Unpopular Art Opinions

[P. Barrie]

Accepted understandings of what constitutes “abstract” art seem to vary. You might say the understanding is “abstract”. Anyway here’s one interpretation.

The clear difference lies in the subject matter chosen. If the artist begins with a subject from reality, the artwork is considered to be abstract. If the artist is creating with no reference to reality, then the work is considered to be non-objective.

 

[Artyczar]

1. I start with a skeleton (a preliminary sketch). I'd say it's the main composition. Not always, but usually this is the case. Once I start applying paint, it can go anywhere. Sometimes, I'll take a snapshot of the canvas while I'm working on it and play with some of the color palette in Photoshop, and sometimes I don't. Either way, it's not going to turn out exactly as I planned. There is always room for intuition as the process takes place. There has to be. It also depends on the subject matter. For a landscape, I might begin with a real photograph, but it's never going to look like that photograph because it's a fantasy. The fantasy comes alive in the process. I have no idea what is going to happen in that process.

2. I don't believe in the right brain-left brain thing. I don't have the reference to link to off hand, but I have read somewhere that it's been scientifically studied that this theory is not all it's cracked up to be. I can look for it because I probably sound like I'm being contrary without a leg to stand on. However, there is a drawing exercise I use that was originally based on left brain-right brain and I use it to this day. I don't know if it works or not, but I use it anyway.

3. I do know there must be something to parts of the brain that are centered on visual creativity and another on problem solving because I experience it myself, like when I am doing lots of computer stuff, then have to go paint. It's like two different "sides" of my brain that have to "shift" and they are not the same kind of creative mindset.

4. I was originally left-hand dominant, but had a accident to that hand during the time I learned to write and had to start using my right hand. I write and draw like a lefty, so I have no idea (if the right/left brain thing is true), what that might mean for me.

 

[musket]

I whole-heartedly agree with Picasso's adage: "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

Sorry Pablo, but not always. Sometimes it finds you dreaming. Sometimes it finds you for no apparent reason at all. Certainly your mind has to be working (which it does even when dreaming), but not necessarily when you're doing the actual work. And sometimes, when you are doing the actual work, inspiration can desert you.

 

[Artyczar]

I whole-heartedly agree with Picasso's adage: "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

Sorry Pablo, but not always. Sometimes it finds you dreaming. Sometimes it finds you for no apparent reason at all. Certainly your mind has to be working (which it does even when dreaming), but not necessarily when you're doing the actual work. And sometimes, when you are doing the actual work, inspiration can desert you.

I have always gone by this rule, but you may have a point here Musket. I guess I didn't think of it this way before and I think I could be very wrong after all. Because, sometimes you need to do nothing at all in order to fill up again. Trying too hard doesn't work. Dreaming and thinking...I consider that working. I am always thinking about the work, even when it's bleak, blank, or needs a new approach.

Bukowski has a simple saying of, "Don't try." He didn't say it simply in this way however. It comes from a letter he wrote to William Packard about inspiration.

"Somebody asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks, you make a pet out of it."
- Charles Bukowski

 

[musket]

Alas, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers saw to it that I always giggle by reflex whenever Picasso's name is mentioned.

I think what Picasso meant is that inspiration is most likely to happen, not necessarily out of the blue while you're working on a specific piece, but just in a general working mindset, which would indeed include thinking... dreaming, not so sure about that unless you have lucid dreams, which I've never had.

"Inspiration" itself has multiple meanings. It doesn't necessarily mean oh, I've just had a great idea for a specific piece.

It can also mean something (or somebody--usually, in my case) inspires you to get back to work after a period of the doldrums, reignites your creativity in general. Or inspires you to try something you haven't tried before, or have dismissed as too difficult--inspiration in this sense is a counter-agent to fear.

Bukowski's rap is basically Taoist. Unfortunately, if you need to sell your work to pay the rent, waiting around and not trying isn't likely to be of much use. This is of course different from trying for an Eldorado in the driveway. But any straight teenage male guitar player who tells you getting girls had nothing to do with his motivation to learn to play is a liar.

 

[JohnEmmett]

But any straight teenage male guitar player who tells you getting girls had nothing to do with his motivation to learn to play is a liar.

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it.”
― Michelangelo

 

[xie-kitchin]

• People who trace references are not “cheating!” Norman Rockwell, Disney, and everyone else you think is impressive did the same thing.

I generally agree about tracing, but I would put it in a more nuanced way. Specifically, yes, professionals use tracing all the time as a tool for copying, and if you just want a quick start way of copying a form if you still aren't good at rendering one, OK. But if you are a beginner and want to learn how to draw, it's not going to help you with that.

From my understanding, the left/right brain thing doesn't hold because brain function in most people studied isn't that lateralized. Totally agree on the different mindsets as far as problem-solving/creating. I actually experienced an almost total shift while in college. Abstract art was something I had a hard time making unless I could think of it metaphorically or narratively on some level, but then I was able to get lots of enjoyment from process and materials themselves.

I never quite know what are popular or unpopular opinions, it kinda depends on context? But one really common stereotype I find annoying and see other artists accept is how bad we all are at math and how much we all hate it. Which I don't fit. And math is actually useful for artists to learn. Stuff like fractions, proportions, etc. at bare minimum.

 

[stlukesguild]

But any straight teenage male guitar player who tells you getting girls had nothing to do with his motivation to learn to play is a liar.

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it.”
― Michelangelo

Girls, Love... even Sex are unworthy "low" goals?

 

[JohnEmmett]

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it.”
― Michelangelo

Girls, Love… even Sex are unworthy "low" goals?

For a monk. Or like a monk.

 

[stlukesguild]

I generally agree about tracing, but I would put it in a more nuanced way. Specifically, yes, professionals use tracing all the time as a tool for copying, and if you just want a quick start way of copying a form if you still aren't good at rendering one, OK. But if you are a beginner and want to learn how to draw, it's not going to help you with that.

I think tracing... especially tracing master drawings... can be a good means of learning, but I do agree I would not use it as my primary means of drawing. Personally, I employ some tracing to quickly establish the proportions... which on a larger scale can take hours raising and lowering the working surface. In general, I'll spend 5 to 10 minutes rapidly tracing and establishing the proportions in a painting that will ultimately take 50, 100, maybe 200 hours to complete.

I actually experienced an almost total shift while in college. Abstract art was something I had a hard time making unless I could think of it metaphorically or narratively on some level, but then I was able to get lots of enjoyment from process and materials themselves.

I initially hated abstraction but I came around when thinking of art forms other than paintings: architecture, textiles, ceramics, etc... I came to appreciate Robert Ryman's experiments with the tactile surface of paint and Rothko's exploration of the impact of color. I spent 5 years exploring abstraction through collage but eventually came back to figurative painting because I could not ignore that painting things and especially people was where my passion lie.

I never quite know what are popular or unpopular opinions, it kinda depends on context? But one really common stereotype I find annoying and see other artists accept is how bad we all are at math and how much we all hate it. Which I don't fit. And math is actually useful for artists to learn. Stuff like fractions, proportions, etc. at bare minimum.

Well... I do hate Math... but I use it (especially geometry and proportions) all the time and I like the results.

 

[stlukesguild]

For a monk. Or like a monk.

Not many Artist/Monks since the Middle-Ages.

 

[JohnEmmett]

well I'm not quite a monk

laypeople have projects

for months at a time, I'm just working

 

[stlukesguild]

My favorite Artist/Monk was Fra (Father) Filippo Lippi... the "Amorous Monk"

 

[JohnEmmett]

being a Buddhist monk is often temporary

then girls are often the reason to disrobe

or, the reason I never was Buddhist

in other timelines…

 

[musket]

"The autumn breeze of a single night of love is better than 100,000 years of sitting meditation." ~Ikkyu Sojun

Ikkyu was in fact a strict Rinzai monk. He just had his priorities straight. He was notorious for his predilection for brothels, and in late middle age took a mistress, the blind poet Mori. He was also one of Japan's greatest calligraphers and flute players. In 1475, very late in his life, he was asked by the Emperor to become the abbot of Daitokuji, one of the most famous temples in Japan. He could not refuse this great honor despite his many years of wandering, but expressed his feelings this way:

The disciples of Daitokuji have extinguished the guttering lamp;
It is difficult for them to understand the poetical feeling of an icy night;
For fifty years I was a man wearing straw raincoat and umbrella hat;
I feel grief and shame now at this purple robe.

 

[JohnEmmett]

we don't meditate for enjoyment


rather because we've been to hell

 

[musket]

I had older relatives who died in the Nazi death camps.

What do you or I know about hell?

Back to the main topic now.

 

[JohnEmmett]

What do you or I know about hell?

hm…

We've all been to hell, and we know what it's like
And we've shared each other's sins
- Danny Elfman

 

[musket]

Let's see, Danny Elfman... bigtime rock star and scorer of films, married to Bridget Fonda, net worth of over fifty million... but, his hearing is shot. Certainly a bummer for a musician, but I can't play at all anymore (which I did for forty years) and bummer though it is, along with my lovely autoimmune disorder, which made it impossible for me to keep carving, I hardly consider it hell.

And that's it for this time, John. No further replies.

 

[JohnEmmett]

the human realm is a balance