Concerning Art
I was reading an interview of a (British?) CG artist and painter named Nykolai Aleksander, whose work I've only just discovered, and one of his comments got me thinking.
He was asked whether or not he thought "art and creation is the key to unlocking one's true emotions and feelings?". Nykolai replied: "Only if the artist is honest with oneself. If someone solely creates for the sake of making pretty pictures, "because it's cool to make art", I would doubt it. If someone else creates because they have to or else go mad in a manner of speaking, and not care about what others may think about it, then yes, I would say that I have to agree with that statement."
This got me thinking about myself and my own reasons for "creating". As I was looking at various artists' work tonight, I inevitably started thinking about how good it was and how much I wished I could be creative like that. I am fairly talented when it comes to free-hand drawing, so that makes it all the more tempting because I know that I could mimic many of the things I've seen. But then why am I doing it, if what I'm creating isn't new? Why do I feel compelled to copy other's art?
I'm afraid that when it comes to drawing I'm one of the pseudo-artists, who only make pretty pictures. Maybe I even do it just because I want to look cool. I've never felt like I had to draw something or I'd go mad- well, that's not true, but even then I was still copying someone else's vision, rather than using my own.
However, writing is another story altogether. Nearly everytime I write, I do it because I feel like I have to. It's much more personal. I put more of myself into my words than I ever do in my art. While I still write a lot of fanfiction, and in that sense I'm inhabiting a world that's not entirely my own, it's my vision. The characters, the words, the story- they're all my own.
The purest forms of my own "art" are the little bits of prose and stream of consciousness dialogues that I write occasionally. I think I can say more in a few lines in those than I have in entire fics. On the days that those things come about, I feel more in tune with something unique inside of myself. Unfortunately I don't really know how to lengthen those little pieces of artistic honesty into anything worth reading.
But I think that's sort of the point. Unlike my detailed fics and stories, these little drabbles were never written with an audience in mind. It's simply me, opening myself up to my own mind. I should try to write this way more often. I think the reason I work on my fics so infrequently is because i filter myself when I write them. It's not really my voice- or not entirely my voice- but rather a watered-down, reader friendly version of it.
Writing in my own voice is more satisfying, and more meaningful to me. I think that if I tried this, I might be able to create something that's more than good or bad- it would be something honest.
Something real.
So I'm along with this rant I'm posting one of these drabbles (called Electric), as well as one of my poems (Isis). I may not have mentioned this before, but I'm something of a closet poet. I don't like my poetry, because I only have the patience to write in a modern style, and I hate modern poetry. However I'm feeling sort of open tonight, so I thought I'd go ahead and post it anyway. Perhaps I'll add this one and a few others to my website someday.
Electric
From this window the world seemed to begin and end with the sprawling city, nestled around a river that cut through the valley. The little buildings, scattered as they were over the green, forrested hillsides looked like children's toys; colorful blocks half-hidden by the folds of an old blanket. And above everything a plane, an angry metal insect, caught itself in the sodden, woolen sky, and disappeared.
I watch the people walking, quickly over the backs of flattened grey snakes, curving over the earth and dividing it. They look so busy, so agitated that I wonder for a moment what they're all running to- or from.
Clumsy words trip over these lines, only picking up velocity as they go. You can't stop them now, and neither can I. They will fill all the empty places, desecrate the purity of nothingness. Ten thousand words are dying as I write this. I watch them bleed - black ink - stained hands - a glass filling with ebony liquid.
As I touch I leave only ruin.
Da Vinci, Botticelli, Rembrandt- their souls lie in the depths of a blank canvas. As my own brush descends, they fade. I banish them with an angry gash of red on pristine white.
People are moving again. Ones and zeroes rushing along copper-colored pathways, input, output- it's all very basic.
Knowledge, power, beauty-
genius-
Brilliant, yellow, hot-
electric.
Isis
Something strange-
I hear them talking
They are saying
There is a girl
With grey skin
The color of ash
I see frozen things
Bodies long dead
And cold
One day I am waiting
In a line-
And I see her
A girl with grey skin
Grey, yes, but I do not
Think of ashes.
Her dark hair encircles
Her face like
A cartouche
Her eyes are
Black heiroglyphs within
Mesmerizing, elusive
Her mouth has
Been painted as red
As apples
And I think
Of Ancient things
Come to life
Paintings that have
Taken shape and
Learnt to breathe
White teeth the
Color of lotuses
Dazzle when she speaks
And her voice is long
And deep
Like old rivers
I think of statues
Again but
This time they speak to me
She is the child
Of Life and Death
Mortality and Immortality
In her body
Beneath grey skin
Hot blood flows
And in her
Every movement
Is a riddle.
He was asked whether or not he thought "art and creation is the key to unlocking one's true emotions and feelings?". Nykolai replied: "Only if the artist is honest with oneself. If someone solely creates for the sake of making pretty pictures, "because it's cool to make art", I would doubt it. If someone else creates because they have to or else go mad in a manner of speaking, and not care about what others may think about it, then yes, I would say that I have to agree with that statement."
This got me thinking about myself and my own reasons for "creating". As I was looking at various artists' work tonight, I inevitably started thinking about how good it was and how much I wished I could be creative like that. I am fairly talented when it comes to free-hand drawing, so that makes it all the more tempting because I know that I could mimic many of the things I've seen. But then why am I doing it, if what I'm creating isn't new? Why do I feel compelled to copy other's art?
I'm afraid that when it comes to drawing I'm one of the pseudo-artists, who only make pretty pictures. Maybe I even do it just because I want to look cool. I've never felt like I had to draw something or I'd go mad- well, that's not true, but even then I was still copying someone else's vision, rather than using my own.
However, writing is another story altogether. Nearly everytime I write, I do it because I feel like I have to. It's much more personal. I put more of myself into my words than I ever do in my art. While I still write a lot of fanfiction, and in that sense I'm inhabiting a world that's not entirely my own, it's my vision. The characters, the words, the story- they're all my own.
The purest forms of my own "art" are the little bits of prose and stream of consciousness dialogues that I write occasionally. I think I can say more in a few lines in those than I have in entire fics. On the days that those things come about, I feel more in tune with something unique inside of myself. Unfortunately I don't really know how to lengthen those little pieces of artistic honesty into anything worth reading.
But I think that's sort of the point. Unlike my detailed fics and stories, these little drabbles were never written with an audience in mind. It's simply me, opening myself up to my own mind. I should try to write this way more often. I think the reason I work on my fics so infrequently is because i filter myself when I write them. It's not really my voice- or not entirely my voice- but rather a watered-down, reader friendly version of it.
Writing in my own voice is more satisfying, and more meaningful to me. I think that if I tried this, I might be able to create something that's more than good or bad- it would be something honest.
Something real.
So I'm along with this rant I'm posting one of these drabbles (called Electric), as well as one of my poems (Isis). I may not have mentioned this before, but I'm something of a closet poet. I don't like my poetry, because I only have the patience to write in a modern style, and I hate modern poetry. However I'm feeling sort of open tonight, so I thought I'd go ahead and post it anyway. Perhaps I'll add this one and a few others to my website someday.
Electric
From this window the world seemed to begin and end with the sprawling city, nestled around a river that cut through the valley. The little buildings, scattered as they were over the green, forrested hillsides looked like children's toys; colorful blocks half-hidden by the folds of an old blanket. And above everything a plane, an angry metal insect, caught itself in the sodden, woolen sky, and disappeared.
I watch the people walking, quickly over the backs of flattened grey snakes, curving over the earth and dividing it. They look so busy, so agitated that I wonder for a moment what they're all running to- or from.
Clumsy words trip over these lines, only picking up velocity as they go. You can't stop them now, and neither can I. They will fill all the empty places, desecrate the purity of nothingness. Ten thousand words are dying as I write this. I watch them bleed - black ink - stained hands - a glass filling with ebony liquid.
As I touch I leave only ruin.
Da Vinci, Botticelli, Rembrandt- their souls lie in the depths of a blank canvas. As my own brush descends, they fade. I banish them with an angry gash of red on pristine white.
People are moving again. Ones and zeroes rushing along copper-colored pathways, input, output- it's all very basic.
Knowledge, power, beauty-
genius-
Brilliant, yellow, hot-
electric.
Isis
Something strange-
I hear them talking
They are saying
There is a girl
With grey skin
The color of ash
I see frozen things
Bodies long dead
And cold
One day I am waiting
In a line-
And I see her
A girl with grey skin
Grey, yes, but I do not
Think of ashes.
Her dark hair encircles
Her face like
A cartouche
Her eyes are
Black heiroglyphs within
Mesmerizing, elusive
Her mouth has
Been painted as red
As apples
And I think
Of Ancient things
Come to life
Paintings that have
Taken shape and
Learnt to breathe
White teeth the
Color of lotuses
Dazzle when she speaks
And her voice is long
And deep
Like old rivers
I think of statues
Again but
This time they speak to me
She is the child
Of Life and Death
Mortality and Immortality
In her body
Beneath grey skin
Hot blood flows
And in her
Every movement
Is a riddle.