> I was wondering what others experience in the showing of
> there work? Do you have the same experience?
Well, in my experience, it varies. When I was young, I was very hurt when
people talked about my stuff. In consequence, I didn't show for years.
OTOH, I didn't know what to think of my work myself. Now that 30 years have
passed, I am amazed what I did back then. I don't understand it even after
that long a time, but appreciation has risen ever since, adn that is
remarkable and unexpected.
In the beginning, I destroyed some stuff. I regret that very much today.
Some paintings were destroyed the etching style, crossing the picture.
That's ok, they still exist.
They may not be that great, true, but who cares? I do, and to me, it is
marvelous. You all experience the appreciation people bring to the least
scratch of masters like Picasso.
He is a good example. Nobody will deny that much of his work, even until
high age, is not that great, but that is essentially unimportant. One of
our masters of literature, Arno Schmidt, once said something like that, and
this was meant to hold for the masters only, with which he himself declared
to be on even terms with them, of course.
I don't agree. Those great masters are masters all right. But they are just
a person like you and me as well. And I myself esteem my work as important
as anybogy else's. It is my right to do so, and I am happy with it.
I had ample opportunity to come to that conclusion. I started as a
mathematician, became teacher, then full time painter with first exhibition
in a museum - which helped me a lot to cope with low self esteem during bad
times.
But then, it was more or less by accident that I had this chance. The
outcome was pretty negative, too. The public didn't like it, I had radio
and press interviews and TV shows, but things were forgotten the other day.
There were more and more private buyers, that's true, but not enough. I
demanded to have a familiy, and was happy to be able to work full time, but
finally I resigned. Ends did not meet. Work meant cost in the first place.
I am unsure all the time if my decision to quit painting and sculpting was
right, but life went on. Was it good to spoil my talent with computer /
marketing stuff? I don't know.
All the time I thought about the reasons I was unsuccessful. But was I
really?
People who bought works from me (I sold about 100) proved that they
appreciated my work by giving money. But I lost sight of most of them, and
this was and still is hard for me to bear. When I see one of my works with
them, I hardly dare to to ask about *their* feelings with my works.
But when I do, I always here that they still love it. They live with it and
would never think about parting. Their feelings get stronger, pretty much
like mine. But it is not my feelings that they have. They have their own,
and their own history with the works.
A couple of years ago, I made a second try and wrote about some of those
experiences with the idea to show people a way to art appreciation and
eventually to buy it. This attempt failed, too. But the outcome is still
available, online - hail to the internet! Everybody can show what they want
- and all can choose not to look at it.
A few weeks ago, I had an interesting experience with myself. I met a
wealthy man, a friend and buyer, who lent me money for a software project
which failed tragically so I couldn't pay back. I knew, or at least thought
so, that he didn't appreciate my work.
When he was divorced, his former wife took the large painting with her, and
he began to buy lots of paintings from another artist, which I could pretty
well see spread all over his office. I didn't appreciate this stuff at all.
Last year, to his 50th birthday, I gave him a large water color woodcut of
mine (I couldn't see him at the time). He didn't frame it, which I didn't
wonder about. I expected it.
So this time, I gave him a small woodcut only, accompanied with an
electronic puzzle version of that thing. I didn't want to comment anything.
But I felt I should say something about my debt.
Well, he didn't need the money, but he knew that I would want to pay it
back anyway, so he made a proposal. He wanted to buy and thus compensate
with one of my large sculptures for his new office and home which he had
seen at least 15 years ago in my studio.
Instead of being happy both as an artist and as debitor, I immediately
refused his proposal. Now this was really interesting. Why did I do that?
I guess I don't want to part from my works myself. Most are unique pieces,
and although I can't see them anyway as I don't have enough space to show,
I am jealous for them.
I found a way out of this dilemma. I proposed that we choose a large head
and make 2 bronze copies - one for him and one for me. And I didn't want to
compensate my debt with it. I just wanted him to pay the cost for both
casts. Mind that!
Take it this way: we are all human beings. I myself live in a stock room at
the least possible level for quite some time now, my art work all stuffed
around me, but no wall to hang a thing, sculptures crammed together in
shelves.
But when I looked around that rich man's living room, at his books, his
music, his paintings, I saw that this is not my world. I would not like to
be him.
And when I listen to the radio, I wonder how people can bear that awful
stuff, and they do it voluntarily. So I listen to classic music and jazz,
when I do, but most is not interesting to me.
Very seldom I hear stuff that's really great in my ears. And most often it
is the artist who is great so that the music s/he plays is great, too,
whatever they choose. But then again, who cares? Most do not, but I do, and
they do. And they will never know that I do.
A couple of years ago, I started composing on the computer. I made 6
pieces, 30 minutes in all. Again the same experience. I didn't have the
time and energy to do more, but time enough to listen and judge. Was that
just private play, as unimportant as children's artwork?
I take that question really seriously. After all, we see that phenomenon
all around us daily, and the more so the easier it is to publish - on the
net. Who am I to pretend that I am the great artist? That's hype at best,
and who needs that? There is no satisfaction in lying to yourself.
But I can't dey it: to me, that stuff is absolutely great. I don't
understand how I could ever make it. If I compare that music to what I hear
on the radio - forget about that.
I gave this music to very few people only. My wife and children never cared
to listen to it. Those who got copies, never said a word about it to me.
Most probably, they were disgusted.
That's all right with me. This music is absolutely great, if anybody knows
or not, I know it. And from time to time, I listen to it and wonder how
great that is and how I ever came to make it. I don't even consider myself
a musician. Absolutely puzzling.
Of course, I did lots of things all my life. As long as I remember, I
worked 7 days a week 14 hours a day - except when the kids were small. All
this work left no trace. It helped make a living, that's all.
This is not quite true. When I was a teacher, I impressed some pupils,
which is what I had experienced myself when I was young. But this isn't
important to me at all. Hence I am not a teacher. I am an artist.
As an artist - is it important how many things you make? Probably not. That
you make a living of it? Probably not. That other people esteem what you
do? Probably not.
But it is absolutely important that you esteem your work, that you feel
happy with it. You don't have to understand it - it must enhance your life.
We humans beings need that more or less, and this is the reason non-artists
envy the artists.
Picasso at old age once said something like "after all, what is a painter?
A collector who cannot afford the paintings he wants to own, so he starts
painting them himself." And "I try to paint like van Gogh or Goya and it
always becomes a Picasso in the end."
You understand why he didn't sell quite a number of his own works? He even
bought some back.
A famous example is "the dance", now in London, Tate Gallery. When he could
get it back, it had a large scratch right in the middle, and he did not
repair it in all those years (I guess he owned it in that condition for
about 40 years).
Now it is in London and I wonder if those museum curators decided to
restore it. He respected even the life and fate of his works.
And he needed the time to live with them, to feel what they meant to his
life. I don't think this can ever be expressed in any other medium. Every
thing is what it is, and it has it's own value. And the feeling will
change. If it gets deeper, that's good.
BTW: Thanks for raising the question, Arthur. Normally, I don't even skim
the subjects, but somehow I stumpled upon the answer of Tom today. And I
felt I had something to say here.
--
Mit freundlichem Gruss
Dr. Werner Stuerenburg
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