Art, The Language
The intent of this blog series is to put to rest all the controversies about art and artists that have plagued mankind since the first clay pot was decorated and the invention of the drum. Even if you are skeptical about the likely success of reaching this goal, you might find the entries interesting and entertaining. So please subscribe for occasional updates. Of course you will always be able to add your comments, opinions and corrections.
How to begin this first posting was not at all obvious until the other day when a fellow gym rat, who had been subjected to my testing of this website, joked “don’t cut off your ear”. And a direction showed itself. Obviously he was, consciously or unconsciously, referencing the straw hat and colors. Similarly, lowering the third note of any musical scale by just a half step changes the mood of a song and that of a listening audience. This is because art is a language. One might think of it as the broadband of languages, since it conveys a great deal of information almost instantly. But what is the conversation about?
On one level, we all have the same story. It’s the one we tell at cocktail parties while looking over someone’s shoulder to see if anyone interesting has arrived yet. It is about being born somewhere, raised by certain adults, sent to school with other children, living somewhere now, having a way to obtain food, and our family status. The varying details shape how people identify each other and are the subject of most conversations. It reflects our socialization. Too often this is everything we know about ourselves. The story is like the much cited surface of a pond; highly visible and responsive to the angle of the sun, the wind and rain. Of course, there is always mention of a pebble which pierces the surface tension causing rings that spread out to the outermost border of the story.
But what about the pebble now? No longer visible, it sinks to the bottom of the pond, if there is a bottom. The murky mysterious, often dark, bulk of the pond below the surface is where most of the richness lies, most of the life forces. Its complexity can never be fully defined, it is abstract, it is the self. Through the language of art we can describe this true self to ourselves and to others. Discussions in this language are understood across cultures and overcome the barriers of socially demanded styles. This does not mean that every work of art is a deep analysis of the artist’s unique self or the condition of mankind. It does suggest that the complex self, the true inner self, is the driving force of creation and must be engaged by artists or their work merely retells the story, becomes a social chat. This is even true when conducting studies, such as painting numerous versions of a sunset in order to explore how blue and various shades of orange harmonize; or discovering how many moods can be created within the G7 whole-step half-step scale, just because that’s most comfortable for the composer’s voice range.
So now we come to the point. How does the artist plug into this deeper self, the source of creation? For me there are two reliable ways. The first is being subjected to some huge emotional upheaval or trauma. This can cause creativity to gush forth. Of course, my preference is to avoid this approach at all costs. The second is that some small tickle initiates a project. It can flow from the aforementioned studies, or a person who passes on a path, or new pencils, etc. The difficulty is that these works take many directions at once before the principal topic is revealed. Then the task becomes one of correction, deleting the superfluous distracting, often treasured, elements and adding missing focused content; all while being in a state of suspenseful concern that such editing will coalesce into a unified statement.
Does this struggle sound familiar? Do you have more efficient approaches to beginning and managing your productivity? Please share your thoughts. It is my hope that as a group we can help each other create more easily and with greater confidence.
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