* In * Sights * All * A* Bout * Art *

Kris Strell
2 days ago
4 min read

I Read a book.

It was All A Bout Art.

Eye Got A Lotta Good News

A Bout This Here Book

Full of Thought Provokers.

Loaded with Insight Makers.

& Packed with Inspiration Spark Igniters.

The title completely

turned me "off,"yet the word out around

This Book was a lotta lottsa praise.

I gave it a go.

Was very pleasantly surprised with what I discovered inside the covers.

Here are some gems I found. I pass them along to you, my fellow artists&-art-making geniuses.

**********************************************

Fears about art-making fall into two categories ;

# 1- fears about yourself ......

which prevent you from doing your BEST work.

# 2 - Fears about your reception by others .....

prevents you from doing your OWN work.

*******************************************

The seed for your next artwork lies

embedded in the imperfections

of your current piece.

Such imperfections ( or “mistakes” ) are your guides -

valuable, reliable, objective, non-judgmental guides -

to matters you need to reconsider or develop further.

It is precisely this interaction between the ideal & the real

that locks your art into the real world & gives meaning to both.

The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work.

To see them, you need only look at the work clearly -

- without judgment

- without need or fear

- without wishes or hopes

- without emotional expectations.

Ask your work what it needs,

not what you need.

Then set aside your fears & listen.

.........(The way a good parent listens to a child.)

An unanticipated truth :

by your very contact with what you love,

you have exposed yourself to the world.

How could you not take criticism of that work personally.

Wanting to be understood is a basic need -

an affirmation of the humanity you share with everyone around you.

The risk is fearsome :

in making your real work you hand the audience

the power to deny the understanding you seek ;

you hand them the power to say,

“You’re weird ; you’re crazy.”

At any given moment,

the world offers vastly more support

to work it already understands -

namely,

art that’s already been around

for a generation or a century.

Expressions of truly new ideas

often fail to qualify as even bad art - -

they’re simply viewed as no art at all …

For the artist,

the dilemma seems obvious :

risk rejection

by exploring new worlds,

or court acceptance

by following well-explored paths.

Needless to say,

the later strategy is the

overwhelming drug of choice

where acceptance is the primary goal.

Make art that LOOKS LIKE art,

& acceptance is automatic.

The difference between

acceptance & approval

is subtle,

but distinct.

Acceptance means

having your work counted as the real thing.

Approval means having people LIKE it.

It’s not unusual to receive one without the other.

The audience

is in a good position

to comment on how

they ‘re moved

( or challenged or entertained )

by the finished product,

but have little knowledge

or interest in

your PROCESS.

Audience comes later.

The only pure communication is between you & your work.

The world displays perfect neutrality on whether we achieve any outward manifestations of our inner desires. But not art. Art is exquisitely responsive.

Nowhere is feedback so absolute as in the making of art.

The work we make,

even if unnoticed and undesired by the world

vibrates in perfect harmony to everything we put into it - -

or withhold from it.

In the outside world there may be no reaction to what we do ;

in our artwork there is nothing but reaction.

The breathtakingly wonderful thing about this reaction

is its truthfulness.

Look at your work & it tells you

how it is

when you hold back

or when you embrace.

When you are lazy ;

when you hold back,

it holds back ;

when you hesitate,

it stands there staring,

hands in its pockets.

But when you commit it blazes.

Where does the power of art that deeply moves us

resides :

In the maker ?

In the artwork ?

In the viewer ?

***********************

The master paints not the created thing, but the forces that created it.

******************

“When my daughter

was about seven years old,

she asked me one day

what I did at work.

I told her I worked

at a college - -

that my job

was to teach people

how to draw.

She stared back at me, incredulous and said ;

“You mean they forgot ? “

-Howard IKemoto.

A useful working approach

to making art :

Notice the objects that you notice.

Or put another way :

make objects that talk - - and then listen to them.

Style is the

natural

consequence

of habit.

Art making

grants access

to worlds

that may be

dangerous,

sacred,

forbidden,

seductive,

or all of the above.

It grants access

to a world you may otherwise never fully engage.

In may in fact

be the engagement - -

not the art - -

that you seek.

The difference is

that making art allows,

indeed guarantees,

that

you

declare

your

self.