the road ahead. I’m sure every creative person experiences this purging turmoil at one time (or even much of the time) or another. I feel back on track with new weapons for tackling what lies ahead.

I am currently closing in on the finish to a few projects; a commission, a Halloween/Jack the Ripper themed show next month, and a bone deep inspection of the modern phenomenon of Holocaust denial. Granted, these aren’t exactly geared for cheery tea time chats, but if you can’t see the shadow you will have a difficult time finding the light.

There is much afoot, stayed tuned.

1st Gear

It has been a slow road off of the recent crisis. The crisis is a crossroads; if I paint this infrequent my art life may go nowhere and then necessarily become extinct, traded for a more stable family friendly career. I haven’t been painting much lately as a result. I think one way out of this crisis is choosing to make more time for it, a proper amount. I have tonight, but an obstacle or two has already been presented. I have a prior obligation I am reluctant to attend and I have no energy. These are mere obstacles and for now I am resolute.

I have entered into a fine conversation or two recently and perhaps I will post those later. One deals with my art in particular and I found it an interesting take. It was opined that my work is interesting and of notable quality, but “empty”, my emotional content that is. On some level, I agree. Now, for those that know my work and have been exposed to my thinking, it can be agreed that this is quasi-intentional. It is intentional in that my priorities are for painting ideas and notions, not emotional moments and flowers or even pain. I paint ideas and concepts almost philosophically and have actively resisted too much specific emotional baggage. Though this is what I have done, “empty” is no achievement, regardless of where on the totem pole I place the importance of emotion.

That said, my ‘everyman’ forms serve a great purpose. I do not wish to personalize my forms so much that they overpower the theme. Often it is the very idea that individuals are lost in the modern media, replaced by numbers and sensation that drive the ideas behind my paintings. I want to focus on the greater concept of how we are changing as a people, as a world, as a species, with every new development in the conditions of our evolving human condition. When I painted In the Mines, I painted the whole of the lost souls and what it means to risk going underground and being left there in a commercial world. I painted the dark light of man’s last moments, pre-buried. I didn’t paint Jim’s ordeal or Jane’s sacrifice; I painted the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. The same goes for the painting representing the tragedy at the World Trade Center Towers, In the Towers. It represents all of those lost, the fear in all of us, the futility, the capitulation and quiet resignation in the face of the foreground avatar. Bodies twist in that one, as much from the idea of such fantastic carnage as it represents how little we knew of what it must have been like up there and how they would never know what would happen in the years after down here. It is unknown. Putting a specific emotional and realistic face into that dialogue would seem too one sided, like starting an argument with an absolute and refusing to budge your ground.














As mentioned however, “empty” is no triumph and I admit, I could stand to include this element in a more thorough way with my forms. Granted, ‘empty’ may not even be the right word, it may be too harsh (maybe not?), but the viewer trusts me to make the whole argument and I believe I can trust them to engage the whole idea of my intent without stopping on agreement or disagreement of how I use emotion in my paintings. So, I will soon endeavor to better frame my arguments, not neglecting parts of our being for the sake of sterile understanding of the truth.

Clutch

I started a new composition. Sorry Stacy, yours is in my field of view still, just not on the easel. I am in a mild crisis however, so if there are extenuating circumstances, these are they.

How could I ever not do this? By that, I mean paint. I think I imagined last night, for the first time, not having access to [painting/creative endeavors] and it depressed me on a fundamental level. Not because it was sad or because I would not be able to do something that made me happy. It wouldn't be that simple. The depressing insinuation has everything to do with imagining forfeiting who I have always been, who I am today, and whom I always thought I would be.

This new painting, though in the initial stages, shows me painting will never go away. If I were to give all of this up to make those around me more happy I would only accomplish the opposite by becoming a negative force in their lives. If I had to be someone else out of capitulation, what good is that for anyone? What does that teach? What lesson is that? I know. It is a lesson on how not to live. It would be a lesson in failure and regret and forfeiture. Noble lessons some may say(the French?), but I say that those lessons come along the way regardless, in moments of thinness and moments of cowardice or self doubt.

Painting should be thick, brave, and confident. A painting should not be just a picture, it should be an idea. It should be a journey, an exploration, and an experiment. It should be something unresolved in the beginning. It should be a trial and a discovery and something worked out, like life. These criteria should make this new composition interesting.

I am a painter because I am not otherwise.