On Art - Voices - An Opening

[screenpainter]

@Lima

yes, I understood this better today.

I enjoyed running across this tidbit today. thought someone might enjoy it.
since I have been contemplating about having something representational in abstract or a combination of abstract and representational and why most people prefer something they recognize.

http://www.virtualartacademy.com/art...iebenkorn.html

certainly can't agree that Diebenkorn's later works lack poetry.
but then everyone has an opinion I guess.

[gxhpainter]

an interesting link but how this person can state [re Richard Diebenkorn] : "However I don't think this later work was as good as his earlier, mid-period work because it completely lacks poetry." is amazing to me. I have been scanning his works both early and mid period in New Mexico , his representational portaits and the Ocean Park series.. and seen fits and starts and changes of direction , explorations but always his unique color sense and spacial divisions.. To say an entire period that is arguably his most profound work "lacks poetry"...seems pretty arrogant ..

[D Akey]

Mike Wallace interviews Salvador Dali on TV - 1958

Ever wanted to hear one of the great surrealists? Finally. Youtube is a treasure trove.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhyHl...eature=relatedhttp:

Part 2
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOENxpE313k&feature=channel&list=UL

[screenpainter]

"I don't paint with ideas of art in mind. I see something that excites me. It becomes my content." (1959)Willem de Kooning


"The moment you put the blah blah on it, it destroys the whole meaning." Joan Mitchell

[screenpainter]

for me as somewhat new to doing art really I am gradually learning the principles I should
probably already know of harmony, unity, balance, rhythm, contrast...etc. I paint because I want to be appreciated. That's pretty honest at gut level.
You would pass by me on the street and not notice me at all. So for me it is a way to get people to stop and just contemplate for a moment and enjoy the time looking and thinking about my art.
and if you overhear someone speaking in the gallery say, " I really love this it just speaks to me; " that is the ultimate payoff for an artist in my opinion. To be recognized and appreciated.
It is my way of saying I was here. like that character Kilroy on the fence that was popular for awhileway back in the fifties or sixties. Or perhaps very much like cave paintings. I am just saying I was here and I enjoyed being with you. If it is off key it can be annoying, but when it works... ah that's what we paint for!
a glass of wine, some great food and some great art on the wall and some good conversation. I love the sense of community with fellow artists.
As for the chronology, I must admit I am slow at finding a style to hang my beret on and it is a journey of experimentation for me.
I hope that I improve with time and as I learn the right chords I think the notes will become more pleasant to listen to.
I also hope that I am never finished with more traditional and literal senses of drawing and painting as well. I hope to incorporate
more of the principles of good design. I think without ArtRage my dreams of being an artist would never have materialized.
I have really learned a lot about painting from ArtRage. Not about using mediums so much as learning about visual language
and what makes a pleasing composition. I have a long way to go in that regard and I do hope to give real medium a go also.

[D Akey]

"I don't paint with ideas of art in mind. I see something that excites me. It becomes my content." (1959)Willem de Kooning


"The moment you put the blah blah on it, it destroys the whole meaning." Joan Mitchell

I love Joni Mitchell. She is such a hippie though. As I recall she spoke "extensively" about what she was doing, at least later in life. And her songs were very descriptive and poetic. I can only guess that comment was contextual and she may have been referring to a certain kind of comment coming from a certain quarter.

Thing is that the media and record stores and so on try to pigeon hole artists for marketing purposes. And that can kill an Artist's momentum who has any free spirit at all. It's that free spirit that got them recognized in the first place. I think she wanted to lead her creativity and not have to fit in. She left the public eye at the height of her career and went and lived in the equivalent of a log cabin out in the middle of nowhere Canada where the media would not follow. She disliked what was the early days of these super invasive paparazzi we have now. Plus people love to misquote and twist meanings.

There was also a thing about the hippie days where the musicians were looked to for the answers. Even Bob Dylan admitted that they sounded like they had the answers, but they really didn't.

In short, we dare not snap the flow from the Muse, and it's bloody tenuous, as anyone who has done high end cutting edge Art knows. All the great art that was once cutting edge all looks really easy sitting whether in the Louvre or the Gugenheim. People were breaking conventions at their peril in some cases in history. What we see is a painting. But to me context is a huge part of Art, if not the main thing.

On the other hand, to over-explain can kill the experience of the painting. Mystery is important as well, especially when we aren't really sure where the inspiration is coming from -- Muse or intellect or luck etc. To the Artist, that may not matter from whence and thus words might screw everything up. And the creative type wants to protect that as a precious and fragile thing. . . so certain personality types may give the curt admonishment to the critics and pundits, "Baby On Board" as were signs hanging in car windows.

I think it all depends on where you're sitting what is important and what isn't.

Tell a writer that Blah Blah is crap and see where that gets you. They may see painting as lobotomized thinking whereas words communicate and full a dynamic. Personally, I think it's suitable to be firing on all cylinders. That lets me experience things multi-dimensionally, which is sort of what being a human entitles us to.

[screenpainter]

You are right... Joni Mitchell would probably not agree with Joan Mitchell the abstract expressionist artist from the NY school of abstract expressionists though she painted in France. Joan liked to drink a lot I think. I don't think she liked answering questions from people who didn't get it in her estimation. I think she might have been saying that analyzing her work detracted from the purely visual language. Quite a character. I took the quote from her interview with a twit who really didn't get it. It is from a documentary on her painting and life. Though not much is shared about her life really. Seems like kind of a sad life to me from listening to her. Reminded me somewhat of the sad life of the portrait painter Alice Neel. They were obsessed with painting constantly, but both, to me, lived sad distant lives even though well renowned in the art world.

http://www.amazon.com/Joan-Mitchell-.../dp/B003ELMR8U


http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Al...?trkid=2361637

[D Akey]

Hahahaha. Right.

It's really late and my eyes are tired. Hahahaha. Sorry about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0

[chinapete]

Albert Screenpainter pointed me to this thread only recently, so I've arrived somewhat belatedly, and can't hope to add anything meaningful to all that's already been said ... But if I may go a bit off topic -- because as far as I can tell, comments on this thread mainly center on Western art -- I'd like to introduce a few concepts in the Chinese aesthetic that I've relied on for the paintings and drawings I've posted on the forum ...


There is of course no way to summarize the long tradition of the arts in China, and I won't pretend to have any special insights into it, but I have found one or two principles to be of some use in my work ... For example, the ancients paid a lot of attention to ways in which "the meaning surpasses the image" (Yì yú yú xiàng 意余于象) ...


Their idea was (and is), according to this principle, if an artwork is handed down in some form incomplete, either unfinished or damaged, we still should be able to have a complete understanding of its meaning ... And, perhaps more importantly for my purposes, an artwork does not have to depict fully a scene for the entire scene to be understood ... This is a strategy I often use, by cropping or otherwise limiting what the viewer sees ...


Qian Zhongshu, the famous 20th c. Chinese critic (who was fluent and highly literate in five or six Western languages, and was expert in comparing Eastern and Western sources), wrote an essay about this concept (see source below); he first connects it to Chinese painting, and then to the act of reading in Chinese and in Western texts (he gives Shakespeare's line in "Rape of Lucrece" as evidence: "A hand, a foote, a face, a leg / Stood for the whole to be imagined") ...


It has been my experience, as I've looked at artworks over the years, that the best linger in my mind, and what lingers never is the whole work, but a highly charged detail, a color, a line, a shape, a mood, a harmony or a contrast ... This notion was expressed by an ancient Chinese writer in relation to a poem he was critiquing: "When the reading is over, something lingers." (quoted by Qian Zhongshu, p30)




Source: Qian Zhongshu, "The meaning surpasses the image" in Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters, trans. Ronald Egan, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1998: 29-40.

[D Akey]

This is part of a Clinic at Berklee (School of Music I believe) by John Mayer. Amazingly articulate music artist. It's been uploaded in 9 parts. I'm linking to Part 8 because that's the first one I clicked on.

While the audience is made up of students getting ready to enter the working world, their questions are universal when it comes to the considerations of being a creative type of person in the world. Questions about how one should aim, why, who and what to listen to when feedback comes, and that's just what I heard in Part 8. I intend to listen to the whole thing.

Also it's in high definition, so the resolution audio and visual is not a distraction. Very articulate and insightful speaker. Refreshing to hear in a pop star.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfN-LyP6tAU

if the link doesn't work, do a search on Youtube for this:

John Mayer - Berklee Clinic Part 8 [HD]