becky, coming to new realizations about her art
because i never update since i started feeling guilty about pouring out my heart about certain people online, i thought i'd use my latest sketchbook entry (i have several sketchbooks where, during high school, i poured out all my rants and obsessions) for livejournal. i actually thought of this towards the end of writing it which kinda screwed me over (she said eloquently), mais, in full:
1/15/4 12:55 am
So i was remembering my end of the semester conference with Dobie and Mitchell and imagining a scenario in which I explained the whole dave side of the semester to them, so that they could see how that was the real cause of most of my frustrations, and affected so much of what I wanted, and i got to the part where i'm telling them that maybe i'm holding on to this thing w/ him because if i decide that it's not real then i'll have to face the idea that true love doesn't exist, and i go on about that for a little while, and then curse my preoccupation with love and rant about feeling manipulated by society and the media to care about it so much, so then i know Dobie'll say that hey, all this emotion i've been ranting w/ and these opinions i've been spouting - this is where my art should come from (cause i'd just written a paper about how i don't make art with any meaning or social commentary) and i try to think of a response as to why i don't want to make art about this, or any other causes i have, and my initial response is that i don't care. but obviously i do care, cause it infuriates me. and my other initial response is that i wouldn't know how to do it interestingly or creatively, but i haven't really thought about it yet, and besides, they'd argue that that's what being an artist IS: beating that artistic challenge of conveying the idea in a brilliant and effective way.
but then i realized that the reason is because i wouldn't want to see art like that, myself. i do have strong opinions about some things, let's take this enforced obsession with love, and i'd like to express them or create change, but i have no interest in doing that through the fine arts. well, that's strange. i mean, as an artist, isn't that what i'm supposed to do? isn't that the whole point - to make social change and express myself through this method at which i'm talented? but i wouldn't even know how to go about doing that, and like i said at first, when it gets to that, i wouldn't care. when i look at art, i don't want to see confirmation that the world is bleak. i don't need art to point out more troubles in society. writing is a much more effective way to produce the same effect, same or better. a picture could be worth a thousand words, but when you're dealing with a subject like media manipulation of the idea of love, i don't even think an installation could go as far as a well written essay. there are some causes for which art may be specially effective. it can evoke emotion and understanding in ways that other methods sometimes can not. however, for the most part, when i go to a gallery or look at art, i'm not looking for a mirror of my world, but an escape from it. i hate to add "we hear enough about the world's problems already", because maybe we don't, noting how many people Just Don't Care. i'd have to say people in my situation have too many opportunities to escape from the real world, escape into their privileges and leisurely distractions. however, art is not just for people like me. therefore, art has to be about an idealized world, it has to be about beauty. it can depict beauty in the surreal, or reveal it in the quotidienne. whichever way, art enriches life and heightens it. it shouldn't be about inducing guilt or feelings of hopelessness, but rather the opposite. there is a place for visual representations of those bleaker views, cause lord knows many of us need reminding, but it is entirely separate from Art.
So what does this mean? i'm entering a dream field in which i hide in soft pastels and deny the existance of the real world? but no, art just offers a break from it, offers new eyes, a different perspective. maybe if i say "relief" instead of "escape". anyway, now i'm thinking in livejournal terms instead of with a clear mind, so i can't finish...
that was the end of the entry, but as i reread it this morning, i'm not even sure how much i agree with this anymore. maybe art was about an idealized world in the past, but now it has grown a conscience, and so wouldn't it be morally wrong to go back? Foundations programs in art schools are not so much about enhancing technique and skills as about getting students to begin to really think about their art. to get them to realize "you don't just make it pink because you like pink." everything in art is supposed to be meaningful, even if the concepts are all aesthetic, it's still saying something. and i find this is a moral difficulty for me. on the one side, not everything needs to be a crusade. some pursuits, such as medecine, exist to directly help people survive with a higher quality of life, but there are others which are simply there to make life worth living, and i think art falls into that category. even the poorest cultures, ones which seem to need all their resources to work on just getting by, take time to create art, because i suppose it helps them transcend the day to day tedium or struggle of survival. and even among materially stable peoples, there is still a need for art and beauty, for fuel for the intellect and imagination. but on the other side, i've seen the hundreds or thousands of kids lined up for portfolio reviews at massive art conventions. i know that thousands of people are in art schools right now, wanting to make it as artists, and so much art is just junk. even nicer galleries in an artist-oriented town like west chester often just have trash, and i really don't want to add to it. so you can go into art saying you'll enrich peoples' lives, but unless you're one of a few geniuses who have that power to capture the universal and really provide something original and moving, how much are you really helping? aren't you just adding to wastefulness and clutter? i have to reconcile this somehow, but this entry's too long already so, yeah, i'll just end this... --> . here <--
1/15/4 12:55 am
So i was remembering my end of the semester conference with Dobie and Mitchell and imagining a scenario in which I explained the whole dave side of the semester to them, so that they could see how that was the real cause of most of my frustrations, and affected so much of what I wanted, and i got to the part where i'm telling them that maybe i'm holding on to this thing w/ him because if i decide that it's not real then i'll have to face the idea that true love doesn't exist, and i go on about that for a little while, and then curse my preoccupation with love and rant about feeling manipulated by society and the media to care about it so much, so then i know Dobie'll say that hey, all this emotion i've been ranting w/ and these opinions i've been spouting - this is where my art should come from (cause i'd just written a paper about how i don't make art with any meaning or social commentary) and i try to think of a response as to why i don't want to make art about this, or any other causes i have, and my initial response is that i don't care. but obviously i do care, cause it infuriates me. and my other initial response is that i wouldn't know how to do it interestingly or creatively, but i haven't really thought about it yet, and besides, they'd argue that that's what being an artist IS: beating that artistic challenge of conveying the idea in a brilliant and effective way.
but then i realized that the reason is because i wouldn't want to see art like that, myself. i do have strong opinions about some things, let's take this enforced obsession with love, and i'd like to express them or create change, but i have no interest in doing that through the fine arts. well, that's strange. i mean, as an artist, isn't that what i'm supposed to do? isn't that the whole point - to make social change and express myself through this method at which i'm talented? but i wouldn't even know how to go about doing that, and like i said at first, when it gets to that, i wouldn't care. when i look at art, i don't want to see confirmation that the world is bleak. i don't need art to point out more troubles in society. writing is a much more effective way to produce the same effect, same or better. a picture could be worth a thousand words, but when you're dealing with a subject like media manipulation of the idea of love, i don't even think an installation could go as far as a well written essay. there are some causes for which art may be specially effective. it can evoke emotion and understanding in ways that other methods sometimes can not. however, for the most part, when i go to a gallery or look at art, i'm not looking for a mirror of my world, but an escape from it. i hate to add "we hear enough about the world's problems already", because maybe we don't, noting how many people Just Don't Care. i'd have to say people in my situation have too many opportunities to escape from the real world, escape into their privileges and leisurely distractions. however, art is not just for people like me. therefore, art has to be about an idealized world, it has to be about beauty. it can depict beauty in the surreal, or reveal it in the quotidienne. whichever way, art enriches life and heightens it. it shouldn't be about inducing guilt or feelings of hopelessness, but rather the opposite. there is a place for visual representations of those bleaker views, cause lord knows many of us need reminding, but it is entirely separate from Art.
So what does this mean? i'm entering a dream field in which i hide in soft pastels and deny the existance of the real world? but no, art just offers a break from it, offers new eyes, a different perspective. maybe if i say "relief" instead of "escape". anyway, now i'm thinking in livejournal terms instead of with a clear mind, so i can't finish...
that was the end of the entry, but as i reread it this morning, i'm not even sure how much i agree with this anymore. maybe art was about an idealized world in the past, but now it has grown a conscience, and so wouldn't it be morally wrong to go back? Foundations programs in art schools are not so much about enhancing technique and skills as about getting students to begin to really think about their art. to get them to realize "you don't just make it pink because you like pink." everything in art is supposed to be meaningful, even if the concepts are all aesthetic, it's still saying something. and i find this is a moral difficulty for me. on the one side, not everything needs to be a crusade. some pursuits, such as medecine, exist to directly help people survive with a higher quality of life, but there are others which are simply there to make life worth living, and i think art falls into that category. even the poorest cultures, ones which seem to need all their resources to work on just getting by, take time to create art, because i suppose it helps them transcend the day to day tedium or struggle of survival. and even among materially stable peoples, there is still a need for art and beauty, for fuel for the intellect and imagination. but on the other side, i've seen the hundreds or thousands of kids lined up for portfolio reviews at massive art conventions. i know that thousands of people are in art schools right now, wanting to make it as artists, and so much art is just junk. even nicer galleries in an artist-oriented town like west chester often just have trash, and i really don't want to add to it. so you can go into art saying you'll enrich peoples' lives, but unless you're one of a few geniuses who have that power to capture the universal and really provide something original and moving, how much are you really helping? aren't you just adding to wastefulness and clutter? i have to reconcile this somehow, but this entry's too long already so, yeah, i'll just end this... --> . here <--