Mercenary Artistry
This entry spawned because of a few different reasons. While the lead-in wasn't the first bit of this post knocking in my head, it's the best introduction that I could wind up with. This lead-in is a quote, which indigoskynet first posted:
Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly. -- Hugh Macleod
In looking for who this was and more on the person bringing these words together (as sometimes the quote doesn't give a full picture), I stumbled on this site of his which gives a lot of rules to keep in mind with being creative (not just a mercenary artist): GapingVoid Archive: How To Be Creative. A lot of this screams true in where I am now, spending time drawing diagrams that no one really wants to deal with.
There is a lack of creativity out there. Whether it's motivated by fear or lack of trying, I'm not sure. At times, it is just plain stupidity... but even the stupid can amaze you with their creativity in being stupid. It's not just the individual people that I speak of, though. It's all around us, with bits and pieces fading away each day.
My drive to and from work had some interesting spots along it. I say "had" because a lot of these spots are vanishing and it has saddened me a bit to see them go. The first of the notables now gone was an old motel that I used to pass by, with a convienence store/gas station out front. Now, the Texaco/Subway combo didn't have much creativity behind it - it looked like every other of its breed out there - but they were certainly entertaining for the prices that they would put up that were always higher than others near them. The motel, however, which had some old billboards denoting how cheap it was and that it was AAA rated, had a bit of character in its all-brick horse-shoe style layout. These are both gone now... as they are to make way for a strip mall to go with the Home Depot near it. That bit of landscape will become as mildlessly dull as every other strip mall.
The second to vanish was an old abandoned house on a small hillock. Trees, grass, and weeds had grown up rather high around this gutted house. I don't know how long it stood gutted as it was, but it was there for at least a year. At one point, several months ago, some people showed up at the place and salvaged all the slate roof tiles that the house had. Even going from a black slate roof to exposed wood plank didn't really pull the interesting angles of the place apart. What saddens me most is that I never got around to taking a picture of this place, which often had me wondering about its history and what that house may have seen go by. About a week or so ago, I noticed that it had suddenly disappeared from my landscape. It no longer loomed with dark empty window frames over my commute. It could no longer sing a siren's call, luring me to figure out a history for the place or see how delapidated it was on closer inspection. My commute seems a touch more dull now that I can't spy it out of one eye and notice some detail about it that had eluded me before.
Tonight, I noticed another that is soon to disappear. Across from the now-gone-motel, there was a strange building that had obviously seen many owners. From looking at the signs that remained - or the shadows left by those now gone - there was a Dairy Queen on one side of the building, Mama Mia's Pizza on the other, and a pool supply hut of some sort in the middle of the lot where you might expect gas pumps. Behind this building, on an almost hidden access road, is an abandoned garage bay of some sort. I've often had a weird urge, on passing this vacated building, to buy it and do something with it. Just what that something was always changed. Some nights, it was a knitting shop. Other nights, it was gaming. Still others, it was a combination shop that also included computer parts. It, too, had a siren call -- rather than "investigate me", it whispered insistently, "make me useful". However, I believe it will soon disappear as I've now seen lights on inside and more trucks parking there. I suspect that it's soon to turn into a strip mall. Another bland, mindless, joyless suck of architecture and land.
... Yeah, I know. I shouldn't be in the suburbs where this sort of suck is common, where the draw of the cookie-cutter happens all the time. I guess I thought I was in an area that had a couple little bare and creative spots left. Instead, it looks like this little spot, just barely over the line into Hanover County, will lose some of the more interesting landmarks and become as dreadfully modern as it is on the opposite side in Henrico County. It just has to match that mall and have yet more commerce that will live in the bland.
Perhaps I need to go out with my camera and start taking images of the houses and buildings that I find that aren't the borg ant colonies of sameness. Find the work of those architects whose artistry was able to make it past the bullshit.
Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly. -- Hugh Macleod
In looking for who this was and more on the person bringing these words together (as sometimes the quote doesn't give a full picture), I stumbled on this site of his which gives a lot of rules to keep in mind with being creative (not just a mercenary artist): GapingVoid Archive: How To Be Creative. A lot of this screams true in where I am now, spending time drawing diagrams that no one really wants to deal with.
There is a lack of creativity out there. Whether it's motivated by fear or lack of trying, I'm not sure. At times, it is just plain stupidity... but even the stupid can amaze you with their creativity in being stupid. It's not just the individual people that I speak of, though. It's all around us, with bits and pieces fading away each day.
My drive to and from work had some interesting spots along it. I say "had" because a lot of these spots are vanishing and it has saddened me a bit to see them go. The first of the notables now gone was an old motel that I used to pass by, with a convienence store/gas station out front. Now, the Texaco/Subway combo didn't have much creativity behind it - it looked like every other of its breed out there - but they were certainly entertaining for the prices that they would put up that were always higher than others near them. The motel, however, which had some old billboards denoting how cheap it was and that it was AAA rated, had a bit of character in its all-brick horse-shoe style layout. These are both gone now... as they are to make way for a strip mall to go with the Home Depot near it. That bit of landscape will become as mildlessly dull as every other strip mall.
The second to vanish was an old abandoned house on a small hillock. Trees, grass, and weeds had grown up rather high around this gutted house. I don't know how long it stood gutted as it was, but it was there for at least a year. At one point, several months ago, some people showed up at the place and salvaged all the slate roof tiles that the house had. Even going from a black slate roof to exposed wood plank didn't really pull the interesting angles of the place apart. What saddens me most is that I never got around to taking a picture of this place, which often had me wondering about its history and what that house may have seen go by. About a week or so ago, I noticed that it had suddenly disappeared from my landscape. It no longer loomed with dark empty window frames over my commute. It could no longer sing a siren's call, luring me to figure out a history for the place or see how delapidated it was on closer inspection. My commute seems a touch more dull now that I can't spy it out of one eye and notice some detail about it that had eluded me before.
Tonight, I noticed another that is soon to disappear. Across from the now-gone-motel, there was a strange building that had obviously seen many owners. From looking at the signs that remained - or the shadows left by those now gone - there was a Dairy Queen on one side of the building, Mama Mia's Pizza on the other, and a pool supply hut of some sort in the middle of the lot where you might expect gas pumps. Behind this building, on an almost hidden access road, is an abandoned garage bay of some sort. I've often had a weird urge, on passing this vacated building, to buy it and do something with it. Just what that something was always changed. Some nights, it was a knitting shop. Other nights, it was gaming. Still others, it was a combination shop that also included computer parts. It, too, had a siren call -- rather than "investigate me", it whispered insistently, "make me useful". However, I believe it will soon disappear as I've now seen lights on inside and more trucks parking there. I suspect that it's soon to turn into a strip mall. Another bland, mindless, joyless suck of architecture and land.
... Yeah, I know. I shouldn't be in the suburbs where this sort of suck is common, where the draw of the cookie-cutter happens all the time. I guess I thought I was in an area that had a couple little bare and creative spots left. Instead, it looks like this little spot, just barely over the line into Hanover County, will lose some of the more interesting landmarks and become as dreadfully modern as it is on the opposite side in Henrico County. It just has to match that mall and have yet more commerce that will live in the bland.
Perhaps I need to go out with my camera and start taking images of the houses and buildings that I find that aren't the borg ant colonies of sameness. Find the work of those architects whose artistry was able to make it past the bullshit.