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01/23/2006: "MAKING PROFOUND ART" by Andrew Wielawski
‘As I turned the corner walking towards my office, I saw them, a river of humanity, all rushing towards their own individual little cubicles, to fill their roles of utility in the heart of the huge corporate machines that had chosen to absorb them. I remembered the grey faces on the commuter train, of veterans that had done this for decades. And the words of my Mentor, the One that had finally opened my eyes.
“Working for someone is a modern form of slavery. If you dream, you cannot be an employee. It is only when you stop dreaming that you can fall into this hypnotic condition. You believe you are making decisions, but only those that have already been made for you. The ‘dream’ is the most real thing there is.”
These were the words of the Dreamer, who told me that the future doesn’t exist, because it hasn’t happened yet, and the past is gone. The world as we know it doesn’t exist, either, because it is only our own projection of chemical electrical impulses onto the screen of our brains. It is not the events as they happened, only a time delayed and heavily filtered rendition of them.
With a philosophical view like this, it is only a matter of taking things one step further to see how much freedom we have through our art. We filter still further, to refine, to elaborate, and finally (hopefully) to distill from what we see an exquisite liqueur that shows the care of years of waiting, a complete knowledge of one’s medium, and the perfect harmony of all the elements at hand in this final, elaborated result. The perfume of a single almond is wonderful, but what man can do by intentionally and skillfully combining all the smells in his array, can be astounding.
The judicious use of spices and techniques in a master chef’s kitchen can make a bystander’s mouth literally water with desire. The goal in creating a profound art should not be the display of one’s knowledge and technique, but rather the skillful and sparing use of these to create harmonious and profoundly affecting works of art. That this is not possible for most people is the reason why, while many can cook a dynamite steak on the back yard grill, very few people, even professional cooks, can call themselves great chefs.
In a corporate machine, the assumption of the role of ‘employee’, is no worse than the assumption of the social role of ‘artist’. You become a part of a multitude, and limit yourself as to your expressive possibilities as much as does a factory worker, through your assumption of a role. Painting while watching oneself in the mirror is the worst of all the sins an artist can commit, and one of the most common. It is no wonder that there are no Leonardos among us today – many spend so much time cultivating their act that there is very little time left to cultivate the knowledge upon which their work is based.
The larger your vocabulary and the wider your experiences, the more profound your work will become. We have spoken before about Jenny Holzer. From her work, the conclusion I reach is, she can’t draw, she has no sense of light, of depth, of visual content, of volumes, of anatomy, of color theory…and the list just goes on. 
If she really has chosen to limit her tools to words, in some cases carved on stone by other people, I will forgive her, but if she does this simply because she doesn’t know how to do anything else, then I condemn her for faking it. Motivation? The same as with all frauds…easy money. We know the work doesn’t cost much to produce…and the finished pieces have been overvalued so much as to make their production costs negligible. 
Buy very cheap and sell for a fortune – what scam artist would pass that opportunity up? Inert bodies…perhaps you can convince me that she has stepped over more of them than the rest of us have? Or that this is something very important that the rest of us have missed and need to be shown? And we watch, and don’t say anything…which makes this at least partly our fault. Next time you see one of those in a museum, make a scene. Loudly ask for your money back. Say the work wasn’t even done by her, and the museum’s fraudulently pretending it was. Silence makes you a passive supporter of anything that anyone else wants to do. Look at all those Germans who didn’t say anything during World War Two. It is still difficult to believe, now in 2005, that most were really against what the Nazis stood for back then. Not your act? Not your role? The adoption of a role is only destructive if you believe in it…if you convince yourself that that’s what you are. The difference between desperate losers and winners is that the winners know that the pose they are striking is only a pose, a temporary condition. The losers convince themselves that this is the role they need, and hold onto it for dear life. You have the capacity to be anything you want to be. This does not mean you are a chameleon who changes his color as some readers have suggested, but rather a human being, with endless capabilities too ample to be captured in the assumption of a single role. A bank director can be a dishwasher, but chooses not to do so because something else is more attractive to him. An artist can be a teacher, a billiard player, a stock investor, a musician, or a dancer. All these rolls help to deepen their understanding of the human condition, which the artist can then use to construct a comment on. But beware adopting any single role permanently, because your possibilities are infinite until you so limit yourself. It must be the risk of unexplored territory that fascinates, that lures one forward through time when all other charms fail.
The knowing adoption of a role enables you to play it better than if you really believed that it is your essence. This is because of the ‘funnel effect,’ that Nemo spoke about in his intimate exchange with Walter in ‘The Writing on the Wall’ blog of a month and a half ago. The funnel takes in the entirety of what it is pointed at, and then filters and distills desired elements out of it. The tangential, unresolved nonsense that is a part of all of us, is useless as an element of our refined creations, even if some elements of our society seek to profit from the ambiguity it represents. The purity of something made with intent is strong when unfettered by superfluous content. However, that is not to say it can’t be complex. A Ferrari is complex, and very refined, its efficiency and performance enhanced by the elimination of most of the things which don’t contribute to maximizing its possibilities on the road.
So let’s think about what would make a Ferrari of a work of art. You need a good motor, quality design, the best materials for the body and trim, top quality components, and a goal that you want to work towards achieving. You do not want to reproduce something of another epoch, no matter what kind of quality it has. You should be aware of what else is out there, and it would help if you were capable of producing what the others around you are, so you can be free as to what you choose to do. Never should your own limitations force you to make choices which are compromises. Let’s use the example of another line of cars to emphasize what I’m talking about.
The 2005 Chevrolet Cavelier is a model of economic consideration for design and performance. It is the essence of compromise. With this electrifying choice of blue for its body, it is a car you could easily lose in a mall parking lot. We as artists do not have money enough to produce even a bicycle, let alone an automobile of any type. But we do have our minds. Visibilia ex Invisibilibus, which is to say, the visible comes out of the invisible. Our minds. To produce a Ferrari of a work of art, you need the components from which masterpieces are produced. One is knowledge, and another is time, neither of which cost anything per se. And as the Est people used to say, if you really, really want to, you’ll find what you need to ‘get it’.(ie., pay those exorbitant seminar bills) As artists, we’re relatively free of such expenses. We can invent what we need to comment eloquently on the human condition, and find materials that don’t cost much to help us do it.
We do need skill. I went and took a look at a woman named Aleksandra’s work on her website after reading her comment to my previous blog. And I say to her, and to all the rest of you, and to myself as well, is this the best you can do? Will this work be what people think of when they read about our century? And if not, why not? Do we make work like this out of choice, or because we can’t do any better? And if we can’t do any better, dare we call ourselves artists? Do we need this role so badly? Would we be able to face ourselves without it? Try looking in the mirror and saying, “I am not an artist”. Difficult, eh? And in this way, art becomes a crutch for the lame.
I see an awful lot of Cavaliers, in my own studio, and those of others, and no Ferraris. Let’s go further into detail about what it takes to produce a masterpiece.
The first thing we need is a Concept. I’ve already said demonstrating skill is not enough, and I firmly believe that. Our concept should come from something that is important to a large number of people, for it to be of relevance in our culture and in our time. During the Renaissance, many masterworks were taken from Catholicism, and in other cultures, religion was also a stimulus for works requiring devotion to execute.
Another source for subject matter was Greek mythology, exploring persistent themes of mankind’s condition. Persistence is a key word here, as ideas with short time limits become dated and irrelevant very quickly. A good concept is just the first footstep on a long and arduous trail, so what’s next?Forgive me if I’m not delving deeply enough, but readers, feel free to add the elements you think I might have left out. One path to explore might be the new religion, the belief of many artists that they can express themselves freely, without training or talent and be of value, a belief as fervently revered as the most time honored traditions of the Catholic Church. And how quickly this adoration took over! As an opiate of the people, a device manufactured by the few to prevent the many from seeing what they are looking at, there is nothing closer to Communist or Nazi dogma. Who benefits? Our institutions, which while exhibiting Basquiats to appear progressive, are in fact dutifully executing their orders to maintain the status quo, and protect the entrenched far right wing of art. One reader adamantly defended Basquiat by saying his place in history is affirmed by what is taught in Art 101. As independent thinkers, do we really want to adopt without questioning the words of an Art 101 professor? The words, the politics, and the beliefs of the masses?
As with all despotic systems, things just don’t work without a goose stepping, mindless mob to do the dirty work. Some of you who support ‘the Arts’ are a part of that mob, desperately needing something to believe in, but only looking as far as the first neon sign you see to find it. Only repeating what it was you heard, and not talking about what it is you know, as Grace Slick said.
When the truth is found
To be l-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-es!
Independent research is vital in creating profound art. You have to be a leader, not a follower. Belonging to any movement is a mistake because it weakens your capacity for independent research, and limits what you are permitted to say. Choose the best you have in your bag of tricks to express your concept. It could be sculpture, or painting, or another media, but it must be something you have become a master at. No mastery, no masterpiece. So you have the concept, and you have the skill, now what?
Plan your approach carefully. In dreams, we ‘see’ a whole body while we’re just looking at the detail of one eye. But as artists, we can’t forget that our audience isn’t privy to what we don’t give them, so let’s make a plan that gives them everything we feel necessary for them to ‘get’ the concept, with all its underlying aromas making their presence felt even if only subliminally.
Then, skillfully execute it. That’s it! There’s the masterpiece. Any compromises whatsoever, for any reason, and you’ve lost it. The result is mediocre. Magnificent, or insignificant. There’s nothing in between.
