Art and the Head

Or Something is up up There!

The thought processes behind creating and living with your art.

Art happens in the head, not the hands. Anyone with enough manual dexterity to sign their own name has enough muscle control to draw, if sufficiently motivated.

Painting can be even easier. The basic skills of handling a pencil or paint brush, learning about color and color families, composition, etc. can be taught, even to a certain extent, creativity can be taught, or rather techniques for unlocking your own creativity can be discovered. These “keys” to creativity can and will be different for everyone.

But the main one is the same for all. The more you create, the more experience you get with the basic act of creating, the more in tune you will be with your own, unique creative process. And that happens inside your own head, not on a piece of paper or canvas.


Skill, don’t knock it.


Skill is required to successfully create any work of art. It just doesn’t “just happen”. Yes, there is serendipity in art. What other artists have called, “happy accidents” but you are more likely to have these happy accidents if you have mastered basic skills in whatever medium you have chosen.

This leads to:

Practice makes perfect in art as in everything else. The more you paint, draw, crave, mold, staple and manipulate any media, the more mastery you will have over it, and the more inventive you can get with it.

Guilt by Association

Another strange thing about creativity, the more you are around creative people, the more creative you become. This is the reality behind things like artist’s colonies. Creative people have found that by associating with other creative people the more creative they become.

Such is the reality of many of our art movements. The impressionists had their own little impressionistic “club” same with the Fauvists. Picasso did not create in a vacuum, he surrounded himself with an invisible and sometimes visible support to his creativity.


Which brings up to the art league, art association, artists group, etc. Many of us feel the need to join such groups. They can be a large influence on us or a drag, depending on how good they are at inspiring creativity. Some are great, other can drag you down. So you have to investigate and decide just how stimulating they will be to you, the artist.

Find a Mentor

Ask yourself how will this group help you further your own artist ambitions? Do they encourage the work? Supply you with information or access to learning experiences? Do they sponsor the kind of shows that accept creativity or do they simply sponsor the same clickish work?

Select carefully when it comes to learning experiences. Many “classes” are more social clubs. You do a selected, pre-thought out complete painting in an afternoon. These are fine for what they are, but they will not stimulate your own creative direction. Find a mentor.

The Price Of Selling Art

Sold a painting.


Should be good news, and it is, but hey, I was not ready to part with that one. Why didn’t they want the other old thing? That was my favorite! I just finished it! I wanted to grab it back? I thought selling my work would be great! Why isn’t it?



When you stop being emotional about your work it is time to stop painting.



Period.

S. Tschantz
Sold

Of course you have mixed feelings about it! While I was relieved to have sold 3 pieces, I was also sad. I loved those pieces; that is why I put them up in the show!



Never, ever show work you are not 100% proud of. NEVER.



Always show only your best, that which will tear at you to part with. Only then can you be sure what you are offering is really art and not simply decoration. Artwork to be true art must speak to the both the artist and the patron. There should be a give and take in this relationship even if you have never meet and will never meet.

After Vincent

This is why van Gogh still claims such attention over the distance of time, because his work speaks to us. More to us today than in his own time. We all live in a turmoil and that is conveyed in his work, We understand him as his contemporaries did not.

So while you mature enough to let go of your artwork, it is and should always be a bit hard, almost painful.



We all know the painter who paints and who loves to shoves his or her stuff off on everyone. They copy crafts and decorative stuff and love to give it away, but there is no emotional connection there. While they often view themselves as artistic peers (actually I know one near by who talks down to me) their work is imitative. They follow a pattern. Copying other artists. Following the directions of their “teacher” faithfully (and to my mind fatally) one such person’s latest, a copy of a Kincaid card, is their current crowning achievement. Said “artist” then proceeded to photograph it and make "prints" of it on their computer. Then it was fostered off on all of us as a priceless “gift”. This work is dull. Oh, the image is there. They copy very well, but the work is static, lifeless and to a real art lover, well.......boring. Seen it before, better done. There is no emotion in that painting other than smugness at how well they did. And it shows.

Always hurt just a little, my friend.

Successful Paintings?

Failed Fall Painting

Without failure you cannot succeed.
So don’t be afraid of failure and of creating “interesting” paintings.



None of us likes everything we do. Not if we are honest and not a complete egoist, that is.

If we don't fail from time to time we don't make progress and out art becomes repetitious and stale. So don't be afraid of failure or of painting "interesting" paintings. These contain the germ of genius.

Working at art, or trying to anyways

It will come as no surprise that many artists, myself included, are struggling right now. Along with everyone else in this economic downturn artists are experiencing a, well shall we say, a bit of financial slowdown?

All right, lets just say that for all intents and purposes, a dead stop!

So what is any self-respecting artist who enjoys eating to do? Get a job. As a working, practicing artist, this is daunting, but necessary. But even in bad economic times, Temp work is usually there.

So for the next 6 weeks, I will be rising early (Ugh!) and heading out to bring home some bacon! Not being a morning person, this is painful for me.

But it does have it compensations. I get to enjoy the early morning light, something I usually only do if I have been up all night painting. (not an entirely unheard of.) I also get to enjoy the daily warming of the earth and the sparkle of morning dew. I am not sure that is not overrated.

I am enjoying that brisk cup of hot coffee, though, with the morning chill. And getting up early is good for me, or so other assure me.

It does, however, limit the time to be creative. I am still teaching my classes and mentoring my students, and working with the co-op. but there is little time for my own art. So for a while I am back to where I was when I had an active career. Stealing a hour here and there for drawing, or writing, but more than anything fighting the desire to simply crawl into bed.

Working can leach the creativity out of you. It leaves me feeling dull and less than human. Creative works make me feel alive and real, even after hours in the studio. While I immerge tired and drained, I find real satisfaction in what I am doing and who I am.

I will endure the job. Using my abilities to earn income frees me to be creative most of the time. I can paint what I want, draw what I want, and be creative to my satisfaction, not just to a patron. I feel less pressure to be commercial in my art. That is compensation for spending time in the “real world” earning that paycheck.

Expressionist Art

Twentieth Century art baffles a lot of people.

They know it is supposed to be good, but they just don’t get it.

An exhibition of Robert Motherwell’s work is coming to town. The publicity about this exhibit extol its virtues to the public, trying to entice a largely resistant public into viewing his work.

In preparing her piece on this exhibition, the reporter was looking for a quote, something to make a largely confusing and un-untellable show explainable. Why should be see this show. Why should ordinary people in this economy care about the works of Robert Motherwell?

So, she asked me.

At first I panicked. Why ask me? Do I look like I know? This is a serious question. How would I know? Am I going to be exposed as a fake? I am simply a working artist, a blue-collar artist. Not some high-flaluten super educated art historian. Then I looked at her note, and noted the name. Motherwell, Motherwell, sounds familiar, Oh yes, I know this guy! I checked a couple of books to make sure I had the right person, the old brain-box is not what it used to be. But yes, I know this guy. So, happily I gave her what information I had, and my honest opinion on this man’s work, and impact on the art world of his time. Everyone is happy, and article came out, and she did a really good job of it. Being a struggling artist, I am happy for any recognition and getting my name in the paper without getting arrested is something to be proud of.

I sent a link to the article off to several friends and family members. Well, my sister wrote back to me that she enjoyed reading the article, but hoped this person’s art was better than the one image printed in the paper. I had to blink. I got out my paper, and looked at the image they included. Yes, that is one of his pieces, and while not my favorite I rather like it. It is very simple.



To my sister, it bears a striking resemblance to an ink blot test. As for it being good art, she just doesn't know why that is considered as good as say a Rembrant.



http://www.putnamstandard.com/main.asp?SectionID=39&SubSectionID=42&ArticleID=2369

Now, I like Robert Motherwell’s work but I do understand what my sister is getting at. His work is condensed, and mature, but also not something the average run of the mill person gets. When I think of all the work and effort that the curators of both galleries, both the receiving gallery, The Clay Center for the arts and sciences in Charleston, WV, and the Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte, NC I have to be concerned on how successful they will be on introducing modern, contemporary art to the general public. Oh, us art lovers will enjoy it, but how many of the other people visiting the Clay center will really get into it?

I know they want the general public to connect with this stuff. They struggle to bring the best to their museums and galleries. But I wonder if showing the best is really the way to go about it. I wonder if they showed the more ordinary pieces, what they dismiss, as not up to par or beginning pieces people might get a chance to understand what the "major" pieces are all about. Often people look at the end results of a lifetime of artwork and just scratch their heads. It is like reading people the ending of a great novel, when they have never read the book, and expecting them to get excited about it. There is no context, and frankly, modern art needs its context!

When showing contemporary art or expressionist art, you really do need to fill in the context. The why of the work is as important as the work itself. If you only show the work but not the story behind it, you leave so much of the work unexposed.



So showing the whole story, the art in context to its time, and to the art that preceded it, lead up to it, helps it make more sense.



We who live art have already made this journey, and sometimes we forget that others have not.

*-*
The accompanying photo is of a small painting by me, "Alien Sky" and not Motherwell.

Today, Thinking about Art

Belief

Art
I believe in it

Not long ago, I started calling myself an artist
It was not particularly true, but I had painted a few paintings
And did some drawing

I made mechanical drawings and got paid for it
Not particularly well, but enough

Then I quit
Just up and quit

Oh, I had my reasons,

Most of them not logical from the world’s standpoint
But valid to me.

I quit

And took up painting again
Not particularly well, but I did it
Again
And again

I painted
And got a sketchbook and started to draw again

Not well, but I kept at it.

I posted stuff on line and asked questions

[drove some kind guides wiggy I would imagine]

but I kept at it and started to call myself an artist.

Some looked funny at me.
Thought I was getting uppity
Thinking myself better than them
Or cultured, putting on airs
Pretending to education I did not have

But being an artist is not about being educated
Cultured
Or superior

It is about being

About breathing

It is about doing.

I picked up a camera and started shooting
The pictures turned out great
Showed them around,

“boy what a good camera you have”

not about what a good eye I have.

But I kept on.

Taking pictures,
Drawing
Painting

Putting it all together

Started mounting and framing and putting it together

Found some walls
Put it up
Had some people in

“Wow, I can’t believe you did this
Where did you take that? My house?
I don’t remember this around the neighborhood”

Then the reporter calls.
“can I see where you work?”
“Sure”

He dignifies the basement, calls it my studio
Suddenly, it becomes one.

So the paper comes out

“Wow, I didn’t know you were an artist!”

Now it is official
I am an artist.
Was all along,
But now the label sticks.