My own process in painting is like Cheerskep's process in writing. But there's something in Mando'sartmaking experience that rhymes with mine as well.
I am always making little ink sketches and then stack them in a pile that may include hundreds of others from days, weeks, months earlier. I sometimes astirisk those sketches that I like best. I go through these sketches when I am to begin a painting and simply choose one that seems interesting at that moment, astirisked or not. Then I use much thinned pant to copy the sketch onto the canvas. It always happens that the little ink sketch is quickly abandoned and the new painterly sketch on the canvas becomes a new arrangement altogether. Then I add washes of color. Over the next days and weeks I add and subtract until some feeling seems to emerge, or rather until the sensibility I pretend the painting to have is the same as what develops in me. With that illusory union between my feeling and the those the painting is pretended to have, I am able to take the painting to completion over a period of time that includes many little adjustments of form and color. In the end I imagine that the painting is completely free from me and has attained its own independent identity. I like to pretend, too, that the painting can absorb the feelings of others, and become their surrogate. As aesthetics listers here know, I refuse to accept the concept of purely formal or purely abstract, non-referential art. There is no such thing in my view simply because anything at all can be likened to something else and that associational nature of all perception requires us to think in analogical and metaphorical terms, not only with visual experience but co-mingled with linguistic experience too. I also insist that anything at all, stripped of associational identities, is utterly meaningless. Thus a painting as an object, like any other object, is meaningless in itself (if it can ever be known in itself) but evokes an unpredictably huge number of associations in anyone who sees it. The painting's formal arrangements evoke hints of routine likenesses, symbols, and the like, and they become the content of the work in the minds of viewers producing subjective narratives that is then projected to the work as being its expression. These narratives are partially shaped by societal norms, habits, and history. In my work I try to manipulate formal arrangements that can evoke cultural, historical and specific art historical associations, knowing that my ideal audience is limited to those who are alert to the formal hints I fashion with shape and color. But since anything can look like something else and be incrementally associational, no matter how odd or far-fetched to some, the painting can always engage viewers to some degree. Unless, of course, the painting is so boring and so redundant in its formal arrangement that the only associations that come to mind are numbingly common and not worth the trouble to enliven with thought and memory. Now I rant. Unfortunately, many people want an immediate confirmation of their most cherished and unexamined values in art. Mostly these confirmations are provided by mass culture -- kitsch -- and it's a shame that art has tarried so long with mass (low) culture as to lose the sting of irony in that clumsy partnership and become one with it, indistinguishable from the most banal, most common, most depressing and least enticing flotsam in the world. The Duchampian wit --and it was never more than salon-style wit -- has become as stale as last week's pastry, finally. It is the intellectuals' lower circle of Hell where other damned companions are those writhing souls who once adored sentimentality and saccharine realism. Let them burn together. Of course, with demanding sensual and intellectual ambitions at hand -- the rebirth of humanism and moral aspiration -- in making artworks the real artist can't be troubled by the affairs of the commercial world in its stinking conquest of the mind or what the monetized facts of life might be. That can occur later, perhaps, when the art is up for sale -- when the pantry is bare -- and then it's like any other thing to be sold, like a car or house, subject to myriad market realities or fantasies. wc ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, January 13, 2013 10:34:57 AM Subject: Re: Can art exist without authority? As a playwright I can testify that something I'm working on can morph so much during its gestation that the only thing from the beginning of the writing that remains at the end (sometimes years later) is the names of the characters. Many novelists talk about "finding" the book they want to write -- as they write it. I'm keenly aware of how different this is from Mando's experience. In a message dated 1/13/13 1:57:17 AM, [email protected] writes: > As I'm working on a new sculpture, creating something that is made up > of > many forms that relate to each, the initial rough sketch must give me an > aesthetic experience before i continue with it, As i clarify the forms > relation > to each to each other, i try not to loose what the sketch dictated > in the original > overall look,even if I began to feel that it is not correct. > At this point i go by > my first aesthetic experience as my guide with slight > compromises as we dance > to its completion. And all,just for the pleasure it > gives me. > > > I can under imagine how other forms of art may be created this > way. > > ab > > > ________________________________ > From: "[email protected]" > <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Saturday, January > 12, 2013 6:46 PM > Subject: Re: Can art exist without authority? > > I think the > aesthetic experience might be a byproduct of making things > for whatever reason > you make them-making sense of the world, describing > something or other. > -----Original Message----- > From: Cheerskep <[email protected]> > To: > aesthetics-l <[email protected]> > Sent: Sat, Jan 12, 2013 2:21 pm > Subject: Re: Can art exist without authority? > > The vagueness still obtains. > "Can art exist without patrons?" can be > read > as, "Would the activity of > "artists" continue -- painting, writing, > singing > -- if there were no one to > pay them for it? (I myself believe it > would.) > > Or it could be read as > asking, "Would the (imaginary) ontic quality, > "artness" still exist (say, up > in Plato's heaven) if there were no > contemplators > of paintings, poems, etc > cheering the creators on and pronouncing, > "That is a > work of art!" > > For > someone like me, that question is so muddled as to be worthless. > For my > purposes, I'd rephrase it like this: "If no one were paying for works, > and > no > one were cheering the creators on, would creators continue to create > works > that would occasion in me what I call an "aesthetic experience"?" > > Yes, I > think they would. > > But I can imagine another lister, burdened with confused > notions of > "what > IS art", saying my remarks are irrelevant. "The question is, > would the > works > continue to BE "art". " Oy. > > > > > > In a message dated 1/12/13 > 1:55:12 PM, [email protected] writes: > > > > The topic seems to have changed to > "can art exist without patrons?" > > Clarification of "art" might be the thing > which is wanted by patrons > to > > the point where they will give other useful > things for the thing. > > Kate Sullivan > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: > Cheerskep <[email protected]> > > To: aesthetics-l > <[email protected]> > > Sent: Sat, Jan 12, 2013 11:42 am > > Subject: > Re: Can art exist without authority? > > > > The topic here -- 'Can art exist > without authority' -- is so vague, so > > ambiguous, that anyone who tries to > grapple with it in its unclear > > formulation > > is liable to be entrapped into > blurry generalities as Saul is (below). > > The > > clarification might start with > the notion behind the word 'art' there. > > Are we > > to think of "art" as an > activity? A vast collection of physical works? > > An > > (imaginary) ontic > quality, "artness", which, when a given work "has" > it, > > makes that work a > "work of art"? > > > > > > In a message dated 1/12/13 10:50:27 AM, > [email protected] writes: > > > > > > > art exist within its histories and those > histories are sustained by > > > various > > > validating structures > (institutions) - the primary function of these > > being > > > to maintain the > notion that such a thing as art exists
