When I was a child we kept chickens in the summer time. There was only one rule: do not name the chickens because they were food - not pets. Every year I watched these chickens grow from cute fuzzy yellow chicks in the basement to smelly annoying dirty animals that I had to chase whenever they would get out of the coop to my plate at Sunday dinner. The life of a painting is much like this. It starts out small and quiet – letting a small peep out every once in a while. The artist nurtures it and treats it as if it is precious at this point. Then as the dialogue with paint and canvas ensues there are moments of frustration – points at which the painting is lost and regained. At times you feel in control and other times the painting is controlling you. It invades your dreams and becomes obsessively present in your brain and soul. You think you must turn it to the wall to escape it for a while but this does not work. The painting with all of its weaknesses and possibilities is demanding your attention. Your stomach starts to hurt as you feel you will never conquer it. Self doubt arises – perhaps you should have gone to law school creeps in your thoughts. Litanies of self-deprecating thoughts follow. Why did I think I could ever be an artist? Why did I ever think I could make a good painting? What kind of arrogance did I possess to think that any kind of message of mine would be important enough for others to look at or consider? The painting has become that annoying, dirty chicken chasing you and making you chase it to return it to the coop. And then it happens.
The Break Through
The painting has a direction, a purpose for its existence. A resolution presents itself. The painting has become ready for public consumption. And so like gathering the chickens into cages and loading them onto the truck you prepare this thing you have created for its public life. Presentation, documentation issues are addressed. It is framed or not framed as needed, you shoot slides and title it and write an artist statement. And there it sits ready like a newly butchered chicken with its giblets in a little baggie neatly wrapped up in plastic – waiting for a consumer. If you are lucky enough an audience notices it and it becomes food, sustenance for the soul. Feeding the dialogue between humans - the painting and the viewers giving life to each other. It leaves you then and takes on a life of its own and you return to the studio where another blank canvas waits quietly peeping from the dark basement of your soul and asks you to feed it.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
When Impulsiveness
Becomes A Calculated Leap
When I was 23 my favorite thing to say was “There is genius in boldness.” This was how I viewed and justified my life and my art. At the time my art was very much like my life – chaotic, unpredictable and naïve. I did not have time for sketches and planning and thought that most artists who did this were not in touch with the power of intuition. I did not even bother with a palette squirting my paint directly from tube to canvas. Letting the paint take me where it will like a feather adrift in the breeze or like debris flying loose in a hurricane depending on the mood of the day. I did not care for aesthetic theory or art history. What did that have to do with me? I only looked at other painters for technical guidance and I never read those books with the recipes of the masters. My peer group and professors alike often described me as impatient.
But there was a nagging feeling that the impulse to make art was as a result of need to expose or say something. As I progressed into life after school the speed of my paintbrush slowed and the nagging became unbearable. I began to think about why these objects must exist. I thought there must be more than an existentialist extension of the tradition of abstraction. The words of the Catholic and Buddhist mystics that I had read in school blurred and faded. There must be something unique about the contribution I and every other artist had to make. If there wasn’t something more to contribute then what was the point?
The making of objects ground to a halt.
I began to study the world. Listening to it instead of my own incessant chatter. I collected news stories and advertisements. Scavenging life bits trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. There must be more… there must be more… replaying like a mantra in my head. I was fully immersed in what I now call (looking back) my incubation period. And I had passed a point of no return. The realization that I must leave that which I loved the most in order to create something else (more?) was excruciating and invigorating all at once. I was reborn and fully vulnerable.
Patterns began to emerge. It was like a kaleidoscope with a ubiquitous hand was turning the view port. The patterns would shift and suddenly the pieces would make a different perspective – a new image. Stocks rising and falling, economic shifts creating and destroying jobs, a well placed vote to prevent or start a war, the relation of taxes to providing to those in need, science and technology and its membership to creativity and the Hollywood image machine. Then I realized – it was not a ubiquitous hand – the hand turning the view port could be mine if I possessed the confidence and courage to reach for it and make a turn of my own. It was not that my hand was more important or less important than anyone else’s – it was that was MY hand and my hand is as valid as anyone else’s. I gave myself permission to contribute - permission to shift the view port and let others consider the perspective.
All of this coincided and collided with my participation in the corporate world. The corporate world from the perspective of the artist is a fully planned, calculating machine, which is often considered an evil force manipulating the masses for the betterment of a few executives. While I will not deny that this happens I have also found (through membership as an employee) that the corporate world is also a place that is perhaps more creative than that of the art community. For example: a multi-billion dollar media corporation being started with a poker game of used car salesmen and a radio station owner. (i.e. Clear Channel Communications – think what would have happened if Howard Stern had been present at that poker game and had won that hand) In contrast the art community appears to be a stagnant place with all artists lock stepping Nazi style to the demands of the establishment. (For people who purport to be creative – I don’t see much creativity in the choice of how most artists choose to live their lives.)
As I became fully cognizant of the power of the corporation and the idea that this world could be used as if it were a canvas with investment and return a set of paints and brushes I also became aware of the possibility of what could be should artists allow themselves to participate. What kind of a world would it be - if artists formed corporations? The desire to fully participate in the world allowed me to begin to plan and calculate how and when I would make the next leap. It would not be a blind leap of faith but a leap where I would be sure of where my foot would land on the other side of the canyon. Of course like anyone who decides to leap across a canyon all the planning and calculating of rate of speed and angle of trajectory could be made useless by one gust of unexpected wind. In the post-Enron corporate world anyone who participates must also realize that it is not the rock of Gibraltar but more a ship at sea – privy to the weather and the currents – with the combined possibilities to go anywhere and find undiscovered territory or find a grave at the bottom of the sea.
And so – at 38 years old - I amend my earlier thought to say, “There is genius in the boldness of planning and the calculated use of intuition.”
The era of the Corporate Fine Art Entity has begun – where leaps of faith are calculated and artistic contributions planned and delivered to the masses.
Copyright 2004-2007 Theresa Devine. All rights reserved
But there was a nagging feeling that the impulse to make art was as a result of need to expose or say something. As I progressed into life after school the speed of my paintbrush slowed and the nagging became unbearable. I began to think about why these objects must exist. I thought there must be more than an existentialist extension of the tradition of abstraction. The words of the Catholic and Buddhist mystics that I had read in school blurred and faded. There must be something unique about the contribution I and every other artist had to make. If there wasn’t something more to contribute then what was the point?
The making of objects ground to a halt.
I began to study the world. Listening to it instead of my own incessant chatter. I collected news stories and advertisements. Scavenging life bits trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. There must be more… there must be more… replaying like a mantra in my head. I was fully immersed in what I now call (looking back) my incubation period. And I had passed a point of no return. The realization that I must leave that which I loved the most in order to create something else (more?) was excruciating and invigorating all at once. I was reborn and fully vulnerable.
Patterns began to emerge. It was like a kaleidoscope with a ubiquitous hand was turning the view port. The patterns would shift and suddenly the pieces would make a different perspective – a new image. Stocks rising and falling, economic shifts creating and destroying jobs, a well placed vote to prevent or start a war, the relation of taxes to providing to those in need, science and technology and its membership to creativity and the Hollywood image machine. Then I realized – it was not a ubiquitous hand – the hand turning the view port could be mine if I possessed the confidence and courage to reach for it and make a turn of my own. It was not that my hand was more important or less important than anyone else’s – it was that was MY hand and my hand is as valid as anyone else’s. I gave myself permission to contribute - permission to shift the view port and let others consider the perspective.
All of this coincided and collided with my participation in the corporate world. The corporate world from the perspective of the artist is a fully planned, calculating machine, which is often considered an evil force manipulating the masses for the betterment of a few executives. While I will not deny that this happens I have also found (through membership as an employee) that the corporate world is also a place that is perhaps more creative than that of the art community. For example: a multi-billion dollar media corporation being started with a poker game of used car salesmen and a radio station owner. (i.e. Clear Channel Communications – think what would have happened if Howard Stern had been present at that poker game and had won that hand) In contrast the art community appears to be a stagnant place with all artists lock stepping Nazi style to the demands of the establishment. (For people who purport to be creative – I don’t see much creativity in the choice of how most artists choose to live their lives.)
As I became fully cognizant of the power of the corporation and the idea that this world could be used as if it were a canvas with investment and return a set of paints and brushes I also became aware of the possibility of what could be should artists allow themselves to participate. What kind of a world would it be - if artists formed corporations? The desire to fully participate in the world allowed me to begin to plan and calculate how and when I would make the next leap. It would not be a blind leap of faith but a leap where I would be sure of where my foot would land on the other side of the canyon. Of course like anyone who decides to leap across a canyon all the planning and calculating of rate of speed and angle of trajectory could be made useless by one gust of unexpected wind. In the post-Enron corporate world anyone who participates must also realize that it is not the rock of Gibraltar but more a ship at sea – privy to the weather and the currents – with the combined possibilities to go anywhere and find undiscovered territory or find a grave at the bottom of the sea.
And so – at 38 years old - I amend my earlier thought to say, “There is genius in the boldness of planning and the calculated use of intuition.”
The era of the Corporate Fine Art Entity has begun – where leaps of faith are calculated and artistic contributions planned and delivered to the masses.
Copyright 2004-2007 Theresa Devine. All rights reserved
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