We are the not dead

Lalage Snow, a photographer and journalist, named her idea, "We are the Not Dead," after soldiers who came home from war.

These soldiers were photographed before they went to war, during the war (specifically--after an improvised explosive device, IED, had just exploded that day), and after they came back from war. Here are a few:

Alongside their photographs, there are descriptions of their experiences during that time. This is Private Chris MacGregor, 24. He had a sustained injury from the war and this is a photographic explanation of his five month tour of duty. So much change is only five months. He said that the fear is what kept them alive over there.

This is Private Matthew Hodgson, 18. His eyes tell everything. From the left--you see a guy. In the middle, the eyes grow hard and straining. At the end, he's almost vacant, lost, sad, jaded.

Wow. The eyes are the window to the soul. Each of us has a story. And, with that story comes suffering, which is the strong thread that can weave us together, or divide us--if that story is not told.

References: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/we-are-the-not-dead-soldiers-on-afghan-mission/

Am I real yet?

As a figurative formalist project...for Art 505/590

Figurative, meaning: representing the figure, the realistic world (actuality). As Pearlstein says, the "human being, a profound figure, must be represented." In Art 505, we studied the "lie" or portraiture. I've come to realize that a realistic (a completed/lifelike photographic image of an individual) is somewhat boring (at least to me) because there is no nuance to suggest interest (the idea of art being worthy to warrant more than a passing glance). The more I worked on this piece, the more I realized that I couldn't make this piece work in complete realism. I had to represent the figure. It had to be my statement, and at the same time posit different dimensions for examining the figure. Which, is why there are words! (And, an image.)

Formalist, meaning: the value of a work determined by form, or the way a composition is crafted . . . its visual and medium aspects. The emphasis is on texture/line/repetition/the two-dimensional paper. Basically--how you organize visual information. Formalism, at once, is a school of thought for critiquing art--where everything important is in the artwork itself (instead of the context, the intention, etcetera).

Division of space (how the subject is oriented in the space, etcetera), rhythm (patterns that move the eye and make it jump as in the division of space), dominance/subordination (the importance of elements), and form (the use of light and dark to create space and subject) are all important.

I chose to focus on the readability of the figure--the words (representing the conscious process the artist goes through when trying to "capture" the human body). For instance, the things that popped in my head while drawing him. Yes, his skin is made up of words (and bits of the background).

Pearlstein says that "the character of a work of art results from the technical devices used to form it" and "regrettably, we cannot transmit the whole experience." But, I don't think it regrettable at all, actually. Quite a fortune. "This experience is seeing," he goes on to say. And, I think him right. So, most of the words making up this model's body deal with seeing. And, how to see. And, where to see. And, what to see. And, who. The words are both legible and illegible. But, it beckons the viewer closer . . . to see.

Light art/Description

So, in the midst of dealing with dichotomies of words/image, I figured out this idea in the wake of suffering and its story. There's a focal point. In every story, there's a focal point. But, with suffering, it's either light or dark because suffering has no other option. There can either be a light that helps us make use of suffering, or there can be darkness that leaves us with it, carrying it, trying to bear it. My idea, even as I took this picture, was how light diffuses the darkness (not the other way around).

And, I thought--well, there's God. Yes. There's God.

And, the analytics of it all says He can't exist because we can't think that far (Class Discussion, February 19, 2013). Atheism. There is no God.

But, I believe God is. He is the light that diffuses the darkness. Sure, suffering's still in the equation, but from my experience, that suffering can be borne more easily upon His shoulders than mine. I think it's funny that people say there is no God when they allow for their spirit. You can't think around your spirit. In the same way, we can't think up God. He's as self-evident as the spirit. And, His proof is everywhere. All we need is to open our eyes. (As with all useful art--it makes us open our eyes to what's already there.)

Schopenhauer

This blog has become a journal of artistic research for me. And, I'm kinda excited about this. haha So, looking at Schopenhauer, as Professor Chan suggested. And, here's why:

I have an idea. It's not new, granted, but it's the idea that the story of suffering connects us all. It's artistic (emotive), so to speak. And, it's worth fleshing out because art that's worth its salt either teaches us something new (about ourself or our environment), and/or it warrants consideration (is thought-provoking). So, suffering, I believe, is a storyteller. And, I want to use this medium as an art form (Class Discussion, February 12, 2013).

So, Schopenhauer? Getting back to the point, you ask? Well, don't you like tangents? Anyway, Schopenhaer says, "Knowledge is in itself always painless . . ." In essence, he says that we know we're alive when in pain. Pain is an instant happenstance. It is direct. And, it allows us clarity to the fact that yes, we are alive. He argues for the "positivity of pain," in that, "evil is precisely that which is positive, that which makes itself palpable; and good…is that which is negative, the mere abolition of a desire and extinction of a pain.”

Thus, pain is an aid in achieving well-being. This notion presupposes that there are types of pain. This is true, of course. He also says that our value system (i.e. recording the events in history that aren't peaceful, say) is a little skewed, then. That's why he flips it on its head and says, "Hey, yeah, what is good to you is actually negative. What is negative (suffering) can be good." Notice the "can be."
Henri-Frederic Amiel says it this way: "Make use of suffering."

In an artistic sense, suffering "can often be the catalyst for creation." Good point.

"Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," Macleran says. So, suffering is obviously a thread that can tie us together.

But, I'm intrigued by the "knowledge is in itself always painless" point, because my "job"--rather, my vocation as an artist is to get to the pain part. To think, and then to project that thinking in emotive symbols the viewer understands. To understand, I think, is different (and deeper) than knowledge, because it implies internalization--the owning of that knowledge to make use of it. This is the part where the idea of suffering as a connection grows different than the old ideas.

The story. The story is not knowledge, but a medium. The story stirs emotion because it's personal. It's telling. It gives suffering a face.

"You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is summed up in this: make use of suffering, as Henri tells us.

Reference: http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/12/28/60-in-60-14-schopenhauers-on-the-suffering-of-the-world-penguins-great-books/

Just horsing around. . . . .

So, I'm messing around with words, and I created some poetry. I say "created" because it's more than just writing it. It's crafting it around a picture. So, here's the "picture"--kinda of makes you wonder what "picture" really means. It can depict something, but it can mean more than merely Webster's "an impression of something based on description." It can move. And, it can be made from different materials. Words, for example. I love words, those little locutions that like to intermingle.

So, here's the poem:

I kinda like you, you know--

the kind of like that makes a little kid feel "funny" on the inside and laugh

without knowing why on the outside.

And, I kinda like you. But, I think you're too big for those small shoes. So, I think

I kinda like you a lot.

But, we get to that when we're in high school

and everyone thinks it's all cool,

so we're so cool, but by definition

to like is not even worth saying anymore because hey,

I liked pb&j

and lunchables too.

They're not like

like I like you.

And, then comes real life.

And, real life isn't cool

because it's lost its luster in school.

I kinda love you,

I do. I kinda love you.

The way that makes our grandfathers sigh and take off their glasses when reading their papers,

the way they do when they realize our grandmas across the kitchen tables,

the way they take up the thought of love and run with it and dance with them and make life beautiful. Because of love. That’s what inspired us. Kind of, like you.

Art Ain't Easy

"ART ISN'T EASY"

True that. Matthew Higgs is a genius.

Perfect example of taking something complex and saying it simply. That's the vocation of an artist--to think, and to act when that thinking's still thinking.

Matthew Higgs, a well-established artist, writer and curator, walked in the room, and his down-to-earth,  "If you're ever in New York, please stop by White Columns" attitude sparked an excitement in me to share my ideas about what I'm doing in my artwork.

I've come to realize that ideas are the backbone, the heartbeat, and the forefront of what makes good art difficult (and worthwhile). If you don't have an idea, then you've got nothing.

I watched a peer of mine talk about his idea on painting, and it was so enlightening because I realized that a human being can be identified by his/her ideas (if they stick out as meaningful). I remember when this young man was going up for his BFA and everyone was talking about his art pieces. Why? Because he talked about them so much. And, he did them. Simple, right?

It's so true--we as artists are thinkers. Art has become a philosophy, a workshop for ideas that can change individuals who can change the world. And, if these ideas we're coming up with aren't shared, then what's the point? I find that sometimes I have an idea and want to keep it bottled up, but that's really not the artist's prerogative, is it? To make truly meaningful things, I must share what I am grappling with, understand it at different angles (through conversation with other people), and I must do my ideas. Nothing less. I am just one person, but if I understand that there's this community of thinking people right next to my just one person, then I can start bouncing these ideas off them (and hope they wonder about them just as much as I do, and even take them into themselves and use them too). That's what good art's all about. The difficult kind, too. Because, what is easy is rarely worth doing in the long run. "It's the hard that makes it great," as they say. ;)

Sustainability

The University of Louisville admits that it has a problem with Sustainability--that is, Sustainability doesn't seem to find its way into the ears of its intended audience.

While Sustainability is a great idea (which we're all, as artists, and as human beings in general, trying to create), sustainability isn't that talkative. While the "vision" is to "create a university that is itself a living laboratory" for sustainability, which "requires us to seek a balance between environmental, economic and social responsibility."

In essence, this means, changing the audience's "mindset." How in the world do we do that?

As artists, that's all we really think about--influencing the viewer, so that the art we make isn't worthless.

So, to start--the idea needs to be self-propelling. Is it good enough to be considered by the viewer for more than a few seconds? Think about when you walk into that gallery with off-white walls and pieces of paper dangling near the edge of the benches. Where the art work only warrants a tired-five-second glance, and you're on your way because you had to go there for class credit anyway. That's an idea that just hangs on the wall without interacting with the viewer. A self-propelling idea is one that urges the viewer to come close, to consider it, to take it home and reflect on it.

Sustainability.

What is that word? When you see it, do you think that it's just the best thing you've ever heard in our life and want to know more about it?

I sure don't. When I hear the word, "Sustain," I think of something that needs to be stable, but that's not there yet. Kind of . . . well, for lack of a better word, boring.

The words used to describe the idea are just as valuable as the idea itself (how else would an idea be communicable?). Communication is key to ideas. You've heard it said that "thoughts are in the air," because they're electrical, but we can't rely on the air most times to propagate what we want to say. And, how one communicates is where we, as artists, come in.

Someone brilliant said it this way--"intellectuals take something simple and say it in a complex way. Artists take something complex and say it in a simple way." So true. Simplicity is often the most influential packet that art comes in. Simplicity on the surface can be backed by a number of ideas, like the layers of paint strokes, an artist employed to get the idea on paper. If an artist took so much time thinking about the idea, then there's probably a good reason why it's sitting in front of you on the wall in a gallery. In this way, the context, the culture, and the creativity combine to create that simple piece of art (one would hope). :)

Source: http://louisville.edu/sustainability

Photoshoppin'

It's the moon. :) Kind of.

As an artist, we've got two options sometimes.

Making something "new" from a different angle, or helping the viewer "feel" the subject at hand. What do you want to do with your art? Take someone take an old issue and view it anew? Or, immerse the audience in it, to feel it?

A Polish rabbi says it this way: Art “can motivate us to face issues and concepts we prefer to ignore.” Polish. You might wonder why I'm headed to a Polish rabbi for a quote.

Well, here's why--the Holocaust, specifically Auschwitz, Poland, is a subject of the arts. It is an interest in aiding the audience the "feeling" of the Jews at that moment when they walked into a camp, or a gas chamber.

As Theodor Adorno, a great art critic, said, "The need to let suffering speak is a condition of all truth.” I think suffering is a topic spanning across centuries of artwork. As the life line threaded through the human condition, suffering is a reality that needs to be grappled with . . . especially by artists.

So, here's where a Mexico-native artist, Yishai Jusidman, comes in. Living in Los Angeles, he paints depictions of the Holocaust gas chambers of the concentration camps in Dachau, Auschwitz, and Birkenau. Using the pigments that are either chemically or conceptually hinged upon the compounds used to gas the Jews (or using "flesh tones"), he paints the shower chambers. He says he uses these hues "to generate the pictorial impression of a silence as solemn and forthright as it is eloquent" as he aims to "trigger what the sheer awareness of the Holocaust feels like."

Feeling. Suffering. These two come together to make this art intensely meaningful.

Though, one critic may wonder--what are a Mexico-native's credentials to depict something like this when he is not a Jew?

I've been asked a similar question in the concepts of my work on suffering. . . .

And, I believe the answer goes something like this:

"I am human. Am I not? I share in the pool of suffering, if even not so intense as these subjects. What is my life, then, if I do not respond to their suffering but turn, instead, a blind eye so as to not deal with their pain? I think, by the gifts I have been given, I have a duty to them, to tell their story, so that others may know and come to understand that pain that crosses all boundaries--be they continental boundaries, or the boundary from you to the person next to you. We all have a story that can be connected to a greater reality. Suffering is a reality. It needs to be shared, so that the other can know that we care."

We care. As an artist. So, we make art. That matters.






References: The Holocaust Art

So, I found some berries...

And, I really didn't know why I picked these berries. But, anyway, along with those and the little cedar fronds . . . and the white rocks . . . and the bird feathers . . . they told me to make art. So, what did I do?

I started with the berries.

And, I made ink!

Crushing the berries, I found out that they were actually purple on the inside. Just goes to show that you can't judge a berry by its cover. And, as the steaming water dropped on top of the pieces, the liquid turned purple.

So, I took out some paper and began to experiment with the other objects.

Placing the rocks and fronds and feathers all around, splash some ink on it, and voila! You got somethin' interesting.

I wanted to get the "impressions" of the individual pieces, so after sloshing ink everywhere, the items had to skip off the page.

And, I found something beautiful.

What an impression :)

So, after all that, a little ink was still sitting in the bottom of the cup. So . . . I doodled . . .

With a feather. . . .

The Chinese symbols for "See" and "Think" respectively, fading off the page.

So, that's what I did with those little berries I found.