Replies: 20 Comments
on Wednesday, March 19th, Odette said
WOW José!!!
What an interesting post have you written here...
I agree that the key word regarding art is FEEL... I hate when I go to some exhibitions and see paintings that tell me nothing, then the art curator explains what the author wanted to mean with that work in order to try to stamp some kind of reaction in us...
If a painting needs an explanation, it is then far away from art.
Yes, we live in a society where the immediate gratification of senses has to be granted... we don't want to waste time, we meet someone and "s e x" is the next step... where did we leave seduction? The same happens with art, we want that a work of art gives us pleasure at once... and like in everything that is worth, in some cases Time is needed in order that to happen. I love the story that Cecil Herring wrote regarding the Rothko Chapel in Houston...
I also do think Art belongs to the world of hocus_pocus :) It is a way to reach another kind of spirituality... and in relation with the very interesting question that Mark Brockman made: "Can art help others to do this even when they do not create art?" I do think it does :))) By the way, how interesting were Mark's comments...
on Tuesday, March 18th, valerie said
This is great and I love the ".. age of mass autism.." It's weird but since I moved to Dubai I am constantly busy being a teacher/arts administrator/writer - but I can't remember the last time I actually felt like an artist! I think I am starting to get like the taxi drivers here. Every time you ask them 'How is Dubai?' you always get a shrug and the same response "only business". Reading this has actually reminded me of what it feels like or shoudl feel like to be an artist! Thanks!
on Friday, March 14th, Ellen said
There is such a vast difference between being alone and being lonely. I have never colored "in the lines" or allowed someone to direct my path: just listened to those whose help I could use/understand along the way. It's been an interesting ride: always UPSTREAM! Continues to keep me alive(metaphorically) & productive. Jose, your comments, as always, on target!
on Friday, March 14th, jose said
Mark, I’m with you. I think Walt summed it up pretty well when he brings in Aristotle. You cannot just have one or the other, or focus more on one than the other. And also there is action which Walt also refers. Robert Fripp when speaking of discipline in the craft of guitar playing often speaks of ‘the hand, the head and the heart’ having to be in balance, and how they form a crucial part in the good execution of the work at hand. I think his words can apply to our work as fine-artists. No point possessing great technique if we haven’t got a valid idea to bring forth, no good having a great idea if it is merely that and we haven’t ‘lived it’ sufficiently to deliver the message, no point pouring emotion into it if it has no idea to serve or no technique to be it’s motor, and so on. Very often though, and I guess because of the speed of the times [and the fear that someone else will do it first], works are presented that haven’t been thoroughly ‘lived’ by the artist… they just want to be the first, and wanting mostly to provoke a shock. There is no real period of ‘gestation’. And as you both say, shock leaves very little residue behind, it has to be brash and bold and it is not surprising that there is not much of the juice left over for the viewer. There’s no time for subtleties and we – the ones who strive to produce them – are seen as fools and passé. But like I said a few blogs back somewhere, I believe there is a human quality that will never wither away: the faculty to be pleasantly surprised and the indescribable joy that comes along with it when it happens. So there can only be hope for us suckers.
Ellen, alone is the only way. And as much as we want to believe we have someone to share those deepest experiences and travels we undertake we know that we always fall short of passing on the fullness of it. In twos and threes the experience becomes something else, it doesn’t even touch us as much as if we had ventured alone, different doors open up, we go down different avenues and encounter completely different situations. One of the things that made me break away from the old path and become an artist was precisely this nagging feeling that there were things I had to live through on my own and not through the filter of the wider circle of friends who so often surround us and end up painting our ‘colour books’ for us. Of course I have nothing against collaborative work, but I can only engage in that in certain periods when I feel I can really bring in something useful in a meaningful way... but those are sporadic moments in an artist’s life, not the rule. Like you say, it takes time to feel those impulses growing inside you and seeing where they are going to take you. And in those times we really don’t fancy anyone next to us do we now?
Rox, good to see you made it through. Thanks for your kind words. I found project 808 extremely interesting. I am honoured that you should invite me and accept the challenge. Will definitely keep in touch.
on Friday, March 14th, Roxanne said
Jose, thank you for your thoughtful notes, enjoying reading responses from artist colleagues, a very good read/topic.
I can relate to what you have written. At the same time, I invite you to view a video that supports the challenge of creating a synergy among artists where this virtual medium lends itself towards bringing artists together engaged in a creative exchange.
The video is called A LARGER IDEA, posted on the video page of Absolute Arts. It is the initiative of an Artist named 8_O_8, whose intention is to build on some of the points you touch upon in your blog.
We invite you to participate in one of our upcoming sessions so you can witness for yourself how this virtual experience with Project 8O8 engages and connects artists authentically creatively and productively in the moment. You can also access his site noted in the text under the video. On his site click on the NYC Project 8O8 logo. Enjoy.
Keep up the excellence Jose and notes.
Cheers,
rox
Roxanne Brousseau-Felio
on Friday, March 14th, Mark said
Shock art is fleeting, the emotion does not, will not, can not last. What often lasts, are the more subtle things. As I have said many times here and to my students, it does not have be groundbreaking or inovative, at least on the surface, to be good. Shiny things become dull over time. If your emotion is deep enough and you care enough about what you are creating and trying to portray in that work, you are doing good things. That is why we can feel deep emotion to what we recognize and know so well.
on Friday, March 14th, walt said
Humans ascribe meaning to life. It is one of the things we do, like pattern recognition. Where there is no obvious object or pattern we will find one...it made the early abstract expressionists crazy for all the squirrels and nudes folks would find in their non-objective paintings.
We often feel empty if we do not percieve the meaning behind certain acts of 'fate' if you like...that the very system of a life must have meaning is all tied up in that word fate.
Meaning and feeling are in fact tied together deeply in our personalities. Aristotle defined personality in a tri-partite aggregation of feeling, intellect and volition...the ability to feel (experience), think (world view-organization- meaning) and act (volition-ignition) upon the first two orientations.
Most artwork, whether visual or verbal refers to something experienced...in recognition the viewer re-experiences something whether defined as similar to the experience of the artist or as a new experience, a synthesis of what the artist conveyed and what the viewer experienced. But even if the work is non-objective we in turn might simply respond to a tonality of 'yellow' or 'strong contrast' much like we do in symphony music or jazz which has no verbal suppliment to the experience/emotion. If one simply stays a moment longer, looks a bit deeper, opens to the possibilities inherent and suggested...the spark ignites!
One way or another we organize our experience intellectually after our first reception/response at which time, if the response is volatile we ignite into action...physical or mental or emotional...doesn't matter...either way...I remember realizing that there were tears running down my face once in front of Rembrandt's self portrait at the Frick...as long as we 'feel' something we know we are alive. And for that brief moment Rembrandt was alive there with me. And was that not Rembrandt's intention when he painted himself...no? For me, at that moment, he and I had a momentary conversation about what it means to be an artist, perhaps alone, perhaps destitute, yet a soul drenched in the richness of a deep emotional life.
Feeling is the act of the moment...the experience of the now. All the effort of shock art, the shock of the new as it is called, is to awaken something asleep. Not until the sleeper wakens will there be anything subtle to get through the guard. If only we could be more sensitive to the subtleties around us and less numbed by the shocks! This is where the richness of feeling lives! In the subtleties.
on Friday, March 14th, Ellen said
Great blog Jose! For me, art is a solitary pursuit. I even prefer to go to museums and galleries alone so I can "feel" the work. Actually I relish being alone. It gives me a chance to think without distractions. It is wonderful when I am alone every day in the studio and can focus only on my work and lose myself in it. You are right, Mark, so many people don't know how to do that today. I have also learned that I cannot always plunge into a painting or photograph (much as I would like to). Sometimes, it takes weeks of thinking it through and then feeling the impulses grow until I have the direction. Once in a while, I can produce something on the fly, but those 45 minute masterpieces are few and far between.
on Friday, March 14th, Mark said
Jose,
In re-reading your blog and thinking in terms of 'feeling' and tho I still think meaning and feeling can not be seperated, that you need meaning to feel and need to feel to have meaning, that of the two, 'feeling' is most important. I have always approached my work with the idea of my meaning behind it, in the hopes that the viewer will get some feeling from it. I guess in some way I have been putting the cart before the horse. Your words have caused me to think deeply on this and a resolve to think more in terms of feeling when working. See an old dog can learn new tricks.
I believe that an artist in the creative prossess needs to open up and let things happen in a natural, organic way. To start a work (painting) with an idea but not to box it in, not to worry about the outcome, to be in the moment of moving paint around, to not paint, say a tree, but to paint the 'feeling' my feeling, of the tree (see I have been doing feeling all along). This belief in its simplest terms could also be used in life and I have tried to do so. I think this also speaks to today, to political correctness, to overwhelming technology, and all the other pressures of our modern society that make us think less, that can turn us into sheep. If one can live simply, inside themselves regardless of how surrounded they are by modernism, one can be. The world is a village but we are still individuals, we must work together but think independently. In this way all of us can create the best works possible. All that we can ask of ourselves and others is that we create the best work possible.
Thanks for the seed Jose.
on Friday, March 14th, jose said
Cecil, I'm learning just as much as you and everybody else here. I'm just glad to be able to make a contribution and feel that there is resonance. Certainly not everybody will agree with what is being said, but neither do they have to.
Eden, total abandonment is the rule in this game - the difficult task of understanding what's going on within, without controling it or stifling it, and then pouring it out as best you can. very often, as you say the feeling is of loss [at many different levels]... but when the echoes return you know you want to do it again and again.
Walt, thanks, your words resonated deeply.
on Thursday, March 13th, Cecil Herring said
You are such a dear, Jose. Now you have made yourself very clear and in a non royal quite humble "we" way. I think "we" can all learn from you! Thanks for a great blog. Very amazing ideas are being exchanged constantly between continents even.
on Thursday, March 13th, Eden Maxwell said
Intriguing perspectives.
When you give your thinking or feeling powers away to a show of hands, you are lost—as true for the artist as it is for the art viewer.
on Thursday, March 13th, walt said
Jose, I got your use of 'we'. I try to use the royal 'we' when speaking of things that are faulty, weak, wicked and bad that someone might be or do so as to include myself as one of the offenders. I try to use the word 'one' when speaking of someone who is either anonymous, all of us or any of us, or particularly when one is good, or great or worthy thereby not including myself but all who wish to see themselves as the one. But when I'm in a bad mood I use the term 'they', 'those', 'some people', 'you people', ****, 'blood sucking scum bag' etc., etc., etc. to refer to the people I really hate at that moment.
Just thought I'd throw that in there for the sake of transparency.
Good blog.
on Thursday, March 13th, jose said
Thank you for your kind words, Francoise. I try to look at the work of an artist like one reads a book, some books are good from start to finish and you can't wait to get to the next paragraph and the next description of something or other, those are rare and hard to come by. Others don't hold a grip on you so strongly but you sense, or hope somehow that there might be something special somewhere down the line - that the writer will be able to pass on to us a part of himself. This is what lies constantly in the back of my head, if I want to be a painter I have to hang on in there until I manage to at least come up with a little bit of the second. At least that. And than, of course, others are left unread... but an artist doesn't stop because of that.
on Thursday, March 13th, jose said
Mark, that’s right, that is a good way to put it ‘we have become sheep’. Very often I catch myself going about things in auto pilot and don’t even notice it. This is something that as an artist I feel that I have to combat. The artist has no say on what the viewer sees, understands or feels but if his work comes from deep within and the artist manages to override auto-pilot he might just be able to communicate that spark. And for the viewer it has everything to do with accepting the experience art provides and ‘opening up’ as you say.
Maria Elena, I enjoy more being in the studio, but yes, sharing thoughts with these friends on the forum is a plus. Thanks for your contribution.
Cecil, I hope it did not come across as arrogance on my part, it was not intended be so. I thought the bad kind of ‘We’ was the one where an individual speaks of himself as being a we [as in 'We believe that the best course of action is...], I had not realised I had done this. I use the ‘I’ when speaking about things I believe to know about, or wish to state my position on, based on personal experience [always hoping not to sound too ego-centred], and I use the ‘we’ when describing the society I believe to be surrounded by and the situations I witness and it exposes me to – sometimes drawing me in to join. I thought this was the way it was done, I don’t particularly like to use ‘some people’ though it could apply here, of course. When I read a book or a text or, as you say, a thesis, I do not feel the clash with this expression ‘we’ because I recognize it as a figure of speech and so try to look beyond the word to the ideas that are being conveyed. I am well aware that people think differently and that ‘We’ are most definitely not the same… though I find it staggering how, when in the herd, whole bunches of people [I resisted using ‘we’ just now] react in such similar ways, and how increasingly the tendency is towards lack of depth in communication. Anyway, having said that, I understand from your last paragraphs that you and I see eye-to-eye on the point I was trying to make.
on Thursday, March 13th, Francoise said
Authentic art is indeed 'survival of the fittest'. When one makes authentic art, like to my opinion you do José, I can only draw the conclusion that this is the greatest achievement for an artist. It is a sacred experience to create in our own light and to exceed the obvious.
on Thursday, March 13th, Cecil Herring said
Jose: When I see that all inclusive "WE" dominating a thesis or a blog, I am immediately suspicious. Perhaps you have not thought this subject through. It is strangely unlike sensitive you to assume that all the "WE"s of the world are all "feeling" or reacting to art in the same way, that the masses are autistic...forgotten how to be alone. I am alone all day every day.
Perhaps I misunderstood as often happens. Art is a personal matter meant or not meant for a collective audience. I try to say I like this or that instead of using that scary "WE".
Everybody thinks differently, believe it or not. When two people think alike it's a big deal. Mostly all art 'talk' is just so people can 'talk,' communicate and be happily social and exhibit their knowledge of the subject be it art or sports. I’m sure feelings do enter into the discussion as in “I love that” or “I hate the pitcher!”
Some are paid to do this which is a whole different topic.
I like to speak only of my own condition and reactions and cannot speak for anyone else. This "WE" stuff is meaningless.
Regarding Marc Rothko: Poor Rothko sweated and drank through producing a whole new way of looking at art, following after Cezanne, who left lots of room for future art movements. Rothko, beset with personal tragedies like being physically ill, impotent, a breaking up marriage, having his studio burn down and getting picked by critics for his unique style, killed himself at 67, slicing himself up with razor blades.
I went to see the Rothko Chapel in Houston not too many years later. I came away a different person as regards to my viewing abilities. At first, I thought this stuff (12 huge off black paintings) was a fraud, the invention of an overzealous art crowd and a lot of “WE” talk. Who’s kidding who, I thought.
I sat down on the rough hewn wooden benches on cobblestone stone floors and began to go into a sort of trance. At first the paintings all just looked like black canvases. But lo and behold, something stirred on the paintings’ surfaces. I needed to look more. After perhaps 30 minutes, each painting began to come alive, marching with armies or catastrophes, colorful landscapes with mountains teaming with people with not a Peaceable Kingdom among them.
on Thursday, March 13th, Maria Elena Alvarez said
Thank you for your thoughts. Hope you are enjoying this stage of emotions.
Maria Elena
Caracas-Venezuela
on Thursday, March 13th, Mark said
Sorry to take the soapbox again but just one more thought that can help one to be more of one's self. My father, a devout Chatholic, always told me, 'Question everything."
on Thursday, March 13th, Mark said
Jose, I agree with your idea of 'feeling' one gets from a piece of art. When I speake of meaning I mean that if the artist has no intent of meaning behind the work then no one will feel anything from it. Meaning and feeling work together. The meaning and feeling one gets does not, should not, have to be the one the artist intended. I feel honored that you mention one of my blogs, thanks.
I think one of the problems with todays society is that people have forgotton how to be alone, I do not mean lonely but to be alone with ones thoughts. We spend our time reacting to life and not contemplating it. That does not mean one should just sit and think of life without participating but to give thought to thier feelings, thier beliefs, so they can more activily participate, with thier own convictions. We allow others, media, internet, government, public personalities to tell us what to think. We have become sheep. I beleive all that is needed to avoid this is to be willing to sit and ask yourself hard questions, they may not be pleasent questions and hard to answer and some may have no answers but how else can one know themselves otherwise. If we do not know ourselves how can they know anything.
Painting has taught me so much. It has taught me to go my way whether others agree with it or not. It has taught me to except and to be open to what may happen, even when it is out of my control. Not to be passive but to participate, to make a stand and do what I can in any way to make things better. Even small things help. I may not be able to change the world but I can change my life in positive ways which will affect others and maybe change thier lives for the better which may go on and on and maybe just maybe it will change the world, who knows.
Can art help others to do this even when they do not create art? I think so but again they too must be willing to open up thier minds and thier hearts. To see, to feel, to experiance what the art has put in front of them. Many of us complain that there are just to many artists today, that so many call themselves artists even when they may not be so. Yet if each of those thousands upon thousands of artist out there would be willing to express how they truly feel and not as other tell them to feel (many artists are sheep too) think of what the world could be like.
Life is complicated there is no doubt, time seems short and the world wants to press in, but each of us has the ability to say stop, even if for just a short while, while we gather up our resolve and determine what it is out of life we really want. Technology, todays society, does not have to controll us. If it does it does so because we allow it, we let it make life complicated and tell us what to do, how to do it and how long to take from our lives to do it. It does not have to be that way. Each of us is responsible for our own lives and how we live it.
Art can help us do that.
Sorry for the long responce. I will now get off the soapbox and let someone else use it. Thanks for a great blog Jose.
The way to do that is to be willing to be alone with our individual thoughts and to be willing to see the grays of life, not just the black and white, and to deal with them as they come and know that even though each one of us is a seperate entity we are all connected as well. My acions affect others. Do I want to cause a negitive affect or positive? I am not religious, but I feel strongly in the idea of 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'
It seems that the further we advance, guided by our new technological toys, the more we are plunging into mass autism, happy to move through life in different shades of grey. This is probably a natural reaction. Too much to take-in in one single life-time; too many fears to juggle. We love the Beast but we are weary of what it will do. On the one hand there’s so much going on on the outside, but on the other, very little trickles back in that is meaningful beyond the immediate gratification of the senses.
