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Posted on 5/31/2013
By Donald Fox
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Selective attention is one of the unique aspects of our mental abilities that enables us to focus on any particular task at hand. However, there are situations and or challenges that make concentration difficult. I expect that most of us have felt distracted at times by background noise, unexpected interruptions, or even bodily discomfort that worms its way into consciousness and may become obsessively insistent. Distractions are especially noticeable when we are stressed, anxious, or nervous. We already are experiencing emotional distraction that makes it all the more difficult to focus attention on whatever we need to do.
Through dedicated practice, artists become pretty good at focusing through the process of drawing or painting. The careful observation that is required for either process helps to keep the mind riveted to what is being observed. There are some people, interestingly enough, who use background stimulation to help them focus. They may play music, listen to recorded poetry, stories, talk radio, self-improvement tapes, or other kinds of input that many would say are themselves distractions. They will talk about the importance of multi-tasking and claim that they are good at that. Most studies, however, show just the opposite is true. Regardless, what one believes to be true will be held firmly, and perhaps that is a form of selective attention as well.
There is a lot of writing about the power of the mind in popular culture from self-help and personal growth perspectives, to success coaching, to popular psychology and spiritual enhancement. Improving one’s creative thinking is just one aspect of this positivist approach to mental exercise. In my experience, I’ve found that many artists seem to know intuitively what to do to keep their minds active, creative, and flexible enough to focus when necessary and free associate when broader perspectives may be more important. At the core is a sense of discipline, something that the general stereotype of artists usually doesn’t attribute to them. I think that artists develop discipline by following their passion, which is to create art.
A dancer cannot effectively dance without a toned, well prepared body. The creation of that body takes many hours of repeated practice and exercise. Discipline is required to develop the physique over a number of years. In the act of dancing, the dancer must also be mentally focused in the moment in order to play the bodily instrument and avoid potentially devastating injury. A painter is just as disciplined although the threat of injury doesn’t usually accompany the creation of a painting. Still, the artist calls on skills and experience that are focused in the moment of creation just as the dancer or musician or writer. We may think of performing artists and fine artists differently, but there are far more similarities with respect to mental processes than there are differences. Mental focus is important to any artistic endeavor.
Posted on 5/30/2013
By Donald Fox
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Recently singer-songwriter Carole King was honored at the White House and received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Aside from her being the first woman to achieve this honor, her recognition reminded me of several ideas related to music and art . Watching the televised version and hearing the many songs King had created in the sixties and seventies recorded by a variety of performing artists, I replayed many years of my life and marveled how these songs were a significant part of the soundtrack for those years. King’s album Tapestry came out the year I started graduate school, and I well remember hearing her songs in the foundry and studios of UNC-G while working on a variety of art projects. James Taylor was also becoming well known during that period partly due to songs written by King that he covered especially “You’ve Got a Friend.”
In the twenties, thirties and forties popular music was mostly limited to radio and movies. The advent of television boosted the visibility of many recording stars. As radios became portable followed by other recording devices and formats, music also gained greater portability and universality. Today music is all around us – maybe sometimes unwanted but still there – and it is quite common to have a personal soundtrack accompany many daily activities. Whether we have been programmed by musical scores from movies is an interesting sociological question, but we certainly do often remember particular songs associated with specific events in our lives.
We could probably say something similar about visual art as reproduction technology gave us cheaper and better color versions of paintings, prints, and photographs. What was a college dorm room without art print posters or posters of favorite rock groups and gods and divas? Many first apartments or homes were also furnished with these inexpensive yet colorful treasures. Popular trends in many art forms have reached levels of sophistication that sometimes rival what is normally considered fine art. Why shouldn’t Paul Simon or the Beatles or Carole King be mentioned in the same sentence with Picasso or Monet or possibly even Rembrandt?
Posted on 5/29/2013 6:18:07 PM
By Donald Fox
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Frequently in the press there are articles about challenges in American education. At the national and local levels funds are cut for programs considered non-essential, often the arts, while at the same time there is criticism about student performance on achievement tests, teacher effectiveness, or the low ratings of American students compared with students in other countries. The sciences in particular are cited as areas of concern. Politicians rail about the importance of education, the future of the nation, and cut funding to educational institutions and programs while giving obscene tax breaks to corporations and big business. The system is rife with irony and absurdity.
I see young adult students every day who, even though they are in a career school, squander their opportunity for educational advancement. Many of them have been underachievers throughout their public school years and consequently lack fundamental skills that make their educational challenge more difficult. Instead of assuming responsibility, however, they continue patterns of childish behavior: they come to class late and leave early; they come unprepared, often without either pencil or pen; they don’t complete assignments or they submit substandard work; or they ceaselessly complain that too much work is required. They will spend hours on social media with nothing to show but an inflated phone bill.
On the other hand, there are students who are quite committed, self-directed, and eager to learn skills that they can utilize to accomplish their significant goals. These students are products of the same educational system, but somewhere early on they chose to create a different experience for themselves. Partly, we could say that there is a difference in personality, which may be attributed to family, a supportive environment, concerned and inspiring teachers, and possibly accessibility to more resources. These might seem like logical conclusions except that often the stories of the achiever and non-achiever are remarkably similar. Many are from broken homes, many are single parents, and many of them also work full time while attending school.
Obviously the two kinds of students stand apart in their actions, but another noticeable difference is in attitude. Just to say one is positive and the other negative is a bit too simplistic though it is not far off the mark. The more positive ones understand that circumstances are what they are, but if anything is to change, they have to be the ones to change it. They have learned how to communicate with others, and though they typically do not ask for special favors, they have learned how to ask for the help that they need. They also are willing to do whatever is necessary in order to accomplish a task. Those with a more negative frame of mind tend to want to blame others and appear to operate from a sense of entitlement. They also have a ready excuse for everything that they fail to do.
It is too easy to say just let the ones that refuse to work weed themselves out, and the others will prosper even more. That, unfortunately, is often the way the system has worked in the past. This does not help the larger community, and in fact puts strain on resources when large numbers do not become productive citizens. The uncommitted students are not bad people, but they do have bad habits. Breaking those habits, like breaking an addiction, requires taking the first step, and that first step has to come from within. Once the dividing line is crossed, there has to be some kind of support to keep the forward momentum. Good educators know this and prod their students accordingly. It’s a seemingly never-ending, thankless task that communities would do well to recognize and support rather than delegating and then forgetting. We are, after all, in this together.
Posted on 5/28/2013
By Donald Fox
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Over the weekend I had to repair some damage to the front door of my house caused by someone attempting to break in a few days before. I was intent on my work when I heard my name being called from behind me. I turned to see my neighbor standing in my front yard and saying with great earnestness, “You see those trees?” He was looking at the large oak trees in my back yard, which of course I could not see since the house was between me and the trees. “If they fall, they’ll come right into the house!” The urgency in his voice implied that I should immediately go cut down those trees to avoid imminent catastrophe. You don’t know my neighbor, of course, but I can say tactfully that he is just a bit strange. Every few weeks he will complain that the bride he ordered from Italy (he is Italian) hasn’t come yet. He’ll then assure me that he’s never been married but thinks it time to do so. What he really wants is a live-in maid.
When I was a kid, a tree did fall on the house during a hurricane. That particular storm passed directly over my hometown of Wilmington. If you haven’t experienced a hurricane, just imagine that one hundred mile an hour winds blow from one direction for an hour or so, then there is a half hour of calm, and then the winds blow just as hard from the opposite direction for another hour before gradually tapering off. The roots of the tree behind our house had been weakened during the first half of the storm. With the ground still saturated when the eye passed and counter winds began blowing, the tree just couldn’t hold itself up any longer. It crashed right into the back of the house, and oak branches filled the den of our little ranch style home. The phrase crashing the party has had significant meaning for me ever since.
Sometimes there is little that we can do except experience whatever it is that life has offered us. It may be illness or tragedy, the loss of a pet or other loved one, being robbed at gunpoint as has happened to several friends, having one’s house broken into, or having a tree crash into the den. For a time one’s focus is all about that event, but eventually the realization that this will pass sets in, and the momentary focus allows for a broader perspective. The particular circumstances may vary, but the unexpected challenge is familiar to most of us. What, if anything, does this have to do with art?
In my experience art is a game of challenges. Each individual piece is a series of challenges from initial concept through its realization. Sometimes this is a smooth process that proceeds steadily forward, and sometimes unexpected occurrences demand resolution or lead the work in a new direction. This is where we might say that art imitates life, at least in process. At other times events in our lives follow a neat story arc from beginning to middle to end with a denouement appropriately placed, and we might think that life imitates art it being so carefully crafted as we suppose by an unseen hand. When we think about art, though, no matter how closely it may resemble life, we should remember that it is always a construct, even the found or repurposed object or idea is crafted into its new art format. We can call it organic or link it to nature as much as we like, but it’s still a constructed view of our experience of the world. Whether the tree falls in the proverbial forest or on my house or my neighbor’s house, I may or may not be there to hear it, and I may or may not turn it into a work of art.
Posted on 5/27/2013 12:50:19 PM
By Donald Fox
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Artists present their work to the public as part of doing business, and many artists also believe that they are actually contributing positive energy in the form of beauty to the world even when the reach is small and may go no further than one person’s living room. Today, of course, more and more artists are exhibiting their work on a continuing basis on the internet via websites and social media. This greatly expands a single artist’s reach as long as someone is actually looking at the website. It can be gratifying to see that viewers from across the globe are clicking in to see the work and especially gratifying when purchases are made. The presence that the artist creates in public is more than the work; there also is a persona that is created as well. That persona is crafted by the artist but just like the work is perceived by the audience. Once it’s out there the artist has little control over how it is perceived.
Actors, as artists, are in the business of creating characters, another kind of persona that has been created by writers. The really good actor inhabits the role and essentially becomes the character in order to project realism and believability. This is the actor’s job, to make the character come to life and the story in which the character resides seem real. And, to a large degree, the actor disappears into the role. The actor, of course, is always him or herself doing particular things consciously or intuitively to make that character seem real. From a larger perspective, the actor also creates the persona of him or herself as actor in order to sell that actor self to the director or producer.
Everyone plays numerous roles in their lifetime. They are a son or daughter, a brother or sister; they may become a parent and also assume whatever role a particular job or career may demand. There can be various other roles as friend or colleague, teacher or mentor, role model, member of this or that political or religious affiliation, social or ethnic group – the list could be quite extensive. The fully integrated person (self-actualized in Maslow’s terminology) will simply think of himself as himself (or herself) doing different activities. They are all things that naturally grow from being who he is. Others may feel stressed from being pulled in different directions by various responsibilities, by having to do things that are not necessarily first choice but by necessity have to be done. Those roles are assumed and dealt with as best as possible. Sometimes things are demanded or done that may feel out of character.
Many artists don’t want certain roles that seem to be part of being a successful one. Marketing is the biggest challenge often cited. Being in public and becoming the center of attention challenges the sensibility of others. There are examples of those that appear to do these things naturally, and there are examples of those who become corrupted by success and the excesses that can follow. The popular musical arts and the film industries have provided us with many examples. The most successful people, however, and I don’t simply mean in monetary terms, generally speak of their passion for what they do, their commitment to their choice, their focus on their goals, and their sense of personal responsibility. Challenges, when they occur, are met with a sense of strength and resolve bolstered by that passion and commitment. An artist’s passion for creative expression can be an immense source of strength (and resilience) in the face of multiple challenges. The artist’s persona will also naturally arise from that same passion and commitment.
Posted on 5/26/2013 3:36:25 PM
By Donald Fox
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As a kid I remember seeing ads for various garments – hats, coats, shirts – followed by the phrase, “one size fits all.” Even as a child I recognized the incongruity of that. It was obvious that people existed in an amazing variety of shapes and sizes, so how in the world would one size fit all? Later I realized that the marketing gimmick actually saved the manufacturer lots of money even though it could also potentially hurt sales.
Sometimes it appears that many artists take a one size fits all approach to their artwork. The images look the same even if they might include some variation in subject matter. Color choices and stylistic approach give the work a cookie cutter look that is less than appealing when work is grouped together. The question this raises in my mind is what is the artist’s purpose in doing the work? This can be a sensitive issue since answers may appear overly critical of someone’s creative choices, but maybe there is no politically correct way to go about the discussion.
First, we might consider the distinction between commercial art and fine art. If we define commercial art as primarily advertising art and say the artist is a technician for hire, that answer might satisfy some but could offend others. Basically, the artist is selling his or her skills to a client or employer. Second, the fine artist, we might say, is primarily concerned with self-expression and may or may not have a conscious sense of personal work fitting into a larger scheme of art history. Here it seems there are several avenues of discussion.
Is the commercial artist only interested in the job and getting paid, or is there creative satisfaction in successfully meeting specific criteria in the completion of a job? Is there more or less creative expression because the parameters for the work are imposed from the outside? Is this significantly different from a fine artist doing a portrait or other commissioned work? Does that fine artist then become a commercial artist? Isn’t all art a commodity regardless of the intent of the artist? (This question might be the most debatable and could include the larger question of what is art anyway).
It should be no surprise that art, like people, comes in all shapes and sizes. There is no one size fits all. This is not sidestepping the issue of what art ultimately is or defining the difference between fine and commercial art. Those issues can be debated and probably will be for some time to come. Since artists began to see themselves as something other than craftsmen, the debate has been a lively one. What has ensued from this is a vast array of creative output that can be parsed and categorized in dozens of ways with supporters and detractors in this or that camp. Perhaps this is as it should be. What might be worth remembering, though, is that however much art might be elevated, it is still a creative expression among many other forms of creative expression (scientific, social, philosophical, mechanical, architectural, religious, etc.). The value of any creative endeavor depends on the creator, the audience, and whatever price each is willing to pay. Price itself may include time invested, personal and cultural impact, longevity, and other factors as well as any assigned monetary value. One size fits all? Hardly.
Posted on 5/25/2013 6:28:50 PM
By Donald Fox
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We live in a cultural environment, those of us that live in a bustling city, I mean, that is filled with all manner of distractions, blight, and intrusive media. I’ve never understood how people can enjoy going to bars, nightclubs, restaurants, or discos where there is so much background noise: the music is too loud, the acoustics are such that conversation, the clatter of plates, and other sounds become an amplified mass of indecipherable white noise. It is difficult to carry on a conversation without shouting at the person across the table from you, and even then it is difficult to hear what they say. Supposedly the alcohol and insistent beat of what passes for music is to create a party atmosphere. Much of the time our culture is about talking at each other rather than to each other.
Sometimes at home I find that outside noise and surrounding noise are distractions. Neighbors may be playing music and talking loudly outside. My wife may be on the speaker phone in her office so that she can keep working while talking. I get to hear both sides of the conversation. In a way this is not unlike someone having the television on when no one is in the room watching it. Some people apparently feel comforted by this mindless noise. Certainly we have selective attention and can reduce the distraction by focusing on something else. The other sound will become no more than that of a fan blowing in the background, which soon goes out of one’s conscious awareness. Yet there is a certain amount of stress related to this kind of constant noise. I don’t know if studies have been done in this area, but I would guess that over time there would be physical effects from continuous sounds that have to be tuned out. It must take some amount of energy to do so.
Visual blight is another issue that artists, especially, are aware of. They notice the discordant array of visual stimuli in a cluttered environment. Many cities have ordinances against certain kinds of signage particularly in frequently trafficked areas. Drivers need to be able to see direction signs, but in some corridors the advertising is so dense that everything becomes a blur. This is neither safe nor healthy. City planners attempt to deal with some of this clutter and regulations may help to reduce it. There are a few specialty areas in Houston where artists have been commissioned to create the signage, but these areas are quite rare so far.
Public spaces have now also been invaded by cell phones, I-phones, I-pads, and similar devices to keep one plugged in 24-7. The virtual landscape has become far more cluttered than cable television, which itself is a form of visual overkill. It is even difficult to go away from the city to leave the clutter behind. Highways major and minor have become advertising avenues for the hapless motorist who may be looking or not depending on whether he or she may be texting while driving. The idyllic landscapes as seen in many paintings prior to 1850 are becoming increasingly scarce. Beginning around mid-nineteenth century, we see industrialization creeping into the background of landscapes. Its growing presence can easily be traced into the twentieth century and beyond. . The dystopian future of many science fiction stories is well upon us, but even now we have choices about what we do and what we see. We don’t have to continue to act out the scenario of Paul Simon’s popular sixties ballad “The Sound of Silence.”
Posted on 5/24/2013 8:39:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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The Picasso Black and White exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston closes this weekend. This is an interesting show on a number of levels notwithstanding the sole focus on images created in black and white. The show has stimulated my thinking or rethinking about Picasso, unarguably one of those special artists known worldwide if not totally understood or accepted. Today I was thinking about him in relation to his differentness as an artist – that he was a trendsetter and, according to some, became something of a caricature of himself in his latter years. I don’t agree with that assessment, but, to each his own. These are some thoughts from an earlier blog.
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” – source uncertain. This quote, like many others found online, is attributed to several different sources. A German version is assigned to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, but several Nietzsche scholars deny him as the author. Some say the German version was translated from the 13th Century Sufi poet Rumi. Others say it originated in ancient Rome and was first written in Latin, but no author is identified.
Two lessons, at least, can be gleaned here. The first is not to trust information that does not cite an original text that can be verified. Online this is not always possible for much information is contradictory. Quotes in particular spread rapidly and are copied from one website to another without verification. This is little more than hearsay and rumor spreading.
The second lesson has to do with the quote itself. There are many sayings, aphorisms, and clichés that sometimes do hold kernels of truth. Clichés, in particular, have become clichés because they have been repeated ad nauseam. This may not, however, falsify the truth contained within them. What we’re told or taught is the important idea.
The quote given here suggests that some people are driven to particular action (dancing) by something (music) they perceive but others, who judge those taking action as crazy, do not perceive. Further, we can extract that each person should follow the muse that calls him regardless of what others may think. Also, we could say that one should not judge what one doesn’t understand. Other familiar clichés cover both interpretations. Dance to your own tune. Follow your heart. You can’t judge a book by its cover. Even the biblical exhortation, “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” has related meaning.
Artists frequently meet with criticism from what they say and do with their art to how they may choose to live their lives. Artists strive to express their thoughts and feelings about many things in personal and, hopefully, original or unique ways. They are not always perceived rightly nor are their passion and commitment understood. Picasso, arguably one of the most prolific artists of the 20th century, once asked, “What is this madness I have that I cannot stop?” Even he saw himself as differently-abled and compelled to do what he did.
I doubt many artists think of themselves as living out clichéd lives or fitting some stereotype. The individual challenge is to do the best work possible using the appropriate tools and media. Whatever the motivation to work or the message to be conveyed, the artist achieves by exercising fully the individual talent, vision, and voice that allows for full free expression. It is then up to others to share in the experience by hearing the music or seeing the vision.
Perhaps we are still too close to Picasso’s work to evaluate it properly. There is still much of the myth that follows his name – the satyr, the groundbreaker, the abuser of women, the egomaniacal eccentric, and on and on. For myself, I find that some of his work really excites me still and other work seems outmoded and almost clichéd. Perhaps he was too much emulated, and bad copies cloud our vision. Hopefully, as with other artists before him, time will be the great arbiter, and either we in the future or future generations will better understand Picasso’s place in history.
Posted on 5/23/2013
By Donald Fox
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Quite a lot has been in the news recently about people whose lives have been severely disrupted: the Boston bombings, the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, plus numerous smaller stories that only make the local news, if that. To lose a loved one, to suffer a serious injury, or to lose one’s home and possessions, any of these are devastating and disruptive experiences that make pretty much everything one has planned up to that point of little concern. The shock can be very intense and quite literally turn one’s world upside down. Fortunately I have never had to face something quite so disruptive, but I have friends that have had to deal with such devastation. I also do know what it is like to lose loved ones, so I can easily imagine how someone might feel when nearly everything is suddenly gone.
It is so easy to settle into the day to day routine assuming that things will go along as usual with perhaps a few minor challenges. For most of us devastation is out of sight and out of mind. As a child I do remember the frequent public service announcements on radio and later on television telling us what to do in case of nuclear attack. There were regular air raid warnings at noon time. Sometimes short programs were aired on television illustrating the power of nuclear bombs and detailing the effects of fall out. Had I understood better the political climate I might have been more concerned. Nowadays we hear radio and television tests of the emergency broadcast system, but we never expect to hear those broadcasts for real.
My imaginative self can easily create scenarios where end-of-the-world type events could occur. Certainly fiction and film have given us plenty of these stories in the guise of entertainment, a pretty ironic if not outright bizarre form of entertainment at that. Many of us are drawn to stories of tragedy whether from war or natural disaster, perhaps for the adrenaline rush that accompanies the hero’s struggle to survive in the face of immense odds. Maybe there is something deep down, a question about what we might do in similar circumstances. We can speculate safely without having to experience the attendant horror. That is the nature of art, which allows for vicarious involvement and no danger. Art also sometimes records real life events that may disrupt and devastate an entire culture.
I have to admit that some of my daily concerns are insignificant when compared to those cataclysmic events. Even so, I am very aware of how displaced I might feel when thrown off schedule by a plumbing leak, a flat tire, or some other incident that will take time away from normal activity, especially creative ones. I may try to shrug and say, well, that’s life, or respond with dozens of other clichés that have been invented for such moments. Luckily, I have also learned something about gratitude and empathy and concern for others. I can appreciate my own good fortune and pray for those that are on the other side of the issue. Today it is for them that my thoughts and prayers are sent.
Posted on 5/22/2013 4:36:39 PM
By Donald Fox
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Many forms of art are judged for quality by their wholeness, meaning that all the elements of which they are composed are integrated, congruent, and unified. Anything that was to appear incongruent would break the unity and sense of harmony. To identify a work of art as a harmonious whole is a mark of high praise and assumed to be the goal of the artist from the outset. Harmony and congruity are signs of craftsmanship of the highest order.
We might think of Michelangelo’s David as the epitome of craftsmanship and order. The marble surface speaks of continuity and attention to detail. There are no flaws to be seen. The figure stands rather placidly and gracefully in classic contrapposto. Just over a hundred years later we see Bernini’s version of David about a third of the size of Michelangelo’s seventeen foot giant. Bernini, however, gives us a dynamic David, an action figure frozen in marble at the wind-up for his famous casting of the stone that would bring down Goliath. There is no less perfection in Bernini’s concept and craftsmanship.
The idea of perfection that dominated artistic expression for hundreds of years grew from the idea that man was created in God’s image. Though man was mortal and flawed, would never reach God’s perfection, and condemned himself to suffering because of sin, artistically at least, man seemed to aspire to perfection and the ideal. This was so antithetical to life during those years for most people. Life was dirty, messy, fraught with discomfort and challenge, and far removed from perfection at any level despite the enormous hubris exhibited by the ruling elite among the secular and the religious.
In interesting ways Christianity paved the way for newer ideas both socially and artistically. The king of the Jews was paradoxically of lowly birth, gave access to anyone to the kingdom of God (irrespective of the Catholic church’s claim otherwise, but this was mostly about power and corruption), and shifted the power of choice from the ruler to individual. This led to many interpretations (some would say misinterpretations and misrepresentations) that affected social order, political power, philosophical inquiry, and artistic expression. Beauty and truth, once solidly linked and seemingly inseparable, began to diverge, and at times even to be at odds. Harmony could still be seen as both truth and beauty, but other forms of both truth and beauty began to emerge. The most heinous atrocities were performed (and are still performed) in the name of God and his peacemaker son. Art depicted both the agony and the ecstasy, if you will.
The true believer would dismiss all of this as the wages of sin, no doubt. The fanatic would become the worst kind of sinner in the name of his belief. The artist might often be the chronicler of the messy, incongruent, illogical manifestations of life experience. Yet, even in the midst of seeming chaos, the artist still imposed some sense of order that the message might be more profound. Where this all ends is difficult to say, but is the one who still expresses the beautiful being optimistic, expressing denial, or constructing a viable alternative? Is the artist that explores depravity being truthful, creating a new realism, or contributing to the delinquency of the species? These are interesting questions to ponder and challenging ones to answer.
Posted on 5/21/2013
By Donald Fox
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I have lived in southeast Texas for over thirty-five years and have grown quite accustomed to the heat, humidity, and heavy rains, which are not all that different from the flat coastal region and climate of North Carolina where I grew up. It’s not all bayous and mosquitoes around here since in springtime there are abundant wildflowers, and year round we have the most magnificent birds from tiny wrens and sparrows to wonderful herons, spoonbills, and errant pelicans that wander in thirty miles or so from the Gulf coast. Not too far north or west the land begins to rise and roll like petrified waves, and stands of conifers and deciduous forests harken back to the area’s more pristine condition before Santa Anna ventured across the border to his regret.
In North Carolina I loved the stretch of the state from sandy beaches to the gradual rise that ended in a chain of greatly weathered mountains that glowed blue in the morning light. I crossed from coast to mountains and back again many times during the years that I lived there. There is solace in the similarity of landscape between Houston and the hill country and parts of the Carolinas. Yet, there also is something distinctly western about any part of Texas no matter how citified it may have become. Raleigh or Charlotte is nothing like Houston or Dallas or Austin, but neither is any coastal region really like any other. Salt smell may fill the air and sand may lead from grass to shoreline, but the feeling of a place is distinctly its own.
I can’t say I’ve been a great world traveler – I have been to Europe and north and south of the American border – but I have traveled extensively domestically, and I have seen much of the magnificence that this country has to offer. I’ve stood on the ancient seabed that many think of only as the southwestern desert and contemplated eons of change that predated any human activity in the region. The character of a place can be felt sometimes more emphatically than it can be seen. I’ve walked in caverns and crawled through underground tunnels with no thought of exploiting their resources although I did wonder about ancient shaman that may have marked their passage with pictorial shorthand.
Artists may add graffiti here and there, but when they do it isn’t just an abstract calling card like some overhyped teen or gang banger that flies his colors like a dog marking his territory. Artists excite a space with color and form as an additive and transformative experience. Space becomes the art when observed and molded into a visual statement as has been done for a thousand years or so. A particular place may itself be transformed into something universal as through it the artist expresses symbolic truth that can connect past and present into a singular image. The viewer can experience the here and now in the art’s physicality while also experiencing the timelessness of the artistic statement. Wherever art is expressed, the artistic viewer will feel the familiarity of home.
Posted on 5/20/2013
By Donald Fox
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Most kids somewhere in their early kindergarten or school years make collages of cut and pasted paper. This is a relatively easy and not too demanding form of artistic expression that nearly anyone can do because it does not require any drawing skills. In theory the most un-artistic child could create a collage to rival that of the most aesthetically gifted. We could argue about sense of design and eye for arrangement and proportions, but the unskilled child could actually make an interesting design even if by accident. The point is that the basic work necessary does not require inordinate skill.
As an art form, collage is relatively new even though examples of pasted paper and fabric can be found in ancient China and Japan. It wasn’t until the early twentieth century, however, in the work of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso that what we think of as collage today was first created. Collage proper – torn, cut, and pasted paper – soon was transformed into assemblages where actual objects were glued to canvas or wood surfaces, and then we see combine paintings like those of Robert Rauschenberg in the sixties and beyond. In fact, many artists from around the 1900s on have worked with some variation of collage techniques on paper or canvas on other surfaces.
One of the reasons so many artists have been attracted to collage work is the freedom from the formal constraints of traditional painting. It could also be interesting to study the effects that collage has had on the development of modern painting. In many ways collage helped push artist to explore many concepts of texture, simultaneity, juxtaposed images, spatial compression, spontaneity, and arbitrariness of design. Collage can also easily create symbolic narrative and highly personal poetic expression without the extended working time of traditional painting. This has tremendous appeal to many artists.
Some of the early examples of collage by Braque and Picasso along with slightly later work by Matisse, surrealist and Dada artists are among the best in my opinion. The collaged assemblages of Joseph Cornell always should be mentioned, but by the 1950s collage has become a full-blown art form in its own right and no longer dependent on painting. As with many expressive forms in twentieth century art, collage quickly became an anything goes expressive tool. There is hardly a category of modern art since 1900 where collage hasn’t been used either as part of work or as stand-alone work. The influence of collage can easily be seen on internet pages and I-phone screens. More than a children’s expressive play time, collage has matured into a powerful art form.
Posted on 5/19/2013 2:17:12 PM
By Donald Fox
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Yesterday I encountered one of those technological obstacles that sometimes accompany the wonderful world of wireless communication – in short, a virus. Right now I’m online in safe mode chatting with a technician as he works to remove the virus and restore functionality to my desktop. The situation, which is occurring in real time, strikes me as analogous to the functioning of the mind-body-spirit continuum.
There are many spiritual interpretations of life and the universe Many of them posit a father or mother figure, the creator, that oversees the vast complexity of all things. There are arguments concerning first cause, free will, self-determination, fate, creativity, and other aspects of our conscious connection with life. Much of this relies on personal belief, experience, faith and how these are interpreted through our thinking and feeling responses. As individual physical beings, though, we all tend to operate pretty much the same way.
Being organic creatures, many of us likely don’t think of ourselves as machines, yet there are distinct machine-like qualities that are responsible for keeping us alive and well and able to do what we think that we choose to do in any given moment. Most of these operations are performed behind the scenes, as it were, without any awareness on our part. We have no conscious control over what our cells do moment by moment as they take in nutrients, eliminate waste, divide and multiply, and make the various systems of our bodies continue to function. These processes go on day after day whether we are awake or asleep and whether we think about it or not. Our immune system works to protect us against any sort of malware or intruder that might disrupt or take over operations. These systems are set into motion from the time we are conceived until the time that we transform into spirit.
We have a tendency to think ourselves independent, self-motivated, self-determined, and self-directed. As children we imagine what things will be like when we are older and not dependent on our parents whose scrutiny is sometimes felt as intrusive. We are plied with questions from parents and other adults about what we want to be when we grow up. We are encouraged to take responsibility and to think for ourselves while also being told to follow the rules and behave according to standards we had no voice in setting. We internalize much of this as we slowly build our own sense of morality and ethics, and we don’t always make the appropriate choices – or maybe we do since our learning paths vary so greatly from one to another. Some wise teachers say that we learn exactly what we need to learn when we need to learn it. Every life experience is a life lesson. We are shaped by all that is around us, and we still maintain that we are self-determined. Choice becomes the determining factor.
As creative beings, not only do we exercise our imaginations. Every choice that we make creates an outcome, a result that alters in some way great or small the world that we inhabit. Our choices can make our world more interesting and friendly and nurturing or more difficult, uncomfortable, and challenging. Artists tend to understand this intuitively, and much of art becomes about choices and their resultant consequences. The choices are so many and the outcomes so potentially great and varied, and yet throughout history we see themes that are repeated generation after generation, themes that transcend culture and race and national boundaries. We encapsulate these into what we call the human condition. This we express in our art, our religious traditions, and attempt to understand (and sometimes deny) with our sciences. In the history of our planet, there are creatures that have come and those that have gone. We are the only one that has sown the seeds of its own destruction; we have created the malware. The question now is, what do we do about it?
Posted on 5/18/2013 5:50:34 PM
By Donald Fox
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Several years ago I remodeled a bathroom in my house. Initially the ideas was to replace part of a door jamb that had become worn and was slightly water damaged at the bottom. This doorway was close to the tub, so I assumed the damage had come from small amounts of splashed water that over time had softened the wood. When I removed the molding, however, I could see that the studs underneath actually had old termite damage. Removal of those studs revealed additional damage beyond. Eventually I had to tear out the entire tub surround, a tiled one, and replace a number of studs at the head of the tub wall and on the wall between the surround and the next room. That meant tearing out sheetrock in the next room. Finally I decided the best thing to do was to redo the entire bathroom – walls, ceiling, and the complete tub surround.
The tub surround and halfway up the walls of that bathroom section were tiled with a white speckled tile from the early sixties. This was an era when many bathrooms were done with pink tiles. In fact, the back bathroom of my house has pink tiles. I don’t care so much for the pink, but I do like the speckled tile. What I soon discovered, though, is that contemporary tile is slightly smaller than tile from the 50s and 60s. Plus, the current speckled tile does not have the sprinkled pepper look of the older tile. I decided to save as much of the original as I could in the tear-out process, which meant being careful to avoid breaking as many as possible and then carefully removing old grout.
I managed to create a design using the old tile as a border along the top, bottom, and edges and down the center of each wall. In the center of each of those center strips, I placed a hand-painted decorative tile with blue, green, and brown fleur-de-lis designs. The overall effect is quite pleasing although the time required was greatly extended. Upon completion – new tile, new sheetrock including moisture resistant for the tub surround, new door frames, and new paint – I felt a great sense of accomplishment. Because of the slight difference between the size of the old and the new tile, I had to adjust the placement. This meant the spacing sometimes varies by an eighth of an inch or so between some rows of tiles. This actually became part of the design statement.
There are many times in the process of making a painting that a discovery is made that will lead one’s thinking in a new direction. Certain colors do or don’t work well together, en element seems too much and needs to be removed, other spacing may call for an addition, positioning might need to be adjusted – there are all manner of possible choices to resolve potential problem areas. Most painters probably accept this as part of the process and do whatever feels right to resolve the issue. It’s no big deal. This is what needs to be done and then is done. Perhaps my understanding of this from my own art experience helped me with the bathroom challenge. I knew the job had to be done. I didn’t trust someone else to do it. Being something of a handyman I know what I can and cannot do. It may take me longer, but it will be done the way I want it done. Artists take ownership of the creative process and when necessary they adapt to whatever changes may be necessary to create the desired result.
Posted on 5/17/2013 4:12:35 PM
By Donald Fox
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When we look at the changes that occurred in Western painting from around 1300 to the mid-1500s, the results are quite startling. Each succeeding generation of painters takes ideas/discoveries/theories and improves them to create work that is increasingly realistic in representational verisimilitude. If we consider subject matter along with the ability to portray it, never does it seem that making an image as believable as possible was the ultimate goal. The range of subjects easily belies this simple idea. The modern charge that photography killed painting would also evaporate when viewed from the same perspective.
The general view, meaning popular idea, of Renaissance painting is that the subjects were primarily portraits of patrons in pious attitudes or religious scenes promoting Christian doctrine, especially birth and crucifixion scenes. These did exist in rather large numbers, but there were also many painted scenes based on Classical Greek and Roman mythology in which psychological themes were explored or the human figure could be represented with little or no clothing. The latter would not have been possible if only religious subjects were accepted. Wealthy patrons often wanted large pictures of beautiful nude people in elaborate dramatic poses or richly clad ones robed in brightly colored fabric that flowed in intricate patterns as complex as the compositions themselves. Those designs were usually quite theatrical and may well have influenced the look of grand operas and other theatrical productions of later times.
Even renowned masters like Titian and Bellini, who gave us some of the great all time portraits, painted many of these lavish spectacles which set the stage for several centuries of painting in the grand manner. The considerably smaller scale of many Dutch paintings from the 1500s gave up no concern with detail or surface or texture, or even intricacy of composition, in spite of the subjects being more mundane. The flowers, table arrangements, abundance of foods and fabric, lush landscapes and seascapes almost always held another agenda through reference to mortality and the brevity of life. In short, there was usually a message bound up with whatever aspect of reality or story or vision was being depicted. This would make it seem as though the artists were not solely concerned with the development of their craft or what later came to be known as art for art’s sake. The artist also had to know his gods and goddesses, classical mythology, and biblical lore, and to develop a very keen eye for detail. Craft served the image and made it more palpable and seductive even in the service of spirituality.
The gradual humanization of art and the abandonment of hyperbole for the ordinary, everyday experience of the artist have their roots in that same time period when painters were making such strides in visual representation. A lot of it shows up in the Dutch painters who began looking at ordinary people in their homes, in pubs, and on the street. Similar concerns pop up again in the 1800s in France, Spain and Germany. Whether this democratizing trend was a factor in the change in painterly approach from the polished grand style to the looser, more casual treatment explored by Delacroix, Corot, Courbet and leading to the Impressionists and beyond is interesting to speculate upon. There are so many economic, social, philosophical, and cultural factors operating at any given historical moment that it becomes difficult to say what has the most influence. Certainly wars have always been major contributing elements with their displacement, disruptions, destruction and jarring of the psyche. In our rush to normalcy afterwards, perhaps we tend to forget the power of these just as we tend to forget the power of ideas. Hasn’t art always been about ideas, ones that are expressed through images?
Posted on 5/16/2013
By Donald Fox
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Sometimes in a strange place at night an unusual or unexpected sound might generate a fear response in many individuals. A few people might have their curiosity stimulated instead and seek out the source to satisfy the desire to know. The first response, that of fear, is an automatic one that requires no thinking to appreciate. One might do all manner of speculative thinking after the fact, perhaps even imagining the worst. The curious person, though, has already begun to turn the initial sensation (the noise) into a kind of perception, though not yet identified, but one that prompts critical thinking to determine the source of the noise.
For myself, I frequently find that an initial response to an artwork is basic emotion, a kind of love it or hate it reaction that seems automatic and at the level of sensation and not yet perception. It is with longer perusal that questions arise either about the response itself or the work in question, possibly even both. Some works will create such a negative reaction that my motor reflexes will carry me away to another piece without another thought. The first glance will not engender a second look. Perhaps this kind of reaction is a case of classical conditioning where the aversion is too strong to image or subject or color combinations or treatment – the reasons could be many, but past experience precludes any further consideration. Perhaps this is a shortcoming although I tend to think of it as a time-saver.
We often hear it said that art is a personal thing. That can mean that from the creative side, the artist is only concerned with personal expression. There may be no particular investment in how a viewer may respond. It could also mean from the viewer’s side that the art has personal appeal. You’ve heard the saying, “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.” This has become a cliché, of course, and may mask either judgmental attitude or laziness on the viewer’s part not to become better educated. I suppose one could level that same criticism at my haste in bypassing some works, but I like to think I’m viewing with an educated eye even if sometimes the viewing is only a blink.
We do respond to obnoxious odors or overly loud noises by quickly removing ourselves from the vicinity. Why not do the same with obnoxious work? It seems a bit indelicate to use such phrasing in regard to someone’s creative effort, but I feel sure those thoughts are there even in those who don’t admit them. Most serious artists spend a lot of time working on their craft, honing their skills, and also thinking about what they are doing and about art in general. They have an innate sense of taste and that taste becomes more refined over time just as one’s palate will become adjusted to fine wines or savory foods. The connoisseur is not necessarily an effete snob; he or she just doesn’t want to offend his or her sensibility having invested so much in developing it.
The flip side of this is that curiosity of taste – tastes do indeed vary, sometimes dramatically. We can call up another cliché and say that there’s room enough for every form of expression – the old maid, the cow, etc. – and some will leave it at that going for the politically correct version. I don’t think it necessarily a matter of liberal or conservative (I find my own taste for art quite eclectic). I’ve seen some really interesting edgy art as well as amazingly engaging retro art. Either can meet the personal test and also meet the universal challenge, which is what art ultimately encompasses when it stands for that second or tenth look.
Posted on 5/15/2013
By Donald Fox
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Psychologists use numerous examples of illustrations made up of spots or irregular shapes that when properly interpreted actually picture something recognizable. In order to perceive the object, however, the brain has to organize the shapes into a recognizable whole. Many people cannot initially see whatever the shapes represent because there are no clear outlines or contours. Once they see the image, they usually cannot un-see it. The brain remembers the pattern of shapes and gives them meaning. This kind of pattern recognition is exactly what many painters do when making paintings. Rather than outline a bunch of discreet shapes and color them in, they work with variously sized patches of light and dark shapes or colors. Through a process of gradual refinement and particular shaping of light and dark areas, the image emerges from a set of complex interactive contrasts. In a sense the artist is observing a kind of underlying structure within a given area be it landscape or still life or figure. The structure is made from light and dark shapes. It doesn’t matter whether the shapes are positive or negative (object or surrounding space) because the contrast between light and dark areas will ultimately define whatever is being represented. The focus is on color (and all its properties) and shapes. The image takes care of itself, so to speak.
An alternative way of creating a painting is to build a linear scaffolding much like what a carpenter does when putting up the frame for a house. The floor (ground plane) is built and then vertical divisions are created with struts and cross braces to define particular spatial zones. The artist does this with lines and planes on paper or canvas. Once areas are defined, then color is applied within particular areas and more depth is created beyond a strictly linear perspective. This approach can work as well as the other and may be a bit easier for the less experienced painter since the emphasis is first placed on the divisions of space and the initial delineation of objects.
I’m not fully convinced that one way of working is any better than the other. I have noticed that many painters I know tend to use some variation of the former. They tend to do this because they are working with color concepts from the very beginning of the painting all the way to the end. With the linear approach, sometimes less experienced painters get stuck on the image and color does not develop as fully as it could. They may rely on shading, for example, to express volume rather than using color contrasts to create volume. Since the perception of volume is the result of light moving on a surface, color portrays this much more powerfully than simple shading. I’ve found it useful to encourage students to experiment with painting the lights and darks rather than relying on a lot of drawing in the beginning. This does require careful observation followed by careful notation of what is observed. Training in this way can prove challenging and exciting, and it tends to move one’s painting skills along more quickly. For some, it can be very frustrating until they gain more control over color. It’s certainly worth a try.
Posted on 5/14/2013
By Donald Fox
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Painting is solidly placed as one of the visual arts, but I would make an argument that it is also a tactile art. I don’t know of any museum that will allow patrons to walk up and stroke a painting – or any other artwork for that matter unless it is designed specifically to be touched. However, many paintings are so very inviting that a viewer is often tempted to reach out and touch it because he or she can’t believe the reality of it. This doesn’t only apply to super realism. I’ve seen many abstract pieces that seem to call for fondling.
Certainly painting can be very tactile and range from visual (simulated) texture to actual physical texture from heavy paint or embedded objects. The surface on which a painting is made can be textured as well like the paintings on burlap by Gauguin. A great many modern paintings of the twentieth century (how odd it still feels to write about that in the past tense) incorporated texture as part of their expression – Rauschenberg’s combine paintings or the encaustic paintings of Jasper Johns, for example. The tactile in painting has been around for centuries, at least since the Renaissance masters perfected the illusions of a wide range of surfaces from fabric to stone to wood and metal. The Dutch painters of the Golden Age during the sixteenth century delighted in visual textures of all kinds. This equation of the visual and the sensual may have been some unconscious attempt to regain the experience of the Garden of Eden.
In life, as doctors and psychologists are becoming increasingly aware, touch is far more than the sense of feeling good. Babies are nurtured by touch so much so that when deprived of this they become developmentally challenged. Soothing touch can affect cognitive function, digestion, muscle development, and emotional wellbeing. This should be of no surprise since coddling mothers are readily observed throughout the animal kingdom from some of the smallest creatures like mice to some of the largest like elephants. Mothers caress and snuggle their young as naturally as anything that they do. It’s mainly in humans that we sometimes see touch become a taboo. Mostly, however, we seem to understand that touch is important to our survival, and we express that in many ways. We speak of being touched by someone when an act of kindness is performed. We are touched by the tragedies that may befall others. We are touched by music and many different artistic expressions. Our spiritual stories speak of the healing touch of saints and prophets, or a particular person has been touched by the spirit and thus transformed. The doubting Thomas has to touch in order to believe. Touch is central to who we are as human beings, and when it is denied it is done so at our peril.
Painting is an art of touch. The painter touches brush to canvas and just as the musician modulates the sound of his instrument by varying his touch so does the artist create boldly or delicately by refining his touch of the canvas. Often when we marvel at the skill of a particular artist, much of what we’re admiring is that sensitivity of touch. The delicate chalk drawings of Rembrandt that depict the loving bond between mother and child, the fluid gestures of brush and ink by Oriental masters, the intricate delicacy of Durer’s portraits, or the jewel-like dazzle of Vermeer’s small canvases are all examples of touch perfected. The artist has fused understanding of medium, visual observation, and the kinetic response of hand and arm to caress an image to life so that it touches the viewer at a completely different level of understanding. We sense the special gift in the artist’s hand and we are more deeply touched than the most tender caress. The effect of the artistic touch, however, lingers far longer.
Posted on 5/13/2013 4:38:38 PM
By Donald Fox
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In psychology there is a phenomenon known as the difference threshold. This is the minimal difference in intensity between two sources of energy so that they will be perceived as being different. Most artists that have studied color probably have created value scales with varying numbers of steps from light to dark. The greater the number of steps the less clear are the differences between one value and the next. Generally, it is easier to see value differences among the lighter values. In the darker range, especially a few steps away from black, it is very difficult to see clear differences. The difference threshold is disappearing because our eyes cannot distinguish the shift from one value to the next. This is similar to what we see in most computer paint programs with a gradient scale. Instead of observable value steps, we see a continuous gradual change from light to dark. The difference threshold for individual values is so small that we essentially see a smooth blend.
In paintings, artists make stylistic choices when rendering different effects which may include value changes. A graduated sky, for example from darker higher up to lighter at the horizon may be painted with individual strokes of color, each one or few strokes making a change in value, but like on a value scale the values stand alone and only blend optically within the mind of the viewer. Other artists may smooth out the color so that the value steps disappear into one graduated continuous blend of color much like the gradient scale discussed above. These are choices that the individual artist will make, and there could be others like partial blending and partial value steps. Whatever the artist does should work with the rest of the painting so as not to break unity with the whole.
The remarkable thing from a psychological perspective is that we can see value changes as long as there is a difference threshold. When values merge more smoothly as in the gradient scale, we can still see the change from light to dark (or vice versa), but we don’t see the individual steps from one value to the next. Another remarkable thing is that we can also make value scales or gradient scales as well as see them. If we could not, there would be no painting as we know it. We utilize scaled values as one of the major components of most visual graphic art. It is a major part of how we create images, and how we interpret images when we see them. This is an amazing ability by any standard, and even if one can’t create in the manner of an artist, one can still comprehend what an artist has done, and, if pointed out, one would likely be able to understand how the artist actually accomplished the task.
Human perception is a very great gift. That we have taken this gift and used it to create magnificent expressions in a wide range of media shows testament to the gratitude that we feel. As we share with each other our artistic and inventive expressions, we pay forward as others have done for us.
Posted on 5/12/2013 4:29:07 PM
By Donald Fox
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I recently saw a film from a few years back entitled In Time. It portrays a dystopian future society where time is the currency. At a certain age people are programmed with a specific amount of time through some sort of implant. The internal clock ticks down every time a purchase is made for any goods or services. People are paid in time for the work that they do. When one’s time runs out, that person dies. The very wealthy are virtually immortal because they have access to the time banks and live in communities isolated from the rest. Like with any monetary system, however, the resources are limited in order to maintain value. People must die so that others may continue to live.
Aside from the problematic issues in the storyline, the premise is not too dissimilar from current economic affairs worldwide. The gulf that exists between the very wealthy, who are in control, and the rest of humanity, continues to grow. Many die because they cannot afford food or shelter or healthcare. Politicians wrangle about how resources are utilized. Some wealthy persons donate to and support organizations to help the disadvantaged. Many do not. All sorts of accusations fly back and forth blaming this or that group, but the disparity between the rich and the poor continues to expand.
There are some artists who choose to become political and use their art for social and political commentary. Most maintain a stance that is aloof from the social arena except with the marketing of their product. There is no particular right or wrong in this. If art is about personal expression, then the individual artist should be free to exercise that expression as he or she sees fit. This sometimes does lead to art being considered rarefied and apart from ordinary, everyday life. This is an interesting perspective for many artists consider themselves very much a part of ordinary, everyday life. They probably even see themselves as more aligned with working citizens than with the elite. At the same time, they often market to the elite and look to the wealthy who can afford the luxury of large art purchases.
Societies often have disparate levels to them. We could call them cultural incongruities, or we could see that many cultures have ironical components. Pasternak’s main character in Doctor Zhivago is young and idealistic, and even though he is from an upper middle class background, he recognizes that post-revolution things in many ways are more fair as far as distribution of goods and services. He also sees that the power of the state can be just as crushing and brutal under communism as under the Czar. Though presented as a good man, compassionate and caring, he makes personal choices that have negative consequences for those that he loves, choices that are not so compassionate and caring for some of them.
Throughout history artists have struggled with the personal and the social, the personal and the political. Some great artists have given all for their art even at the expense of family and friends. We can say that we are all human. We have strengths and we have weaknesses. What we do in one arena may require neglect in another. Thus we have created concepts like selflessness, sacrifice, egalitarianism along with greed, manipulation, and domination. We can be liberal and conservative almost in the same breath, and both can meet the highest ideals or resort to the lowest standards of behavior. We are a mixed breed that often creates mixed results. Art reflects all of it.
Posted on 5/11/2013 7:11:49 PM
By Donald Fox
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Completeness – wholeness – movement towards completion. Is the appeal of art largely in its presentation of completion, like an ode to completion? Life is depicted in orderly, organized, and complete segments – Gestalt moments. But, life is a process, messy, not particularly organized in the way that we might choose. We respond to the seeming order of nature, but even here it is continually varied. Days are not exactly the same length. The position or movement of the sun is slightly different day to day, plus changing atmospheric conditions affect the amount of light, ambient temperature, humidity, and other factors. Nothing is ever repeated the same way even though the general movement is rhythmical. We misperceive regularity and call that normalcy and say that life is predictable when it isn’t. The cynic will say that we are born and we will die; we just don’t know when the latter will happen. The optimist says that each day is new and full of opportunity.
Art is a construct, but so is our perception of the world. Art can be controlled, ordered, given a resolution and completion. Life has too many variables, quite a few of which we may not even be aware. We create, therefore, as a coping or survival mechanism, the semblance of order. We compartmentalize our work, our play, our day to day activities, and we call it normal and natural. Art represents to some degree our sense of control, our longing for completion and wholeness and meaning. This can be true today and tomorrow we may choose differently. Life is like that too – changeable, but after all, we are expression of life, so why shouldn’t flux be part of our expression as well?
Completion is fundamental to our existence as organisms. Bodily processes move in cycles from the smallest cell to the larger whole. We cannot breathe in without breathing out. Our blood cells circulate throughout our bodies carrying nutrients and oxygen to each part and carrying away waste to be eliminated from the body. If the process breaks down, we die. We relate to the world through our senses, and the sensations we turn into perceptions. We do this continually until we can do it no more. Even our thoughts, which we so greatly pride ourselves on, are dependent on processes that we do not fully perceive, do not feel, and do not really control. They are largely automatic, yet from these we create our consciousness and sense of self. The completeness of each level of life process is necessary to our wellbeing. Perhaps we are programmed also to act creatively but in a self-conscious way. Thus, our predilection for order as expressed in art and in our attempts to create order within our lives may be another pulse of life beating in ways that compel us to do but which we cannot fully grasped like the physician who can count the breaths and measure the heart’s rhythm but cannot instill breath or command the heart to beat.
Posted on 5/10/2013 6:04:55 PM
By Donald Fox
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We speak of putting something into perspective as a way to either lessen its impact or to gain some greater understanding by perceiving from a larger context. If one has a narrow perspective, then certain potentially consequential facts or examples may not be considered. If one’s perspective is overly broad, some important details may be overlooked. We also use the phrase “to broaden one’s perspective” to mean learning more about others and the world beyond a localized area of influence or experience. Any of these meanings could be applied to understanding something about art and its history.
Most of the time when we use the term perspective in relation to art, we’re speaking about point of view and how objects are literally perceived from a particular point of view. Painters and draftsmen refer to either linear or aerial perspective (or both), systems discovered early in the Renaissance, for making objects in drawings and paintings appear to occupy a believable space and recede into the distance. The concepts of a horizon line, one or more vanishing points, and a particular viewing point are established and then utilized to make parallel lines converge to one or another of the vanishing points that are located on the horizon line. Most artists today learn these ideas in basic drawing classes or from books early on. They also soon learn that depending on the placement of vanishing points images can be greatly distorted.
Perspective systems, mechanical systems, function best as a learning tool. They teach artists to observe more carefully. With practice, an artist can learn to see how angles of parallel lines appear to change as though they are following perspective rules. In truth, a carefully observed, felt, and rendered drawing or painting will appear much more natural that one constructed according to strict linear perspective principles. If the goal of the artist is verisimilitude, then careful observation and notation will serve best to achieve that. Ultimately, though, a work of art is not just about likeness – there are emotion and feeling and ideas wedded to the image that personalize the artist’s message and reflect the artist’s unique perspective (mindset) behind the work. This uniqueness we usually refer to as the artist’s vision.
Posted on 5/9/2013
By Donald Fox
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If you were to sit blindfolded in a chair with your hands in your lap palms up and held a one by two foot piece of stiff cardboard, someone could place a ream of paper on the cardboard and you would immediately feel the weight. Suppose, however, that the person laid one sheet of paper onto the cardboard. Would you feel the weight of the paper? It’s not likely. What if the person continued adding sheets of paper – how many sheets would it take before you would notice the weight? You might support half a ream or more before you could actually sense a weight change because the change is happening so very slowly. Your senses that determine the increase of pressure on your hands from the weight would not notice such a gradual change for some time. Another way of saying it is that your senses would be also gradually adapting to the very small weight changes without you being conscious that change was taking place.
The result of this little experiment is similar to what we experience when working with value changes. It is easy to distinguish large changes in value – light, medium, and dark, for example. Subtle value changes where the value differences are much smaller are much more difficult to discern, and even more so when the value changes are accompanied by color changes as well. Working outdoors there is the additional challenge of changing light, which cause values to shift back and forth. What this suggests to me is that each time we observe a scene, we are seeing something different from a moment before. Basic structures won’t necessarily change, but how we see them may very well change over time. This also suggests that what painters invariably do is give something permanence in the painting that has no real permanence in visible reality. Or, we could say that the so-called realistic painting is actually an approximation, an abstraction, a kind of educated compromise that the artist fixes in the mind’s eye and transcribes to the painting.
One of the reasons that so many painters talk about simplifying what is observed early in the painting process is to see past the details that will no doubt change anyway with extended observation (changes in light, value, color, etc.). These seemingly important details are initially distractions. What is more important is the underlying structure, which is the essential arrangement of basic shapes and their positions in space. The painter is not copying what he sees; he is attempting to understand it in terms of color, shape, and form. What is indeed remarkable is that these basic elements can be interpreted in so many different ways within a general category of style called realism or impressionism or even representational abstraction. Critics and viewers (and also painters) may create all kinds of arguments about which style gives the best representation, but ultimately it is about the success of the painting as an artistic construct. How does it hold together as an integrated whole? What are its engaging qualities as an artistic design? The artist’s choices inevitably reflect mood and feeling when all else goes as planned.
Posted on 5/8/2013
By Donald Fox
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We often take many things for granted. It is so easy to be seduced, for seduced we are, by the seemingly important distractions of day to day life. We have to meet scheduled appointments or complete tasks, go to work, work in the studio, attend to family affairs, and many other things. We (I mean me, of course, and assume that most everyone does somewhat as I do) do many of these tasks in a mode of autopilot, or we are so focused on the event at hand that we don’t pay much attention to what is around us. Artists, and certain other professionals who are supposed to be noted for their powers of observation, can be just as trapped by the inconsequential as anyone else. It can be useful, I think, to slow down from time to time and consider the miraculous manner in which we experience the many aspects of our lives.
For visual artists, probably the most miraculous perception is that of vision. Our finely attuned receptors, our bodies (eye and brain specifically), transform light waves into all of the colors and shapes and textures that we see and in turn use to make paintings or other forms of art. I don’t know about others here, but I am incredibly grateful to those scientists and researchers that have spent years studying exactly how the process of seeing functions within the human body. I like to meditate on this amazing process from time to time. It is humbling to know that the complex organ we call the eye partners so efficiently with the even more complex human brain to take stimulations that are little more than vibrations and create the experience we call vision. Everything that we see from the lightest light we can possibly discern to the darkest and dimmest image we’re able to comprehend, in short, the entire range of the visible, happens according to the same basic process. Nerve cells are being stimulated and neurons begin firing, impulses flow along axons and dendrites, chemical neurotransmitters carry the message across a synaptic gap and it flows from eye to brain and somehow registers in what we call mind as something we can understand. Not only do we understand it, but as artists we can recreate a form of it to make new stimulations for others to react to and a whole new set of messages is conveyed on a completely different level of understanding.
It is so easy to speak of the miraculous, but I’m not even sure I can comprehend the true meaning of that word. The most minute and seemingly inconsequential creature or object is as miraculous as the incomprehensible vastness of the universe. The universe may even exist within the infinitely minute as much as in that which is ever expanding. Perhaps our greatest job, which it seems so often is not acknowledged, is simply to witness the exquisite grandeur of all of which we are a part. We have to be nature observing itself and to be conscious of being nature observing itself. What an insight from those sages that have said that we are the universe, we are all one. There is nothing here about ego or one separate being and another separate being. The ego is the great trickster, the eye looking at its own reflection and not perceiving the greater being. The devil may be in the details but god is in the whole.
Posted on 5/7/2013
By Donald Fox
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Painters that work from observation make countless decisions about what to include in a painting (and what to leave out) as well as how to include it. We might think of the process as something akin to editing in writing. A statement is made and then considered for how well and clearly it makes its point. Just as something can be said numerous ways, so can something be rendered visually in a variety of ways. How that happens will depend on the intent of the artist, his or her purpose in doing the painting – is it representing something specific according to someone else’s specifications; is it interpreting a scene according to a particular working style; is it making a variation on a previously painted version of the same scene; is it intended to represent the artist’s feeling about the scene rather than its verisimilitude? There could be other possibilities as well.
Another factor that sometimes comes into play is that certain parts of a landscape, for example, may not be clearly visible to the artist. Portions might be in shadow so that detail is lost, or there might be too much detail to begin with and that could be seen as a distraction. Any part of a scene might be interpreted in several different ways, and thus be considered ambiguous depending on the artist’s mood or mindset. So the editing of the visual field could be considered a process of disambiguation. Or, the artist might choose to emphasis the ambiguity to make the work more intriguing and open to interpretation.
Some people are not comfortable with ambiguity. They want there to be a specific meaning rather than several from which to choose. The latter reduces predictability and introduces a sense of uncertainty and lack of control. Engineers or architects cannot in general tolerate ambiguity in design. Things have a purpose and function that must be met, and specifications must be followed; otherwise a building could collapse or something not work as it should. Certain types of structures could have multiple functions, however, and these would be built into the design. The space within a Gothic cathedral, for example, has multiple purposes. It is large to accommodate hundreds of people. It leads from the entrance to the altar where the emphasis is placed on the holiest point. The soaring arches allow for uplifting of the spirit and for the introduction of transforming light. Each of these parts, though, work to the same purpose, which is to instill a sense of worship and religious feeling in the visitor. So, in effect, there is no ambiguity within the space since all parts ultimately work together.
The painter is less constrained in choosing how to structure any given painting. Forms do not always have to fit according to the rules of design. A certain amount of tension can be created by the artist simply by placing elements in unexpected relationship to each other. Color can be modified to indicate mood or shapes adjusted to echo mood created by colors. The artist’s statement does not have to be as clear and precise as plans for a building. On the other hand, the artist may not want to confuse the viewer with too many disparate elements since the viewer doesn’t have the benefit of the artist’s initial insight or stimulus. Still, a bit if well played ambiguity can elevate the meaning of the art and enhance the experience for the curious viewer who takes the time to contemplate what is possible.
Posted on 5/6/2013
By Donald Fox
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Over the weekend my wife and I attended a birthday celebration for a long time friend who turns seventy this week. In fact, she shares the same birthday as my wife, just one of the many connections we’ve had through the years. Our friend is a physician (and our family doctor), but unlike many doctors she looks far beyond the physical limitations of science. Her range of interests was well reflected in the group of people that came to celebrate with her: business owners, educators, therapists, doctors, acupuncturists, artists, an architect, musicians, all of whom are seekers on this path of life. Most were locals, but two flew in from California and one flew down from Canada to be with their friend.
Sometimes at this kind of event, there will be pictures or slides illustrating the person’s life in its various stages. My friend did show some slides of photos that she had taken on various journeys to remote parts of the world, but all of these rather than depict a particular place were revelatory of the beauty in nature, particularly those elements that can easily be seen metaphorically – sunrises, rainbows, sunsets, trees, and mountains. These were not simple illustrations but stunning and inspiring views that revealed an artist’s eye and a poet’s voice. She talked from her spiritual tradition about the meaning of the various stages of life as revealed in nature.
Those who appreciate art often do so from a combination of emotional and intellectual response to the work. We are sometimes moved by something and say that we cannot put it into words; it is a feeling, an overwhelming emotion. Sometimes we appreciate with our minds, and by perceiving and putting into words what we think as we also feel, we move to a greater sense of connection to that thing and also to those with whom we communicate. Not everyone has the skill to straddle this divide between thought and feeling, but artists do this for those that cannot or do not take the time to do so. They take the ineffable and make it palpable. Yet whatever physical creation may embody the creative expression also has a resonance that itself is mysterious and can seem beyond explication. Art exists as an ordinary object, which also reverberates with layers of meaning like an echo that rebounds within the heart and mind of the perceiver. I like to think of this as the artistic paradox. The art is ordinary. It is stone or metal or vegetable matter slathered onto fabric that through imagination and sleight of hand carries the viewer into an altered state of being.
Some may say that art has no real purpose. It is nonessential and inconsequential given the necessities required to maintain life. But, how shortsighted is that? True, a starving man cannot eat a piece of art. On the other hand, a piece of bread, once consumed, has no lasting value. Art can sustain on many levels and can be the stimulus for transformation. Each of us, regardless of the self-created persona that we hold out to the world, has greater creative potential to appreciate or to manifest. We are the artists of our lives, and we can do this with joy and purpose and magnificence.
Posted on 5/5/2013 5:57:23 PM
By Donald Fox
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We live in an increasingly cross-cultural world. Aside from the relative ease of international travel for decades now, the influence of international trade and the wealth of American-branded products that are produced in China, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, or Japan, the importation of holidays from external cultures, the continued immigration from south of the border and from Eastern countries, there is, of course, the internet, that great instantaneous equalizer and ignorer of borders or any cultural divide. I am reminded of this because today is Cinco de Mayo, and in much of Texas as well as California and other southwestern and western states, the date has more than passing significance.
If we consider the history of art, there is abundant evidence of cross-cultural fertilization even from the most ancient times. All those rulers that sought conquest of other civilizations spread their own, sometimes to the furthest reaches of the known world. They took their gods, their customs, their laws, and their art with them. In turn, however, the conquerors were inevitably influenced to some degree by the conquered. In some cases, one culture might look to another if certain attributes were admired. The Romans are a good example in their attempt to assimilate Greek art. Over a thousand years later, Europe did the same thing during the Renaissance and later with the Classical and Neoclassical periods.
Ancient Chinese art influenced Persian ceramics as well as that of Holland. Other Eastern traditions infiltrated European painting as artists became intrigued by the mystique of orientalism. It wasn’t only the Romantics that painted odalisques. Once lines of trade had been opened, much of which came from early conquests that date back millennia, the flow of ideas and art forms traveled along with other consumer goods and precious metals. Warfare, mass communication, and fossil fuels played their roles in commerce and in cross-cultural fertilization. The uprooting of people by war or the pogroms within one country often led to large numbers of people of certain groups fleeing to safer havens. Their cultural traditions were the most portable of their possessions and easily transmitted. Even when suppressed by new regimes, the traditions were often all that kept communities together.
As cultures are transplanted, they are also altered. Separatist communities are not often thriving ones. Assimilation tends to alter certain behaviors and expressions, but what may be abandoned (or subdued) can also influence since much, like the release of the contents of Pandora’s box, once it’s out there it is difficult to retrieve.
There is some irony in traditions being treated commercially (as most holidays are) since many of these traditions first traveled along trade routes from one civilization to the next. As a holiday, Cinco de Mayo may be celebrated among immigrant Hispanic communities but not much within Mexico. In many respects, it has become an American holiday much like St. Patrick’s Day or Oktoberfest. It may be a reminder of a particular culture and its folk traditions but only as an already transformed expression touched by the culture into which it has been introduced. The Native American pow-wow likewise is only an echo of a once proud traditional celebration. Just as references to African cultural expression was incorporated by Picasso into some of his paintings, so do we see filtered versions of images from a range of cultures in the art of many artists that have little to do with the place of origin. If awareness of other cultures and the uniqueness of their art forms is the outcome, then all is well, but if the incorporated image leads to distortion and misunderstanding or misappropriation, then we might question more diligently the effect we are having on our cultural world as much as we may question our environmental impact on the physical world.
Posted on 5/4/2013 10:37:22 PM
By Donald Fox
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There are times when something does not go as planned. Little annoyances or larger setbacks sometimes occur that require a different resolution from what had been plotted out. Certain types of problems are simple and their solutions come quickly and easily. Other problems demand a lengthy process, or if they are too demanding, then outside help may be necessary. In general, though, most artists are pretty good problem solvers. Their visual and spatial thinking skills give them an edge over others. They also are quite practiced at critical thinking, which involves analyzing and defining the scope of the problem. Additionally, their creative thinking ability enables them to imagine possible solutions.
Not all artists will have the mechanical ability to perform certain tasks, but many do, or they may choose to hand over jobs to specialists. A lot of painters don’t stretch their own canvases, for example. Yet, I’ve found for myself that much of my artistic training translates into many tasks in the classroom, the office, or at home. I know how to organize a workspace, identify and gather together necessary tools and materials for a job, and I know how to test out ideas before committing them to a final result (that may or may not work). It is relatively easy to imagine alternative ways of doing something as well. Household items that many people might throw away if slightly broken, I can usually come up with a fix that will extend their usefulness.
Painters are problem solvers from the beginning of a painting through to the end. At the outset, there is nothing but a blank canvas. A series of critical and creative decisions and gestures sets the painting into motion, as it were, and it grows almost like an organic being into its expressive fullness. Someone watching might think how magical to see the image emerge from nothingness stroke by stroke, patch of color by patch of color, and shape by shape into a representation of space and light, a new world that did not exist some moments before. The artist, of course, knows this process intimately, and though the thinking may not reach the level of verbal description, there is nonetheless a remarkable internal display of sophisticated decision making of the highest order. Inspiration to insight to expression to manifestation and the image emerges seemingly full blown like Botticelli’s Venus on the half-shell. It makes no difference whether the painting is realistic or abstract, imaginary or observed; the process is essentially the same.
Usually, though, the viewer sees only the finished work. He or she may admire the artist’s use of color, expressive brushstrokes, or originality of viewpoint. Whatever problems may have been worked through by the artist, typically are no longer visible. They have been resolved into the whole of the piece. The educated viewer will understand something of the artist’s process, however, and can marvel even more how deftly the visual problems were solved.
Posted on 5/3/2013 1:36:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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William James, American philosopher and psychologist, brother of writer Henry James, made powerful contributions to the field of psychology. Although psychology as an area of interest dated back to ancient Greece and before – it was Socrates who touted introspection as a means for learning about one’s self, a concept that is still deeply embedded in the field of psychology – it was nearly two thousand years before psychology began to develop as a fledgling science. It was William James who noted that thoughts in the mind tended to flow like a river rather than manifest in fits and starts or isolated discrete packages. His concept of the stream of consciousness influenced psychology and also literature and the arts. He opened the door, so to speak, for writers like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce who began to explore the inner workings of characters through stream of consciousness monologs. These stood in contrast to more traditional (though still quite powerful) writing like that of Henry James that focused on manners, social interaction, and revealed characters’ thoughts by their actions or by simply saying he or she thought this or that.
Sigmund Freud’s theory of the unconscious and particularly the idea of repression with its negative consequences often suffered much later in life had an equally powerful effect on psychology (though that has lessened with time) and continuing influence in the arts. Many artists have mined their own psyches for generations now and expressionism, Dada, surrealism, dream exploration, altered states of consciousness and whatever has seemed fair game to the creatively inquisitive – the stew has been mixed and blended, spiced, and brewed according to ever changing recipes. Add to that the long history of artistic form, whether the animistic imaginings of ancient Egyptians or Mesopotamian cultures, tribal expressions from Africa, Australia, Central or South America, the multi-formed gods of India or the Far East, all of these intrinsically created forms emanate from the darkest reaches of the mind that Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, a kind of super conscious realm of mind shared by all humanity much like a shared genetic coding. This should be no surprise, for if we go back far enough as geneticists are now able to trace, we do find that there is connection among us all regardless of race or creed or geographical location. The past is part of our present at a core level.
Just as writers do in the process of shaping experience into narrative form, even when seemingly formless, so do visual artists extract from a plethora of sensual and emotional experience, form it according to insight, thought, or feeling in order to create images that will convey new experiences to the viewer. We readily respond to these artistic expressions, perhaps not always as the artist intended, but we deeply connect for these images resonate with our common humanity. Art gives expression to what otherwise might be inexpressible. We don’t even necessarily have to understand it. We feel it, and often that is all that is needed.
Posted on 5/2/2013
By Donald Fox
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When a viewer encounters a painting or any work of art, he or she sees the complete work essentially all at once. It makes an initial impact based on color or design depending on the type of work. Some pieces are intended to make the big impression, so to speak, and don’t invite closer scrutiny. Other works may be quite intricate and do invite the viewer to linger for extended perusal and sometimes to figure out part relationships or just enjoy the subtleties that have been built into the design. Some artists take great care to disguise their working process – they are only concerned with the effect of the final product. Other artists have made the process part of the work, and the viewer is expected to visually deconstruct it in order to comprehend its meaning. Because of so many different approaches on the part of the creative artists, a dedicated art viewer will continually study art much like a technician will continually stay abreast of developments in the field.
One of my favorite painters is the abstract painter Robert Motherwell. As one of the so-called abstract expressionists, he was noted for his large-scale mostly black and white paintings that contained expressive biomorphic shapes that sometimes played off angular forms against curvilinear ones. Seen from a certain perspective, some of these images appear to be extreme close-ups of small interactions in nature like a leaf resting against a twig. Motherwell, however, was not at all literal in his forms or his intentions. If anything, his work has a more mythic (like other of his contemporaries, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Clifford Still) and epic intention. At the same time, he did small scale rather delicate collages that are historically related to the early work of Picasso and Braque. Motherwell’s collages often contain personal elements that are autobiographical – papers from the Gauloises cigarettes that he smoked or fragments from letters, for example.
The small, intimate works have a self-evident quality in their directness of assemblage, but the large paintings, many of them wall sized, are not so easily deciphered in terms of process. For some years I had a certain way of interacting with them, but when I saw a film of Motherwell actually working on several paintings, my thinking abruptly shifted. The massive shapes seemed to me to grow outward from within, and I could imagine that the dark forms billowed out like clouds spreading across the canvas. They had that organic sense to me. The film, however, showed the artist starting with relatively thin jagged lines that divided the canvas surface into curving sections, and then he painted back from the edges to fill in at least the first coat of dark color. Some areas within a large shape would be painted in several layers to alter the sheen or surface quality of the paint. This working method was quite different from what I had imagined and suggested to me that even though these paintings were huge and painted with the canvas spread on the floor rather than vertically like easel paintings, they still were approached compositionally very much like easel paintings. The idea of a spontaneous, organic process that I had imposed on them was inaccurate and led me to false conclusions.
As viewers, we do interpret according to our own predispositions and biases. Sometimes we may be correct in our assumptions and sometimes not. To many people this may not matter, but as a painter myself, it does matter what the artist is up to and is thinking about. I can take my own ideas from what someone else has done and apply that to my own creative work. When I do that, it is about me and my own process. To assume, however, that something is done a particular way may well lead to false conclusions. This is where scholarship contributes greatly to the understanding of art and why I believe it is important to continually learn about the history of art and the motivations of its practitioners.
Posted on 5/1/2013 8:04:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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Today is the first of May, May Day, International Workers’ Day, a day set aside to honor workers throughout the world. This may bring echoes of “Workers of the world, unite” to some ears, or other organizing slogans. It may bring pictures of workers providing for their families by contributing to healthy economies and robust commerce. It may also bring pictures of greedy bankers, businessmen, and politicians who collude to enrich themselves at the expense of the average worker. It may bring images of the growing gap between the workers and the one percent.
Ironically, it also brings news reports of collapsing buildings in Africa that kill hundreds of workers, and hundreds more that die trapped in burning factory buildings in Bangladesh. Many are angry that those in the most stressed economies of the world are the ones that often pay the price for the frills of first world consumers. They are most angry at those who take advantage of the capitalist system – lower the cost to increase the profit margin. It is only good business to lower costs, but on the other end the factory owners that make lucrative deals with those they supply do so on the backs of the laborers who work the long hours in difficult conditions for little pay. Those owners now are in the cross-hairs. Even the new Pope has criticized the inhumanity of the treatment that many works receive.
Artists are also workers as well as independent business owners. Most do not have a workforce or even assistants to help them in what they do. At times in the past artists and artisans were exploited by those in power, and it could be said that those artists who work for assembly line produced art factories are still exploited. Today, though, most artists, at least in the west, consider themselves free to create whenever and whatever they choose and are beholden to no one.
Artists also hold the understandable view that the public should support the arts, for the arts give back many fold in beauty, education, and entertainment to the culture at large. Even in the arts, however, the belief that one should be fairly compensated for work produced is one of the driving forces in the arts community. Work, as the Pope might say, does bestow dignity upon the worker, and artists are important workers within the larger labor force. All workers deserve fair compensation and safe working conditions regardless of time, place, or job performed.
