I have been trying to come up with a 'manifesto' of sorts to describe my distaste for the Art Machine and culture then decided I needed to revisit the past a little to provide some insight and context for my opinions on art.
Then I started thinking back to my Art School days. Some of my least favorite times were having to get up in front of everyone to defend my work. I always found that to be a strange practice. The student has to get up and first explain the How, Why, and (sometimes)What. That was the easy part. Then came the Q&A and verbal dismantling of the student's work by fellow classmates and the Professor. Everyone talked about their work using $5 dollar words or phrases that none of us EVER used outside the art critique. I never understood the reasoning for critiquing work that did not have a clear objective such as accurately representing with paint on canvas a bowl of fruit on a table. Professors and students would regularly offer up what they'd had done differently TO MY PAINTING. I took 95% of all that wasted time and conversation with a grain of salt because I knew I was on to something. I was finding my artistic aesthetic and I was defining what art meant for me.
Needless to say, I did not agree with the trajectory that Art School was trying to force me into. Here's the basic pattern that has been repeating probably since the 1940's. You go to Art School and get your B.A. or in my case B.F.A. then you are expected to 'go out and live in the world' to gain more life experience in order to GO BACK to school for a Masters. For those of you who do not know how this system works, a Masters program is essentially a scam to squeeze more money out of a student and set them up to become just one more artist ensnared in the Art School-Gallery-Museum system. To get a Masters, you simply do the exact same work you would be doing outside of the school walls except you get to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the opinions of the Professors of whatever school you attend. A Masters candidate only has two choices(unless gaining a Masters is just for pleasure or self-satisfaction): 1. Graduate and hunt for low level assistantship jobs etc. in a highly saturated market full of other Masters graduates. OR 2. Work a conventional job doing whatever while constantly requesting galleries to review your portfolio. Both routes rarely provide success or satisfaction for the artist. Nothing about Art School focused or encouraged the notion that an artist COULD actually want to be an artist. It's quite a closed system. Two ironies of the art world: 1. Success is seen as selling-out. 2. A 'self-taught' artist is more highly prized in this pretentious world than a trained and skilled artist.
Let me make one thing very clear. EVERY true visual artist is self-taught. I've put crayon/pencil to paper for as far back in my life that I can remember. As I got older, I took the art classes that public education provided. I watched various painting/drawing shows on PBS- some designed for children and some designed for adults. I watched both. My High School art teacher, Mr. Ronald Nugent or "Nooge" as we sometimes playfully addressed him was my first art hero. It seemed he could represent anything on paper realistically with speed and precision. I admired and was envious of his talent. At that time in my life, making art meant drawing, or painting(I was really into watercolor and ink) a subject(s) as realistically as possible. My parents always encouraged me by buying me "How to draw whatever" books, buying me paint and canvas when it was possible and constantly made me feel that being an artist was just as legitimate as any other "I want to be a ____" dream.
Everything changed after I completed my basic drawing and painting classes in college. I was told that representational artwork was passé and unintelligent. To my professors, Abstract Expressionism seemed to be the be all and end all of art. Abstraction obviously meant you were more intelligent because all of these artists we studied wrote pages and pages in defense of their art. My immediate thought was that this was too heady and basically just B.S. After taking two Art History courses from one of the most thorough teachers I've ever had, I gained the ability to appreciate more art than before. Exposure is everything in education. I kept painting away trying to find my voice. Along the way, I discovered I did not like Brown. Brown is not a color- it's a mixture. It's also not neutral. Browns are made by mixing complimentary colors together in various proportions to get the variety of Browns that are available. I also discovered I didn't like 'mark making'- just stabbing at paper or canvas with nonsensical "energetic' lines. I found I appreciated color and shape over everything else. Then I discovered Matisse the second time. The first time I was introduced to Matisse was through learning about his fauvist paintings. I was never a fan. I found them to be poorly executed and too busy. Then... I discovered his cut paper. My imagination went wild. The Blue Nudes became the starting point of what would become my current style. There was still something important to me that was missing. The story.
This is my most basic process when I create my art: Most of my work typically starts from photographs- nearly all of which I take myself. Then I spend some time thinking about how I felt when I took that picture, or what was happening when the picture was taken. I think about what could have been going on in the mind of the person(if figurative) or the state of mind of the other animals I paint. Then I start laying out the image on paper in my sketchbook. I try a few things. I play with placement, cropping, and I love the horizontal format. I think it gives my work a cinematic quality. My goal and challenge to myself is to reduce and edit the image down to what I decide is the minimum required to get my point across. My hope is that the initial image is "Wow" enough visually to catch attention. Then, the story is given in the title in the form of 'Western Haiku'. Again, it's about reducing to the essentials. Sometimes the narrative and/or piece is personal. Other times the titles come straight from my imagination. After people read my titles, my hope is that they hang out for a bit and ponder. Maybe the imagery reminds them of something in their lives. Maybe they can relate a piece to something in their lives that makes them happy.
I'm not trying to explain the universe in my art. I'm not trying to be political in my art or make some sort of great philosophical statement. My goal is to create something of beauty that clearly communicates the message. My hope is that in the process, my art is a positive addition to people's lives. I want my art to contribute to happiness, lightness, and sometimes laughter. Ultimately, Visual Art is just that- visual. It shouldn't require pages and pages of mental masturbatory word vomit to communicate a point that was SUPPOSED to have been communicated VISUALLY from the start. People are going to like what they see or not. No amount of B.S. explanation can circumvent personal taste. My struggle is how to survive and thrive in a society that already places little value on art while doing so independently outside of the Art Machine. This will be a big part of my story. Keep reading and I will keep writing.
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