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Posted on 8/1/2013
By Donald Fox
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I enjoy stories of all kinds, and I enjoy good film drama, stories in a different medium. The basic story structure is simple – beginning, middle, and end or, in another description, conflict, rising action, climax, denouement, resolution. Basic plot lines are also relatively few, but in spite of this writers, playwrights, and directors have created an almost infinite set of variations on simple human themes. Different characters in different settings and different time periods can create essentially the same story, but the story can seem fresh and new when handled well. The same is true with painting. How many great portraits are there in existence? How many great still life compositions have been painted? Even more staggering might be the number of landscape paintings that have been painted. Even so, a good artist with a fresh vision can make any of these subjects come to life once again.
It used to be said that the western is a depleted narrative form in film, the best ones being made in the forties and fifties, but every few years someone with a different perspective reenergizes the narrative. This can be said for love stories, mysteries, science fiction, and other forms of genre fiction. Artists love to create, and a particular challenge to some artists is to take an older form and give it new life. As with most any creative expression, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The audience is always the winner, however, for audiences are at least as varied in interest as the artists. We can see this in popular forms of art and entertainment.
In short, it seems that no matter how critical and demanding an audience may be, an artist will come along to surprise and possibly enlighten us, even the biggest curmudgeon amongst us. This is one of many reasons that art is such a fascinating area of study.
Posted on 7/31/2013
By Donald Fox
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In art and in science, truth – what is taken to be truth, that is – is something that is based on agreement. Scientists follow systematic steps of inquiry, the scientific process, whereby observations are made and tested. When results are repeatedly consistent, those results are generally accepted and agreed upon within the larger scientific community as being truthful. It is understood that repeating the observation or the experiment another scientist would get the same result. If this does not happen and if all steps in the process are verified but still the results vary, then the original observation/experiment is called into question. The importance of objective verification is accepted as truth.
In the arts (and sometimes in the sciences), however, truth is more fluid and flexible. There can be multiple truths. Artists respond to different things, they are stimulated by different experiences, and they interpret their experiences according to their own individual understanding of the world. How something is expressed through language is very important for artists. Less concern is given to precision and more emphasis given to symbol and metaphor. In poet Wallace Stevens’ lines, “Things as they are/ Are changed upon the blue guitar,” we see the suggestion that artistic transformation alters reality. Individual interpretation takes center stage rather than specific meaning. Ambiguity is not only tolerated but encouraged.
I often hear students either defend a work or criticize it by saying that what it means to them is not the same as what it may mean to someone else. This happens in the visual arts when the viewer is overly attached to the objective image and is not considering the symbolic language expressed in the work. One may also offer the excuse for the way a personal work is done by saying it was done that way intentionally; it’s how he or she felt about the subject. Both responses can be evidence of inexperience on the part of the perceiver and suggest a low tolerance for ambiguity or an overly defensive attitude. The latter is usually a case of one’s ideas being grander than one’s ability to express them artistically.
Appreciation of art changes over time. This is as it should be. The viewer becomes increasingly educated and aware with greater exposure to a wide range of art work. This, of course, assumes the viewer is looking critically and supplementing that experience with some amount of research about artists, styles, and history. The educated viewer will be aware of different interpretations and/or ideas relevant to specific time periods. Even so, there is less rationality here than in the sciences, and all of us are swayed by those we admire and trust, perhaps more so those who are creative. We tend to respond emotionally to art, for that also is part of the artist’s intention.
The best art, in my opinion, is not dependent on a particular style or philosophy. What it does do is to offer the viewer a variety of possibilities. It can be read or experience on several different levels and can mean several different things at once. It may be particular and abstract, literal and poetic, individualistic and universal. It may be simple yet profound, complex yet easily digested. It has immediate impact, and it continues to reveal aspects of itself over time. It may be rooted in place or period, yet it is also timeless.
Posted on 7/30/2013
By Donald Fox
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In a college art history course from many years ago, I remember the suggestion that was made differentiating the experience of sculpture and painting. A painting is immediate since it can be seen all at once, a single image presented with immediacy to the eye. Sculpture, being three-dimensional, requires that one walk around it in order to perceive it fully, and this takes time to do. Therefore, so the argument went, sculpture demands more time from the viewer than does painting. I understand the suggestion as well as the implication that somehow painting is a bit limited by its static nature. Until modern times, however, sculpture has also been static, and its three-dimensionality has been the main difference from painting connecting it to real space and real time. Both painting and sculpture can be monumental in scale as well as intimate, but as one that has looked at a lot of painting I know that time spent appreciating depends more on the viewer than it does on the roundness or flatness of the object viewed.
If a painting is larger than easel size, it takes more than a single view to appreciate the entire work. Even with smaller works, the viewer’s eye is invited by the artist to move around the picture space in order to appreciate subtleties of relationships among the various parts of the design. The greater the number of elements in the picture the more there is for the viewer to see and to contemplate. Really good works of art regardless of medium or format can be seen again and again and still not give up all their secrets. There will be something for the astute observer to discover upon repeated viewings.
The idea that a painting is limited to a single point of view may not be a limitation at all. The artist is revealing an imaginary space that may seem realistic, naturalistic, or a total fabrication of something never before envisioned. That single point of view may be a psychic doorway to an incredibly complex experience that is visual, sensual, kinesthetic, emotional, intellectual, and psychological, in short a multi-leveled and metaphorical multi-dimensional experience that a single glance cannot possibly take in all at once. Good paintings and sculptures are objects for contemplation and meditation. They invite the viewer on a symbolic journey that takes more than looking once or walking around to get to the aesthetic destination.
Posted on 7/29/2013 7:02:02 PM
By Donald Fox
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It never pays to hurry although there are times when anyone can feel rushed and under pressure to complete a project. Many of us have to work according to deadlines. Customers want quick results. The faster one job is completed the more quickly the next job can be started and the more customers can be served. Many businesses churn out the products as quickly as possible. Manufacturers do this because they are always looking at the bottom line. The more quickly something is made the lower the production cost. This is not, however, the way that most artists think.
Probably the times when a deadline is important to an artist are when a show is scheduled and work must be up by a specific date. One friend told me that on several occasions he’s been reworking portions of a painting in the car on the way to the gallery while his wife is driving. That’s pretty extreme and certainly not a very professional way to handle the deadline for an exhibit. Meeting the deadline for a juried show is another example, and here there is no leeway. One other possibility is meeting a deadline for a commission, but unless the concern is completion in order to get paid, there should be some flexibility if there is clear communication between artist and client.
In any of these cases, though, proper planning can circumvent any problem with a time crunch. Rushing the work is certainly not the answer. The results will not likely please either artist or client. For many artists, being an artist is about setting one’s own schedule and boundaries. Typically artists don’t like the idea of being employed and being on the clock. Creative time can and should be productive time, but it is also flexible time not bound by specific starts and stops. Neither does this mean, however, that the artist just works when he or she feels like it. There is discipline involved in organizing that time, but it is the artist’s prerogative how to do so.
Certainly all artists do not work at the same speed either. Some painters work quickly and others work slowly. Partly this depends on the medium and that also on how the particular medium is handled. Layers of oils need to adequately dry before subsequent layers can be safely added, but one can also work alla prima. Watercolor or acrylic or pastel can proceed quickly from beginning to end. Even with the faster drying mediums, an artist may still choose to develop a work more slowly because painting is also a thinking process and not simply execution. All in all the process is personalized by the artist, and he or she is not beholden to the clock or to the demands of others. If there is an issue with time, it is one that is self-created.
Posted on 7/28/2013 5:30:27 PM
By Donald Fox
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In traditional Japanese martial arts, the term uchi-deshi means inside student. It is applied to a student that actually lives in or very near the training dojo and who is at the disposal of the sensei (head of the school) at all times. The inside student is like an apprentice and will clean, cook, be a practice partner, do secretarial work, or anything that the sensei requires. Generally, the uchi-deshi is being groomed in the absence of an immediate family member to be the next head of the school. This is not too dissimilar from the old apprenticeship system where artists learned their trade by serving a master artist in his studio except there was usually more than one apprentice at any given time in the larger studios of recognized masters.
Being an apprentice is arduous work. In a very real sense, the apprentice is always on duty. He or she has to be totally committed to the craft. In some trades this was seen as a kind of indentured servitude. The apprentice, however, learned the craft inside and out, and though the life was difficult, the training was rigorous and would prepare the apprentice for a lifetime of creative work.
Today this kind of commitment to a craft comes more from choice and self-imposition. Learning a particular craft has changed dramatically. Some successful painters may have studio assistants that work with the artist a number of years while they develop their own skills and learn how the art business works by actively doing jobs for the master artist: framing, preparation of paints, stretching canvasses, crating and shipping work, and many other tasks associated with the business of art. This can be a good learning opportunity for those lucky enough to find such a position. Others may take the academic route, enroll in an art school, and receive a liberal education along with some studio training. Most college or university programs, however, don’t teach much about the business of art. Unless a student connects with a professor or instructor who is also actively showing work, he or she probably won’t learn much about how the art business actually works.
The publishing industry and now the internet have filled the gap of information that was left from the demise of the apprentice system. Anyone can easily find a plethora of information about the buying and selling of artwork and pretty much all aspects of the art business in online books, videos, blogging sites and individual artist newsletters. There is a wealth of information, but unfortunately it’s not all reliable. Still, with a bit of sifting and sorting and checking out resources, there are enough verifiable sources that the astute student can find with a bit of due diligence. Apprentices may not be so prevalent today, but the information is still there and in many ways more accessible than ever.
Posted on 7/27/2013 6:12:54 PM
By Donald Fox
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Illuminated manuscripts are not paintings per se. They are first and foremost text messages that also contain decorative and illustrational elements. They pre-date formal printing, which is usually connected to Gutenberg’s printing press around 1440. This, of course, revolutionized an area of communication that previously had been limited to documents made by scholarly scribes and hand-written letters. Engraving added reproducible visual content to these newly mechanically produced texts.
How much influence these early visual forms had on painting is difficult to say. Art scholars categorize stylistic work prior to 1400 as the International Gothic style, which shares characteristics with some illuminated work: decorative, lack of naturalistic perspective, stylized figures that often are elongated, and use of bright color. By 1500, certainly, painting had far exceeded the drawings and small paintings that illustrated the calligraphy of scribes’ work. Although some designs found in illuminated manuscripts are quite sophisticated and very complex, they were never intended to reproduce that natural world in quite the way that painting began to do during the 14th and 15th centuries in Western Europe.
What is behind painting from the outset is the unobserved observer that presents the scene to the viewer from the observer’s point of view. There is strong illustrational content, for the observer, the painter, is either reproducing what he sees or utilizing his understanding of how something is seen to imaginatively project an image for the viewer. That this starts with religious imagery is not surprising since church and state held a kind of symbiotic relationship beginning with the earliest of historical civilizations. Either leaders were religious figures, priests or shaman, or leaders looked to priests and shaman for advice and blessing. Painters evolved into visual interpreters of the divine and the profane.
As painting becomes more personally expressive, there is less a sense of the viewer looking through a window or doorway onto a particular scene and more of a sense of being included in the scene itself. Sometimes this feels rather voyeuristic: Goya’s Naked Maja, Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, Degas’ bath and brothel drawings as some examples of later works. Some Golden Age Dutch painters made reference to the viewer, particularly in tavern scenes, by a reveler extending a tankard in the viewer’s direction or by some other gesture. There is Velazquez’s famous Las Meninas where the painter is looking out of the painting and the royal couple is seen in a distant doorway, which would place them behind us the viewers. We are included in that scene by what becomes a clever trope with subsequent painters using windows, doorways, and mirrors to play with point of view and perspective.
The painter’s point of view is a given just as is that of the photographer or other creative artist. The work is like a screen on which the artist’s thoughts are projected. When the images are naturalistic, we may interpret them as though we are seeing them directly ourselves rather than seeing through the eyes and mind of the artist, but the latter is always the case. To fully comprehend the meaning of the piece, viewers should always question the artist’s perspective, for even with photographs, which might be considered the most naturalistic of artworks, the artist has chosen point of view and limited the scope of what is presented to the viewer. This choice is part of the meaning of the work. In a way, we are always looking at and with the mind of the artist even as we respond, interpret, add associations, or do whatever we do as part of our experience of the work.
Posted on 7/26/2013 5:50:36 PM
By Donald Fox
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Recent discoveries in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico have exposed long hidden remains of a ship believed to have been sunk sometime in the early 1800s. The discovery was detected by sonar used by Shell Oil Company in its exploration for oil and gas. Archaeologists have been using mechanical probes to photograph the seabed in the region about three quarters of a mile below the surface. Legal restraints prevent them from excavating for the present. Considering other discoveries over the past several hundred years, I wonder about works that have disappeared, have been destroyed, or that are yet to be discovered, i.e., ones currently unknown.
Great upheavals like natural disasters or man-made ones like wars or ethnic cleansings have either destroyed, badly damaged, or caused to disappear countless works of art. There is no way of knowing how much has been lost beyond reclamation. Nor is there any way of knowing all that has yet to be found. Sometimes, of course, clues are found that reference a particular remarkable creation that has disappeared into the distant past. Monuments like the Colossus of Rhodes, for example, or the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon are known about from historical record even though no physical evidence remains. The Holy Grail has become a metaphor for itself and for anything of great importance that appears to have been lost and is therefore earnestly sought after.
The 19th century was a great time of exploration and discovery and the time when Egypt’s fabled Valley of the Kings was beginning to be searched for hidden archaeological treasures. Many ancient tombs were outright robbed with these works going into the hands of wealthy collectors and often kept quiet. Sometimes these treasures ended up in European museums many years later. Less ancient works have also disappeared or have been destroyed. Leonardo’s mural of the Battle of Anghiari, which we know from drawn studies by Leonardo and work based on the mural by Peter Paul Rubens who was much closer to Leonardo’s time is one such work that we will never see.
During the Franco-Prussian war, Camille Pissarro left France for England and left behind nearly 1500 oil paintings. All but about forty of these were destroyed or irreparably damaged when Prussian troops occupying Pissarro’s house and used them to cover the floor. Many other works, including some by Pissarro, were destroyed or stolen during both the first and second world wars. Sometimes reproductions have survived, but whether the original works are completely gone or hidden away in someone’s attic or private collection is unknown.
Perhaps somewhere there is the work of an unknown past master waiting to be discovered. This is doubtful since there would likely be written record unless the person were an absolute hermit. It is more likely that works by known artists have yet to surface. We do read occasionally about a masterwork found in the back of a frame behind another painting or in someone’s attic or as part of a recluse’s estate. This is one of the pleasures of learning about art history, that sometimes it holds unexpected surprises. The lost and found department remains open.
Posted on 7/25/2013 7:17:05 PM
By Donald Fox
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In the early 80s, BBC television produced a mini-series entitled Reilly: Ace of Spies about master spy Sydney Goldblum, aka Sydney Reilly, who worked for British Intelligence until a few years after the Russian revolution when he was executed by Stalin after Reilly’s attempt to undermine an international Russian spy group known as The Trust. Reilly is interesting on many counts including that he was brilliant, spoke seven languages, made and lost several fortunes, nearly overthrew the fledgling Bolshevik regime under Lenin, and was notorious as a womanizer. He was a self-described man of the world and knew leaders in business and government in a half dozen countries. He easily moved in high society in England, Russia, Japan, France, and the United States. I mention him here while thinking about the cultural reach of artistic expression.
In more than one sense, art has a curious place in the world. Art is created by the unschooled and unlearned as a form of localized cultural expression with no pretense of being anything else. It also exists at the other end of the cultural spectrum as high art, the highest form of expression by often well-trained and talented individuals. Both forms can become commodities sought after by the affluent and cultured as well as appreciated by a larger though less affluent audience that is nonetheless sensitive and culturally aware. Multimillion dollar repositories are built to house works that are considered priceless and which connect us in an unbroken line to the great creative geniuses and cultures of the past. Both high and low art are a major part of the world cultural heritage.
Ironically, however, there are many who do not recognize the importance of or assign any value to these creative works. Sometimes works are neglected and inadvertently disappear as a result of natural disasters or man-made conflicts such as international wars. In some cases the works are deliberately destroyed, for they (the works) are seen as representative of concepts anathema to the principles and beliefs of those who destroy them. These same people take great umbrage when their own cultural treasures may be damaged or disrespected.
Art certainly gives expression to the widest range of human experience. It includes tolerance and intolerance. It praises the highest and best and it illustrates the lowest and most depraved. There is no one size fits all, for even some of the most sublime expressions can be associated with the worst of offenses and excesses. Perhaps it is not surprising then that the most sophisticated appreciator of art, as in the case of Reilly, could also be a vicious manipulator and murderer. But this is no less than a conqueror like Alexander the Great who spread his culture’s art and wisdom at the edge of a sword. Art is there amongst the conquerors, the spiritual, the humane, and the depraved. It gives voice to them all.
Posted on 7/24/2013
By Donald Fox
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In the early half of the 18th century in America, the Transcendentalist movement emphasized self-reliance and criticized social institutions as corrupting influences. The movement itself was not particularly long-lived, but it had far reaching influence in American culture philosophically, artistically, spiritually, and politically. It is ironic that both the hippie movement of the 60s in America and the current arch-conservative Tea Party have roots in the transcendental concepts of self-reliance and mistrust of institutions, especially governmental ones.
Prominent among the Transcendentalists are giants in American literature: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and others. John Muir, who was so influential in establishing the national Parks system, was also a Transcendentalist. His writings on nature clearly express his beliefs concerning the spiritual connection between man and nature.
Ideas underlie our understanding of the world. We may have direct experience of things, but we always interpret that experience in some way. Whether we modify our experience with our thought or whether our experience modifies our thought can certainly be argued. Philosophers do question thinking and experience and whether there is any such thing as truth. Scientists work to establish physical truth and often show that within objectified reality truth is elusive at best. Artists perhaps approach the concept of truth in a more open-minded, if not skeptical way. Truth is not only elusive in the arts, it is also malleable.
For quite a long time in the historical record, truth in the realm of science was half superstition and half reason. As scientific methods and technology improved, truth was approached mainly through reason and experimentation. Artists also use reason and experimentation, but their investigative approach is more flexible even when it is quite rigorous. It is when one becomes fixated on a particular mindset that problems develop within groups, within cultures, or within nations, and the larger guiding principles of tolerance and reason give way to prejudice and oppression.
We have a long history of learning in the world that is, unfortunately, a very crooked and sometimes troubling path. Many people in many disciplines have contributed to this human journey, not the least of which are millions of artists whose imaginings have lifted humanity in some of its darkest hours. It is my belief that art will always be at the core of human expression, for that side of creative expression is one of the forces that helps us to maintain sanity.
Posted on 7/23/2013
By Donald Fox
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Artists working in one medium or art form are often inspired or influenced by the work of artists in other media. This should not be surprising since most of the arts in some way deal with visual elements, rhythm, structure, emotional expression, space, and time. These are the same elements we experience daily as part of our lives. As conscious human beings, we are attuned to particular sensations and our perception of them. I find it particularly interesting when painters incorporate musical ideas into their work.
It might seem that musical influence would be especially suited to abstract painting. Work that focuses on improvisation as an expressive approach or work that emphasizes rhythm naturally seems to relate to musical ideas. One could object that there is no sound associated with painting unless the artist records the slosh of paint or the scrape of the brush or the grunts or groans made while creating the piece. Music is mainly organized sound. Nevertheless, the rhythmic quality, spatial intervals, and structural organization of these paintings do relate to musical concepts, and some artists exploit these ideas. They may even use background music to stimulate the process.
A painting is always a record of whatever repeated motions the artist has performed using his chosen tools. The score of the piece becomes embedded within the painting. Once the painting is complete, the performance is over, and the viewer can only surmise what the artist has done to make that piece complete. In a painting by Cezanne, the rhythm of repeated strokes is concise and thoughtful. In a painting by de Kooning, the rhythm is much more dramatic and forceful. These can readily be felt as well as seen by the viewer. Personally, I find it quite easy to imagine background music with either of these painters, one classical and refined and the other jazzy and improvisational.
Some artists have interpreted color scales and color intervals as a visual form of musical notes and intervals. This is no different from a painter talking about the movement noticed in landscape elements where one object seems to move in relation to another object. There is a perceived dynamic quality in the collection of objects as they appear to come together or to move apart. As a Chinese Taiji master might say, “there is stillness in motion and motion in stillness.”
The ability of artists to see what others may not readily see and to call forth meaningful relationships from what appears to others as cacophony and confusion is a great contribution to human experience. Artists teach us that there is more than objective reality. There is music and poetry in the mundane. We are capable of seeing and experiencing the mystery and majesty of the world that sometimes can appear harsh, demanding, overwhelming, and sometimes threatening. Through sight, sound, and motion artists give us the world recreated according to their personal vision. We are all the richer for it.
Posted on 7/22/2013
By Donald Fox
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At the school where I work, we administer a wide range of certification tests through an international service. Among my other duties, which include teaching, I am the Test Center administrator and as such I field a lot of calls from individuals interested in taking one test or another. Today I received a transferred call from someone who wanted to take an S and D test. We administer over two hundred different tests, but this one I did not recognize. As I went to the test website that lists all available tests according to the company or group (client) that offers them, I asked the caller again which kind of test he wanted to take. He said, “for chlamydia.” I almost laughed out loud, but stifled that and explained that we offered certification testing, not testing for STDs. He then became flustered and said he had called the wrong number. However, the front desk person that transferred his call to me should have corrected him first. It was an honest mistake all around, but it points to an important idea concerning communication, actually several related ideas.
First, is that the communication should be clear. Today’s caller was perhaps a bit embarrassed by his initial request, and so he tended to slur his words when speaking. Second, when communication isn’t clear, it’s important to get clarification. My mindset was on certification testing, which meant I was mentally processing the various tests that might be similar to what his request sounded like. When I asked for clarification, of course it was clear that he wanted something very different from what we could offer. How he called us in the first place remains a mystery because a college is nothing like a health clinic. Is there a lesson here for artists?
The subjective nature of art can easily create a wide range of responses from artist or audience. There are interesting stories about the reception of new art works. Most painters know about the Impressionists having their work belittled; in fact, impressionist was a pejorative term initially. A generation later the Fauve painters, literally called the “wild beasts,” also had their work miscast and misunderstood. The first performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring caused riots in the theater. Other examples of atonal music by Webern and others also created great discord among audiences. Even some of Beethoven’s symphonic work sounded strange to the audiences of his time. All of these examples might seem unusual to us in retrospect, but today there still are many people that do not relate to atonal music and others that have no interest in any form of classical music. Some abstract artists don’t care for any representational work however loosely or semi-abstractly it may be painted. These are all legitimate personal choices.
The challenge for artists is always to present their work to their audience in the most effective ways possible while remaining true to their personal ideals as creative individuals. It can be a balancing act, but by first developing a strong vision and then remaining true to that vision the communication of that vision will take care of itself. This doesn’t mean instant recognition and acceptance. There are many historical examples of artists who waited years for their just desserts. Some never achieved that in their lifetime. Sad as that may be, it is a reality that some artists will have to face. We are communicators of a sort, and as such we need an audience that is receptive to what we do.
Posted on 7/21/2013 3:49:01 PM
By Donald Fox
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Within some countries and some cultures, art has flourished for centuries, perhaps even thousands of years. Artists, however, have not always been free to create whatever they might choose. In many cases, standards, guidelines, or restrictions have been imposed by rulers, government committees, academic institutions, religious bodies, or the culture at large. The restrictions have often been prohibitive and in certain cases very narrowly defined. Artists, in turn, have responded in various ways. Some embraced and followed the rules to establish themselves preeminent within the system. Others fought to amend the system and make the governing rules more accommodating to the artist. Still others railed against the restrictions, criticized the order, and suffered imprisonment or worse. There have been those who sought freedom elsewhere and became expatriates or exiles. Where social rules were more lenient, artists at odds with the controlling system used satire to openly poke fun or approached things more subtly by using allegory and metaphor to express their views.
Authoritarian regimes, whether political, religious, or theocratic, have banned and destroyed art deemed counter to their fundamental principles. There is a very long history of art being controlled by the state and used as a tool to edify itself and glorify its power. Some of the great art of the past came out of those authoritarian systems, the artists largely being unknown. Little painting has survived; mostly we have examples of sculpture and fine crafts that remain. None of this is what we would think of today as personally expressive art.
By the time of the Renaissance in Western Europe, individual artists became better known for their unique skills and expressive qualities, but they still had to thread their way through the politics of state, religious restrictions, and the whims of wealthy patrons. The potential for democratization in the arts seemed promising as some of the old regimes began to falter in the 18th and 19th centuries, but other attitudes became prevalent along with new forms of government.
In the middle eighteen hundreds Alexis de Tocqueville noted what he called the tyranny of the majority in the fledgling United States. Minority groups, and artists have always been part of an economic minority, are often dictated to by the majority. Freedom of expression may be protected under the American constitution, but that freedom frequently has a stiff penalty within the marketplace. Even today, artists struggle between personal expression and economic survival. They are advised to make work that the public wants to buy. This is another way of saying that artists are controlled by the marketplace. If work does not sell, how long does one continue to make that work regardless of how he or she might feel about it personally?
Many fine artists have avoided commercial art work because they did not want someone dictating the kind of work that they made. The reality is that even in fine arts there are dictates that tend to direct an artist’s work in one direction or another. Some variation on this theme has run throughout the history of art. Idealism sounds great in theory, but pragmatism very often carries the day. What, then, is the responsibility of the artist towards his art? That is the question that every artist must answer for himself.
Posted on 7/20/2013 7:57:04 PM
By Donald Fox
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If I make a rectangular frame on paper or canvas or any other surface, I create a field in which I may then compose or design some image that would result in a drawing or painting. The proportions of the rectangle (or square) are up to me and could be selected randomly or by some particular choice based on the kind of image I might have in mind. The mathematical model from ancient Greece called the golden mean is one possibility that has large appeal. It is by no means the only possibility. A vertical image, something totemic for example, or something suggesting a standing figure, a tall tree, or some other tall structure would not fit that golden mean model. The same could be said for a panoramic landscape view. I could, however, choose any number of other shapes as a basis for a painting, but why is the rectangle so prevalent?
The artist selects size, shape, proportion, and many other design elements in the creation of a two-dimensional artwork. Any number of possibilities could work for a particular image. We see this in the work of Monet as he paints and repaints the same subject either using the same basic composition but altering color and light, or varies the composition by adjusting point of view or changing the proportions of the canvas. We also see variations in the work of many different modern artists who vary scale and proportion in related abstract designs.
Did the rectangle as a basic format for painting come from windows in structures, from the walls of structures, from a mathematical concept like the golden mean, or some other man made idea? The rectangle doesn’t really exist in nature in any obvious form. We see spheres in bubbles, berries, and in heavenly objects. We see cylindrical forms, triangle-like shapes, and conical structures, but typically not squares or rectangles. These were conceived, perhaps abstracted from some rough natural form, but how did the rectangle become the basic platform for painting? The human field of vision is an elongated oval, wider than it is high, but it is certainly not rectangular.
The earliest painting we know today was done on rough, irregular surfaces like rocks and cavern walls, but even these were unknown to the early western painters. Paper has a several thousand year history, and some of the earliest surviving examples already have a rectangular format. What influenced that basic design? Many artists may take this fundamental shape for granted, but I’ve never seen a good explanation of how this came about.
Posted on 7/19/2013 9:01:32 PM
By Donald Fox
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I am not a computer geek, but I have learned a few things about using a computer because of my interest in writing and from having worked in environments where computers are used for communication, cataloging, storage, research, and design. Administering a library, as well as teaching English, I have to know something about online research and research in general. When I was in graduate school, there were no desktop computers and research had to be done using card catalogs, searching the Reader’s Guide, and spending many hours in the library stacks. The ease of accessing information today is unappreciated by those who have only known online research. On the other hand, they don’t know the joys of hours spent in libraries surrounded by hundreds of years’ worth of books and paper documents.
As an art student, the great thrill of finding illustrated books with good reproductions or slide catalogs with the world’s greatest art treasures was second only to visiting a world class museum. Most university towns do not have world class museums, however. To access one it was necessary to travel just as it is today unless you have the good fortune to live in a large metropolitan area like Houston with one of the best museums in the world. When I lived in North Carolina, I made yearly pilgrimages by train to Washington, D.C. and visited half a dozen museums over several days or a week when I could afford it. Today I can drive fifteen minutes and spend as long as I choose studying art from all the major cultures of the world. Or, I can fire up the computer and research anything I can think of online and in a variety of databases. I still have books and slides, and these have been supplemented with videos and recorded art broadcasts.
I strongly believe in education, and as an education professional I would never dissuade someone from pursuing a formal education if they were so inclined. The kind of hands-on environment a good school offers, the added enrichment from a community of like-minded scholars (not necessarily ones in agreement), and the extra enhancement of live performances, theater, dance, film, seminars, and workshops all make for an experience that cannot be replicated even on the most powerful computer. Certainly computers have become central to academic education. Most libraries now offer workstations, digitized databases, research databases, and other electronic media in addition to traditional books. Students can access most libraries remotely as can patrons of many public libraries. As artists also explore the possibilities of technology as an art medium, they produce work that is immediately accessible to anyone with internet connection.
In football, which I played only as a kid, there is the expression to go long. This is a pass play where the end runs deep into the opposition’s territory on his way to the goal line. A good quarterback will throw high and long and place the ball right into the end’s hands. He doesn’t even have to look up or back. The ball comes down right in front of him and into his outstretched arms. Sometimes the play is called the bomb. The running end knows where to be, and the quarterback knows where to throw so that ball and player’s hands connect at the right moment. It’s one of the most beautiful plays in football, elegantly and perfectly timed. In a sense every successful internet search is just such a perfectly timed delivery. Query and answer connect in cyberspace, and it doesn’t matter if you’re connecting with the local library or with a resource on the other side of the world. It all happens from your desk and at your fingertips. That really is going long.
Posted on 7/18/2013
By Donald Fox
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Yesterday I took a visiting friend to see the James Turrell exhibit at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts. My friend is an accomplished published writer whose own work is built upon powerful visual description. I knew he would enjoy the challenging visual explorations that Turrell has been doing for thirty some years. I was not wrong.
We grow up experiencing and learning about nature according to location, family, and culture. Those who live in a rural environment are perhaps a bit closer to understanding natural phenomenon at an early age than those brought up in an urban environment. A predominant experience of artificial instead of natural light could make a big difference on how one responds to certain atmospheric conditions. I know that for me growing up on the eastern coast of the United States gave me a certain understanding of natural space and light. Being able to look out to sea and have an unobstructed view all the way to the horizon, I felt helped me understand something about space and distance. Add to this my familiarity with flying because my dad was a pilot, and I had another special view of both light and space that others might not have had. My first trip to the mountains when I was eighteen added more to my perception of natural space. Less than ten years later I had made my first trip to the western states, the deserts, the Rocky Mountains, and the west coast. Even later trips to Europe expanded my understanding of geological variety and latitudinal and longitudinal effects on light and atmosphere.
My friend is originally from the Caribbean, so he also is used to grand vistas. He also has traveled extensively throughout the world and experienced many different climates and landscapes. These experiences inform us of the possibilities of light in ways that are both dramatic and subtle. We experience this directly, and when we are conscious of our perception, we can enhance our imaginative ability by this stored experience. Painters, of course, have been influenced by the light of different locales for centuries. Writers also have given us vivid descriptions of landscape and light.
James Turrell works with light directly. His indoor projects use artificial light, but these are informed by his experience with nature as a trained psychologist, an artist, and a pilot. He also uses light metaphorically, and when in the presence of one of his works, I (and others I am sure) often feel a spiritual response from some very deep place within. Even though these works are predominantly abstract, there is a sense of naturalism to them as well. Particularly the works that gradually change color or strength of light remind one of subtle changes experienced in nature. Turrell’s outdoor works utilize natural light and concentrate its effect by presenting it to viewers through a formed opening.
I often think about light as I see various things throughout the day, but I also understand that any of us can be caught up in activities and thus not notice much that is there to see. Artists remind us of these things by focusing on them in various ways in their art. Turrell takes us to a very elemental level in considering light itself rather than something illuminated by light. This opens a wide range of interpretive possibilities that come directly from the works but also suggest how other experiences might be seen in a different light, a metaphorical one.
Posted on 7/17/2013 6:22:48 PM
By Donald Fox
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In many cases art serves as a chronicle of a specific place and time. The best art, of course, we would say is timeless, but even work that is timeless can also be time bound. Sophocles, Euripides, Homer and others all wrote works that are specific to their time, but these works are also timeless in that they deal with themes that are universal and may well be eternal. Stories that express something about the human condition could be set in ancient Greece or futuristic Mars. The particulars of place may set the action in time, but the motives and emotions of the characters may have little or nothing to do with the time in question.
Art is always experienced in the present. It makes no difference when a work is produced. The audience will note the time and place but will let the narrative or the image create whatever experience will follow upon viewing or reading the work. Critically, one may find entry into a work from its time-bound side. A novel set in America in the nineteen twenties, for example, is specific to that place, and the writer will take care to recreate the atmosphere with details and a certain amount of accuracy. Once the characters come to life, however, they do what they do in relation to each other within their setting. The present day reader will be transported through the writer’s imagination to that time and place. The reader has a particular context within which to experience the work. Normally whatever occurs could just as easily be presented in contemporary context (as some Shakespeare plays that have been done with actors in modern garb). Details might need to be changed, but the basic story would be altered little.
This may also be true of visual art. A landscape painting is created the way the artist experiences that particular time and place. He may paint with accuracy or with interpretive license; either way we have a particular setting that is the subject. Whenever the work is experienced by the viewer, it is present time for him. He may see a glimpse of the past, but it is always through contemporary eyes. Even if the place no longer exists as represented in the painting, it is the art that is important; that particular image always takes center stage. This is not too different from our memories of past experiences. We may return to a place and find it altered beyond recognition, a particular house is gone, a neighborhood razed, but the memory like the art lingers with persistence and its own kind of creative expression.
Sometimes a work is criticized as being dated. Generally this means that the artist has followed conventions of his particular time and place, and those conventions are the strongest elements in the work. The story does not rise above them nor do the actions of the characters seem sufficient to give the work timeless and universal qualities. Some expressions might even seem old-fashioned, quaint, or clichéd. A timeless work, on the other hand, will draw strength from its setting and make all other elements so much a part of the work that the viewer’s or reader’s response will suspend disbelief that might come from any contemporary perspective and allow the work to reveal its truth. Perhaps not everyone would agree with this perspective, but I do think that most would concur that the timelessness of certain works is beyond question. We sense their power and are entranced by them, and this has much more to do with the magical quality of the work rather than their connection to a particular time like we might see in a fine antique. Then again, there may be some antiques that transcend their time and should more properly be called works of art.
Posted on 7/16/2013 7:41:47 PM
By Donald Fox
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Various painters have explored the concept of multiples from different perspectives. Landscape painters, of whom the Impressionists are perhaps the best examples, often painted the same scene at different times of day or different seasons of the year. These paintings become something of a chronicle of the natural changes that occur within a specific place. I say “something” because the painter’s interpretation has a significant effect on the end product.
If we think of Monet as the best example among the Impressionists, then we can speak of the lily ponds, the hay fields, the riverside poplars, or the many views of his garden at Giverny. All of these and other scenes were painted numerous times at different times of day and at different seasons. He observed and responded to the natural changes in light, color, flora, and weather conditions. He created paintings that reflected these changes but also served as meditations on the mutability of perception itself. The artist’s eye and mind may remain constant with respect to chosen place, but the artist is also changed as the subject changes according to natural cycles. It is fair to say that the artist is changed by the changing subject.
In science we hear criticism of certain experiments that suggest the presence and expectation of the observer can affect the results of the experiment. The artist observer is part of the landscape being observed, is subjected to the same light and atmospheric conditions, and is, in effect, observing himself observing the subject. The artist cannot be dispassionate about the subject; otherwise he would not be painting the subject. That subject has already drawn him in and seduced him with its charms. The artist may take some liberty with the subject according to his aesthetic leaning, but the subject has already affected that observer because it appeals to certain sensibilities.
Nature is constantly changing. We, as part of nature, are also constantly changing. Recently I was aware of this as I sat at my brother’s lake house and watched the effect of wind currents on the rain-swollen lake. The water level is several feet above normal. The five or six feet of shoreline has completely disappeared and small waves break against the small “seawall” at the edge of my brother’s yard.
Later I stood on the end of the boat pier, waves almost breaching the top, and watched the character of the lake change several times within the space of half an hour. Sometimes the waves had whitecaps and the entire lake seemed quite agitated as the wind blew in short, repetitive gusts. Sometimes the waves were less frantic though still constantly moving. The crests didn’t break and were not sharp or angular but more smooth and rounded. A five minute rain shower came and went. Clouds parted and the sun re-emerged. It seemed like eve ry fifteen minutes or so the character and feel of the landscape would shift. A sensitive observer could easily feel mood swings with each change.
The artist sees by looking inwardly or outwardly and sometimes both. He learns from nature and utilizes the connection to environment, which may go well beyond the immediate to include spiritual connection to the cosmos, to express something unique about awareness, beingness, and consciousness. Vision is both a tool of perception and a metaphor for life experience in the hands of a dedicated artist.
Posted on 7/15/2013
By Donald Fox
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Some mornings when my wife and I walk on the bayou side of the park near our house we’ll spot one or two wading birds at the water’s edge. The most elegant of these is the Great Egret, a slender white-plumed bird with long neck that it either flexes or stretches to full length in an interesting slow dance as it hunts for food. Typically, when it walks through tall grass, it keeps its neck flexed, which lowers its head and makes a pronounced s-curve with head, neck, and body. It then walks on its long legs in a stealthy rocking motion, each step controlled, deliberate, and rhythmic, which reminds me of the phrase, poetry in motion.
Scientists observe worldly phenomena to collect data as a means of understanding and explaining what is observed. Scientists are also human and part of what attracts then to their field is the experience of what can be called beauty in the data patterns, in the events created by interactive forces, or in the perceived beauty of individual elements so wonderfully matched to their specific environments. The reasoning side of the mind must be influenced by the artistic or intuitive side, at least on some level. Some would even say that there is beauty in reason and logic.
The range with which the human mind can interpret experience, that area where sensation is translated into perception and creates an inner representation of the outer world, may well be infinite, or let’s say infinitely variable. It has given rise to massive bodies of knowledge which now are studied as past history, are put into current context, and are projected as pathways of future study. We continue to grow as a species in spite of our failings just as one human being grows throughout his or her individual life cycle in spite of mistakes or oversights.
As we learn, we also learn to see more assuming that we utilize what we learn and practice conscious awareness. By this I mean more than simple consciousness and being awake. I mean the grand implication the underlies Descartes’ “I think; therefore I am,” or the existentialist’s “I am; therefore I think.”
Each of us chooses what is important to us. Our thoughts and feelings are not instinctual. They have been learned, and the learning comes from choices made around experience. Looking is what we do as ordinary action within our individual environment. Seeing is what we experience on an interactive level, an engagement with that environment. We might call seeing active looking, for we see far more than the person who is only casually looking. Artists learn to see rather than simply look. Their seeing is then translated into expressive terms within a piece of art. The viewer is then given a kind of visual essay that is called the work of art. By experiencing the work of art, the viewer can also learn about how to see through the artist’s vision.
Posted on 7/14/2013 11:32:31 AM
By Donald Fox
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I remember from my early days of studying art, especially doing studio art, that my observational skills, which I thought were pretty good, actually were fairly poor. Like many novice artists I lacked some degree of accuracy, was certainly lacking in subtlety, and also just outright missed seeing important relationships. It is quite remarkable what our bodies do for us in so far as orienting us to our environment, helping us to navigate among potential obstacles, and generally keeping us safe. Still, without accumulated experience, we are like babes in the wilderness. Such was the case in my bright-eyed youth. I thought I had plenty of good ideas, but I wasn’t able to fully realize them.
The old saying that experience is the best teacher may be clichéd, but it still contains much wisdom. Experience can come in many forms and often is gained through making many mistakes. The idea obviously is to learn from them and not simply continue to repeat them. Sometimes, however, repeated mistakes can lead to a moment of enlightenment when one gains insight. With many forms of art this is a gradual process, for one is building skill and understanding bit by bit. This can feel to the practitioner like not much is happening or even that little is working, but then that breakthrough moment comes, a shift is perceived, and the work moves to a higher level of achievement.
Beginning students often are distracted by details. Many casual observers of art also judge work by how much detail is represented. At some point in the learning process, art students realize that structure and pattern are more important than details in order to create work that is satisfying, believable, and achieves some level of naturalism. Just as any construction needs a viable structure to hold it in place, so does a piece of visual art need structure to successfully realize its image.
An artist can begin with structure, group simplified elements into a well-planned design, and then proceed to refinement, which might include the addition of details. These are most effective when used selectively rather than universally. It is also possible to discover structure in the process of creating a work. Plein air painters are forced to do this for what catches their attention at the outset with lighting and shadows will be very different in the subject an hour later. They must select elements that work to convey their impression of the subject and make adjustments appropriately as the painting develops. A draftsman studying a still life arrangement will pay close attention to placement, relative proportions, and contrasts that reveal form from that viewer’s perspective. Abstract painters also either pre-plan compositions or intuitively build structure as they go in a dynamic stimulus-response process.
Continued practice of drawing and painting from observation builds skills and understanding so that the process itself becomes internalized. The artist does not have to consciously consider each decision; it becomes part of visual thinking. How long this development will take varies from one artist to another, but with persistence the process will continue and produce results.
Posted on 7/13/2013
By Donald Fox
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Yesterday I wrote about the art of seeing from the perspective of direct and indirect observation. Direct observation relies on personal acuity and awareness. Art students, especially less experienced ones, often have difficulty seeing what they are looking at. They are not used to observing details as the artist must observe. Also, they have not been trained in the visual language of design or are just learning some of the basic concepts. It’s not a matter of missing nuances of size difference, color shifts, contrasts of light or dark, distinguishing object from ground or the position of one object relative to another – if they’ve never thought much in these terms, then it isn’t surprising that they lack visual understanding of whatever they’re looking at. How can one render the observations if the observations are faulty from the outset?
We teach children reading and writing. They learn to recognize specific letters. They learn that these letters are associated with specific sounds, that sounds can vary when letters are combined differently, and eventually they learn that combined letters make words. They also practice drawing the letters in printed and written form. It is a form of drawing though we call it writing. We can certainly appreciate fine calligraphy in whatever language just for the beauty of the shapes or the linear flow without even understanding the meaning of the message. Of course, most of the time the message is the important part, and perhaps this is where most people begin not to pay attention to the shapes of the letters and words. As they become literate, they associate things with their word names and think about what the things are or what they do or what use they may have. The pleasure of simply looking for the joy of seeing becomes reserved for special moments and things – a sunset, a grand vista, a beautiful person, or whatever gets categorized as attractive. Is something lost when we think too much about what things are rather than their remarkable visual presence?
Right now I’m in mid-flight between Atlanta and my hometown of Wilmington. There is turbulence. It is cloudy. From time to time I can glimpse low dark clouds or sometimes the ground below. This seems like a good metaphor for our lack of clear seeing when our vision (understanding) is clouded by what we think we know. This is not the same as being focused on a task where our vision is specifically directed to the task at hand. We are clear and attentive to what is in front of us. In general day to day life experience, we may get too involved with our inner description of the world to actually see what’s going on around us.
Eye and mind work together to create our visual experience. Just seeing without interpreting in some way would give us little pleasure or reward. However, being in the moment and paying attention to what is seen is a vitally important first step. As a friend of mine said years ago, “Pay attention to everything all the time.” Perhaps this is a bit hyperbolic, but the though is worth mulling over.
Posted on 7/12/2013 7:15:19 AM
By Donald Fox
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Scientists question the observable world in search of answers about why things are the way that they appear to be. Through the centuries scientists have created increasingly sophisticated ways of observing, much of it having to do with measurement. At first, measurement, like observation, was direct and first hand. Now, complex machines make measurements and observations for scientists who record and interpret the data. A powerful tool like the Hubble space telescope, a tool that has allowed scientists to see farther into space and longer ago into the past than previously with magnifying scopes, records reflections of what it sees. Minute particles like the recently discovered Higgs-Boson are evidenced by traces on a computer screen, a kind of now it is now it isn’t observation. We look farther and deeper with some sort of remote mechanism that re-images the world, or parts of it, so that we “know” the truth about something: x-rays, MRI’s, brain scans, electron microscopy, and more. On one level we are only doing what we have always done naturally, interpreting what is there.
Our bodies are instruments that receive a wide range of sensations – sound, sights, touch, heat and cold – and our brains then translate those sensations into perceptions by representing to us what the sensations mean (recognition of what they are). Scientists categorize this information in such a way as to create some explanation of what we are and what is out there, i.e. some truth or truths about existence in the physical universe. We have accumulated a lot of data and a lot of truths. Philosophers attempt to understand the nature of our thinking and how we know what we know or even if we really know anything at all. They may question the truth of existence or even if there is something we can call truth. Artists, in my experience, play with these ideas, observations, and concepts, and ask simple questions like, “Well, what if…?”
The universe at the macrocosmic and at the microcosmic levels seems endlessly fascinating and filled with surprises. We know so much more than we did five hundred years ago or even last week. We have advanced tremendously in scientific knowledge since the time of Newton or Galileo. We have moved beyond the knowledge of Leonardo or Rembrandt or Goya. Artists continue to evolve and define or re-define beauty, create new images and experiences, and yet curiously we are very much the same as people who lived at the times of any of these past explorers. We have more gadgets and more information, but our basic needs and desires are pretty much the same. Perhaps being explorers at heart, imagine the infant exploring his fingers and toes, we keep looking and feeling and sensing because that is what we are designed to do. Given our imaginative capacity, it’s possible we’ve just dreamed the whole thing up and keep changing the dream to find more fingers and toes.
Posted on 7/11/2013
By Donald Fox
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Paper has a fascinating history as a cheap and practical substance for messaging, record keeping, and packaging. Its use in art is just about as long as its own history, roughly two thousand years. The Chinese are often credited with the invention of paper though some might think the Egyptians were the first since papyrus scrolls pre-date the making of real paper. Papyrus, however, is not true paper. It is made from strips of papyrus laid cross-wise, wetted and beaten until the strips fuse into a single sheet. True paper also comes from plant fiber, but the fiber is retted or beaten or shredded until the fiber is broken down into individual strands of fiber which are then floated in water, collected on a screen to allow the water to drain away, and the paper is pressed to squeeze out the remaining water. The fibers in the presence of water and pressure create a weak chemical bond, which is what forms the loose fibers into a solid, flexible sheet once it has properly dried.
What we know as rice paper is a bast fiber that comes from a variety of trees found in the orient. Rice paper is not made from rice. The bast fiber is collected from the inside of the bark of mulberry and similar types of trees. These fibers are typically long (as are cotton and flax fibers), low in acid content, and make very strong paper. The best artist’s papers are made from 100% cotton or linen fiber because of their strength (length of fiber) and absence of natural acids, which gives them longevity (conservation quality). Bast fiber papers (rice paper) tend to be very thin and are especially matched to oriental inks for brush and ink painting or calligraphy. The finest quality bast papers are so absorbent that a stroke of black ink will be just as dark on the reverse side as on the front side.
Up until the 19th century most paper was made by hand in single sheets of various sizes. With the development of machinery designed to create continuous sheets that were rolled up, papermaking became industrialized. It could later be cut to any size. Wood pulp became the choice raw material because of its inexpensive and easier to process qualities. Its main drawback was its high acid content. Since acid oxidizes natural fiber, literally burns it up – think how quickly newsprint turns yellow and brittle – industrial papermakers learned to add buffering chemicals (typically calcium carbonate) to change the pH of wood fiber from acidic to basic. Most paper we find today is filled with chemicals and fillers to make the pulp go further and last longer. Newsprint, slick magazine paper, book paper, poster board, cardboard, packaging papers (there are so many types and uses) have varying amounts of chemicals and fillers that affect their quality, longevity, flexibility, and use.
Watercolorists, printmakers, draftsmen, and others who use paper for art or in their art usually choose the highest quality 100% rag or at least pH neutral paper available. Even today when everyone is encouraged to go paperless, paper still has a powerful presence. It is a renewable resource, and in spite of the processing required, it can have a fairly low carbon footprint. Most artists that have spent any time going through the varieties of art papers available in a good art supply store can attest to the pleasure of just such an experience. Although paper’s history is shorter than some other art materials, paper has made quite an impression. Many of the greatest works of art are executed on or made from paper. As a ground and as a medium, paper will continue to fascinate artists as it has in the past.
Posted on 7/10/2013
By Donald Fox
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We’re coming to the end of a quarter at school. Tomorrow is the last day of classes, and then I’ll have a little time off. I’m planning to visit my dad in North Carolina. He’s ninety-five and still blowing and going. The flight from here is about 1200 miles. In the past my wife and I used to drive there, but I don’t enjoy road trips like I used to. Flying these days is enough of a hassle as it is. Being the son of an airline pilot, I spent enough time in airports as a kid and teenager for a lifetime. Besides, I know a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in airports, control towers, and cockpits, some of which I’d be better off not knowing.
I do look forward to spending time in my hometown. My visits there have been relatively few in the past ten or fifteen years, and some of those have not been under the best of circumstances. I still have artist friends there, and those connections are always rewarding. I look forward to spending some time along the coast. Southeastern North Carolina is beautiful most any time of year, but it’s especially pleasurable in the summer particularly when you know where to go that avoids the crowds of people that congregate on the main beaches.
I’ll be traveling light, which means drawing and watercolor tools instead of oils. Plus, I never go anywhere without my digital camera. I’m looking forward to clear skies and easy flights both going and coming back.
Posted on 7/9/2013
By Donald Fox
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Intolerance of ambiguity and tolerance for change are like two sides of a coin. The sides face opposite directions yet they are of one piece and make up the whole of the coin. A person that is intolerant of ambiguity wants predictability and consistency. Someone that is tolerant of change has a very different view of the world. Very likely that person believes the world to be in flux and capable of change at any moment, perhaps even changing by the moment. The expectation is for there to be change. Would one of these likely be more adventurous than the other?
The most obvious answer would be yes. The intolerant person would resist doing something new or extraordinary because this would be a disruption. It would introduce variance and unpredictability. Ambiguous outcomes would feel very uncomfortable. We might think here of someone being set in his ways and therefore resistant to some new opportunity. The unknown is like the ultimate ambiguity, and in order to feel comfortable, that person has to rely on stability and consistency in expectation. The one tolerant of change might accept new challenges because these would be expected as part of the nature of things.
On the other hand, one more comfortable with other possibilities may not automatically choose to try something new. The expectation might be that the new would show up on its own as part of the normal process of life. Whatever comes will come. It’s all perfect, for it is all part of life as we know it. One doesn’t have to seek adventures since life itself is an adventure.
This brings me to a quote I ran across recently by French writer André Gide, “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” No matter what our world view may be, there are few things that can be counted on in so far as life experience. Aside from diurnal rhythms and seasonal changes, there are few predictable circumstances. One can be optimistic or pessimistic as a general perspective, but we don’t really know from moment to moment what will transpire. This does not prevent us from planning or to some degree predicting future outcomes, and for the most part we will proceed as though we do have some control over our affairs. We can choose comfort, and like the person intolerant of change try to minimize disruptions and hope for few unexpected challenges. We might, like the person tolerant of ambiguity, embrace whatever comes and set sail into the unknown.
As an artist and as a person, André Gide moved between the predictability of moral structure and decorum and the uncertainty of aesthetic exploration and social liberation. His work impacted some of the most influential artists, writers, and philosophers of the twentieth century, and he was recognized with the Nobel Prize for Literature in the late forties. One could say he straddled the fence between the intolerance for ambiguity from his Catholic Puritan upbringing and his tolerance for change as an artist, hedonist, and liberal thinker. How any of us choose to move through this life, close to or far distant from the shore, is never really a simple matter of circumstance. We are complex beings that make decisions, create experiences, and either grow or subsist partly in accordance with our individual nature and partly in response to that nature.
Posted on 7/8/2013
By Donald Fox
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These days there are many artists who incorporate their ecological sensibility into their artwork as well as other aspects of their lives. Locally, some communities have projects that offer recycled materials for artists to use. In the past some artists became known for creating art from junk or cast off materials, and some of these works were known as much for their humorous effect as for any sort of commentary on materialistic society. Today the concern is more with sustainability and avoiding excessive usage and waste, the proverbial conspicuous consumption. Whether any of this translates into diminishing effect on global warming may be doubtful since artists’ percentage of the total population is quite low, but the affect that awareness can have through the sometimes quite loud voice of art in the public arena could be substantial.
By and large artists are probably fairly conservation minded. They well know the cost of materials, especially those that work with non-sustainable resources like oil paints and synthetics. Artists that work with collage and/or assemblage love to scrounge for materials and frequently re-use old paintings or incomplete works either in whole or parts. Most painters agree that it is not a good idea to simply paint over old paintings because of incompatibility issues, but pieces of paintings can easily be incorporated into collage work. Frames also can sometimes be re-used and in some cases re-worked if the artist takes the time and energy to do so. If these practices fit with the thrust of the work, then that is all the better. Those artists that work with ecological themes are at an advantage here.
One disadvantage of some assemblage work – let’s use Rauschenberg as the example since much of his work was life size or larger (I’m thinking of the combine paintings) – is that these works can take up a large amount of space. One would need a warehouse studio to accommodate even a few pieces and then would also hopefully have a ready market; otherwise storage could be a significant problem. If we think on a smaller scale like Cornell’s more intimate boxes, then managing pieces is less of a challenge. Collage work, too, as scale increases, demands a sturdy backing; canvas can accommodate only so much weight before it begins to sag and buckle.
When I did a lot of papermaking, it was quite easy to reconstitute paper into pulp, and there were many ways to create interesting pulp from combining different source materials or adding unusual elements into cotton or linen fiber pulp. Purists would not do that, but the experimental urge is sometimes hard to resist. Recycling is easy with this kind of medium whereas the oil painter cannot reconstitute oil paint. It would be a labor-intensive process if it were possible. Still, the advice from the ecological community to “reduce, reuse, and recycle” might be adapted for artists to re-think, reuse, and recycle as artistic ideas themselves can be reconstituted the most easily of all. In actuality, artists have been doing this for centuries.
Posted on 7/7/2013 4:41:20 PM
By Donald Fox
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Back in the thirties through the fifties, émigré Bavarian artist Hans Hoffman taught his famous push/pull theory of composition to many students at the Art Students League and at his own school in New York. The concept suggested a dynamic spatial quality of asymmetrical balance where different forms of contrast – color, shape, direction – in a composition brought static elements to life. Intuited rather than measured (like the golden section, for example), Hoffman’s theory called on an inner sensitivity that could be developed with practice. Many of his own abstract paintings read like primers of his theory.
The idea of contrast was certainly not unique to Hoffman and had been explored in Western (and Eastern) painting for centuries. Hoffman gave the idea a different psychological twist by using the verbs push and pull to express his thinking. The idea, though, was not that different from the Oriental concept in brush painting of Host and Guest or Big Brother and Little Sister compositions where a large element is balanced by a smaller one. A sense of attraction is established by placing something small at an appropriate distance from something larger. This is almost like the centrifugal and centripetal forces acting upon an orbiting object and the larger object around which it orbits.
The idea of push/pull shows up in art in other ways as well. Artists themselves are attracted by certain work or ways of interpreting work and repelled by others. Within the category of realism, for example, some artists gravitate to high definition, as it were, clean lines and well-delineated surfaces, and dismiss simplified, soft-focused, or impressionistic work as unfinished. Those that prefer the latter are often overly critical of the former. Similarly, an attraction response to either abstract or representational work might generate a repulsive response to the other. Some artists enjoy the mystery of vagueness and ambiguity while others choose clarity and lack of ambiguity of highly detailed work.
This is not to say that push/pull as conceived by Hoffman is only about contrast and opposing forces. It’s more a theory of natural forces at work. Neither did Hoffman only focus on abstract art like his own. He studied nature as did many generations of artists before him and drew from nature’s example in his work just as artists have done for centuries. He recognized push/pull elements at work in the paintings of Rembrandt and Titian and other past masters. He understood that a tree sinks its roots deep into the earth while its branches reach high into the air toward the light. Both are necessary for the health and viability of the tree. Most often art has grown from some similar insight into nature’s workings however simple, complex, or paradoxical they may seem.
Posted on 7/6/2013 3:32:34 PM
By Donald Fox
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There is a romantic notion about discourse in the arts that pictures artists sitting around taverns or cafes in heated debate over bottles of wine or tankards of beer. We associate this with Paris in the twenties or New York in the forties and fifties. These were some of the great bohemian times from which various modern ideas of art occurred. No doubt there were similar scenes in Germany or Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or Holland perhaps in the seventeenth century. There may be many artists currently that still meet on a regular basis to debate their theories and/or support each other’s creative efforts even with a bit of friendly competition. In the past I’ve been involved with several writing groups in which we offered critiques of each other’s work, discussed current literature and trends of thought. These kinds of meetings were always powerful incentives for learning and creating more.
Today artistic communities are found in online forums and chat rooms that can be just as lively as meeting in person though perhaps not as much fun without the wine and beer. One added benefit of online conversation, however, is that the scope can instantly become worldwide rather than being limited to those within a single community. There is far more diversity and cross-cultural exchange via the internet than via the local café. Threads of conversations also remain available and can be accessed at one’s leisure at most any time of day or night. Some conversations may go on for months as new people join the group to add their perspective in response to something previously said.
Artists love talking about art. It is particularly useful to express one’s thoughts about current work because it helps clarify thinking. The clearer one is with any concept the more effectively one can visualize that in artistic terms. It is most likely, though, that topics of concern online will focus on marketing, obtaining materials, maintaining client contact, and other aspects of running an art business rather than specific creative issues. Because there is such diversity of experience and levels of success, online forums can offer great depth for many issues. More personal issues and creative challenges may be better addressed in face to face encounters though some do try to seek help within internet communities.
Fifty years from now who knows what sort of format there will be in which artists may interact. Perhaps there will be studio meetings where holographic images can be projected of works in progress. Maybe videoconferencing, so widely used in business and education today, will be even more widespread. Whatever the technology, there is no doubt that artists will make use of it as a means of both giving and receiving support to and from fellow artists.
Posted on 7/5/2013 5:54:31 PM
By Donald Fox
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A friend of mine, a writer from Trinidad who has been teaching English for several years at an American university in Kuwait, is back in the U.S. for a summer break visit. We’ll connect in a week or so and catch up on our mutual creative efforts, share a good meal or two, and enjoy connecting as friends do. I’ve been revisiting his first published book Near Open Water, a collection of short stories that came out a little over a year ago. It’s a fascinating collection of mysteries that are not detective stories or even within the general mystery genre. All of the stories are set in the Caribbean, which makes them exotic and somewhat romantic, but the mysteries lie in the story elements that are not revealed; they’re alluded to yet never directly resolved.
From many past conversations, I’ve learned quite a bit about Trinidad and its corruption, prevalence of drug trafficking and high crime rate, and the cheapness of human life on the island. Like other Caribbean islands and many exotic parts of the world, this particular island can be seen from the eyes of tourists as colorful, bathed in seductive heat and light, yet filled with wrenching poverty and excessive affluence. The violence that seethes below the surface would not necessarily be apparent to the casual observer. One could say the same about America except here the evidence of violence makes its way regularly into the news. The gun debate has been raging for years, capital punishment seems to offer little deterrence to crime, and cultural issues are fueled in debates over immigration reform. There is a culture of violence that is well evidenced by the entertainment industry. It’s as though we continue to play out our fascination with the Wild West mythos.
Four or five years ago my friend related a story of being robbed while walking in his Houston Heights neighborhood in broad daylight. Four guys jumped out of a pickup truck, one of them brandishing an iron pipe and another stuck a sawed-off shotgun in my friend’s stomach and demanded money. Mercifully he was not beaten or shot. Later, as he told me of this event, he did so rather casually although with a twist of wry humor while ruminating on the prevalence of violence in his home country. This type of situation could occur almost anywhere in the world. There are undercurrents of discord and violence in many societies even in the most civilized.
The mystery in Keith’s stories captures this underlying uneasiness. The place is very specifically Caribbean, for the island atmosphere is precisely and beautifully, even sensuously drawn. Yet, there are things alluded to left intentionally unresolved, references unexplained and left for the reader to complete in his or her own imagination. Feelings of menace or dread or impending doom create a dark mood within what should be a tropical paradise. The stories are not destitute of hope, for there is always the possibility of love and right action. Many characters, though, carry the cultural weight of bad decisions, social dominance, or outright thievery. I am reminded often of my own cultural baggage that many in America blithely forget or angrily deny.
Art is a vehicle for many experiences and, more often than not, cultural differences have only surface relevance, for underneath that the common humanity (or lack thereof) that we share allows us to see more deeply into the darker recesses of the human heart in our search for redemption and ultimate triumph.
Posted on 7/4/2013 4:47:24 PM
By Donald Fox
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Today is a national holiday in America, Independence Day, a day that commemorates the declaration of independence of the original thirteen colonies from Britain’s rule. That was a bold revolutionary move that at the outset had no certain outcome. We know that history has shown additional struggles to establish freedom and democracy, and we know that our nation did not always get it right, for, in a sense, every subsequent generation has to embrace and implement those initial principles all over again. The constitution and rule of law have long since been established, yet it is every present day citizen that must embody those ideals in order for them to remain relevant. Unfortunately this is not always done. Still, the structure is there and the history is there as reminders of what should be and what has not always been.
I would assume that the majority of us like to think of ourselves as moral individuals who live lives of integrity. We are at choice how we define our lives in so far as we have control over them. The natural laws to which we are subjected do not always function in favor of every individual. It appears that some are blessed with health, beauty, and longevity while others are not. We each have to come to terms with these observations, which can be far more challenging when the less blessed are close to home. Many coping mechanisms are employed to deal with these natural issues including family bonds, community, spiritual belief, personal philosophy, and sense of self.
The choices that America’s founding fathers made and the actions that they took were coping mechanisms designed to affect their own interests and those of generations to come. They created a specific system to establish freedom, fair governance, and a process for redress of grievances. Their challenge was to make it specific to their own concerns yet flexible enough to encompass a broader populace and future concerns which were unforeseen. Subsequent generations of racial, economic, spiritual, ethnic, and philosophical diversity have been grateful ever since. Though it is saddening to see certain groups attempt to use the system to take advantage of others as has happened on many sides of the political spectrum, the system itself remains viable. It is this strength and resilience of this system, its recognition of freedom and equality for all that we celebrate today as we look back in gratitude.
For artists, independence is a defining virtue. Freedom of expression is fundamental. The right to think and create and exhibit what one chooses makes art one of the most powerful forms of communication. Yet, not every artist has the freedom of choice that we have in the United States so readily available. Some create in the face of criticism, some in the face of censorship, some in the face of economic hardship, some in the face of imprisonment, and some in the face of death. Throughout history artists have faced these perils and challenges with humility, with defiance, with resignation, with confidence, or with uncertainty. Artists as a whole are not necessarily more moral or determined or unafraid than anyone else. They are also human. But, as a whole, artists do choose freedom and independence. They uphold these principles and use their art to strengthen them in whatever ways they can.
Posted on 7/3/2013
By Donald Fox
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Long before there were educational theorists developing various learning theories, people learned, and many people learned very well. In fact, for thousands of years people learned in all kinds of settings, and probably the most utilized form of learning was observational learning. If you wanted to learn how to do something, you watched someone very good at doing whatever the task and followed along. You practiced until you also mastered whatever skills were necessary. The apprenticeship system was largely based on observational learning, and the apprentice learned every stage of a process, often from creating tools to implementing them.
Writing expanded this process and broadened the accessibility of knowledge. With many things written down, someone could access information from the past or from distant cultures simply by reading and studying another’s thoughts. Following a set of instructions, though not direct observation of someone doing, this is still related to the concept of observing because one is being coached by the writer. As knowledge accumulated, accessibility became increasingly important and ultimately the phrase “knowledge is power” made an impressive impact on scholars, leaders, and those who wanted to control others. This is the main reason autocratic states are so adamant about controlling information. An educated public is a thinking public, and they might not accept that state’s interpretation of events. Obviously, today, information is more widespread than it has ever been at any other time. One can learn how to do just about anything or can learn about practically any subject without even going to one of those ancient repositories of information, a library.
For centuries, of course, learning has been formalized, and with formalization came standardization, and with standardization came repeatability and reliability, but too heavily focusing on standards sometimes stifles creativity and the ability to think critically. Even in the arts this has been true. When the student follows the master too closely, the student’s creativity is stifled, and the result is not so adept copies rather than original work, or the student never can quite reach the master’s level of achievement.
Too much information could also create confusion, and a budding artist’s style becomes a hodge-podge of conflicting points of view. A tutor, coach, or master can mirror the critical process, and help an eager student learn how to critique as well as create, for it is the latter that often is shaped by the former. Most of the time we are at choice about how or what we learn, since with experience we also learn what works best for our own learning process. Still, creative expression is often more demanding than some other areas of learning and requires that critical eye that comes only with experience. Patience, practice, and persistence are key factors that make the learning process rewarding for the artist at any stage of development.
Posted on 7/2/2013
By Donald Fox
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I enjoy thinking about things. I like to discover interesting patterns, colors, or shapes, but I also like factual information and stories. I’ve thought a lot about seeing and how what we see actually appears to the eye, how that is transmitted to the brain, how the brain interprets the visual information and helps us make sense from what we are looking at in any given moment. The visual field that is called reality appears as a constant unless my point of view changes or the ambient light changes. My mind tells me that the visual field is the same even though I see it differently – again by shifting viewpoint, which shows me more or less of parts of the field, or I see things as lighter or darker when the light changes. This is how, for example, a white surface is still seen as white even though it is illuminated by a red light rather than a yellow one. Psychologists call this constancy. In the same way, we know that a tablecloth in a Cézanne still life is white even though he has painted it using blues and greens and reds, colors reflected from objects sitting on the cloth.
Psychologists also tell us that our visual perception that seems to be fluid and continuous – we might even say animated – is actually made up of many still shots produced by small but rapid movements of our eyes (saccadic eye movements). Our eyes are in constant motion. We make about four movements per second, and each movement gives us a snapshot of a segment of the visual field we interpret as continuous. Our sensory memory puts all the pictures together into a continuous image, or what we interpret as a continuous image. Sensory memory lasts longer than the saccadic eye movements, so it’s as though each movement or snapshot overlaps the next and thus we get a continuous image. This is the same principle that allows us to see motion pictures (a collection of still frames put into motion) as continuous moving images.
It doesn’t particularly matter that I know these things while I’m working on a painting of something that I may be observing. On the other hand, to me it makes the process much more intriguing. I think about painting something that is not static but actually dynamic because the movement of my eyes has animated that static object in a way that even I do not notice, and yet the process of applying stroke after stroke of color is itself dynamic. The collection of strokes mirrors the collection of visual snapshots by which I’m seeing what is before me. As the painting grows, it also is being animated by my visual sighting of it. I see it mirroring something that part of me senses but can only interpret within certain parameters. I also know what physicists have told us: that the seemingly solid and stationary objects are, on a molecular level, literally in motion, their atoms and molecules in a non-stop dance, the dance that creates the universe as we know it.
Awareness is an interesting phenomenon. A painter can see something of interest that the ordinary person does not see, and by capturing the scene as a painting, he or she illuminates for the viewer that extraordinary piece of ordinary reality. The viewer’s awareness shifts to include the painting but also the possibility now of shifting awareness to incorporate other experiences similar to what the painting represents. The viewer is learning to see somewhat like the painter. I’ve heard many painting students talk about how learning the process of painting, a major portion of which is learning to see from a painterly perspective, has enhanced their experience of day to day life. They see more all the time and not simply when they are painting. This is a very great gift that art offers to us.
Posted on 7/1/2013
By Donald Fox
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In the field of psychology, empathy is an important trait for a professional to be effective when interacting with clients or patients. It is important for a therapist to be able to see and understand from the client’s perspective or frame of reference without being judgmental or conditional in any way. In other fields of science that study humans and human behavior – archaeology, anthropology, sociology, or sociobiology – empathy can help scientists formulate explanations for phenomena that otherwise might remain inert. Empathy is also very beneficial in the arts as it can help the artist better communicate with his or her audience. Writers in particular have to be adept at delving into the minds of a variety of characters, and in order to create believable characters, they must be able to understand the thoughts, motivations, and behaviors that may distinguish one from another. For example, can a man write convincingly about women or a woman write convincingly about men? Of course either could do so and have frequently in the past, all of them empathetic writers. If the writer cannot empathize with his/her characters, the writing will not work. It will not be believable.
Unless a visual artist is using narrative as part of the work, depicting a story segment as in many history paintings, for example, empathy might seem unimportant. A portraitist, though, must have empathy with the subject in order to capture more than a likeness, but I would suggest that even with subjects that are not human, whether animal or landscape or inanimate object, empathy will strengthen the artist’s response and that will be reflected in the work. Think of a chair design rendered for the purpose of illustrating what the chair may look like in three-dimensions, and then compare that with a chair painted by Van Gogh or drawn by Ben Shahn. The latter examples are imbued with qualities almost human like that make them much more appealing as artistic expressions. In each case, the artist has suggested something about chair-ness by empathetically connecting with the objective chair.
Abstract artists can also use empathy to raise a rather mechanical geometric design (or any kind of abstract design) from a display of formulaic shapes into a powerful, emotive, expressive force. Gerhardt Richter, who has experimented with a wide array of abstract forms, is successful more often than not because of his empathetic connection to material and process. I think the same could be said of most any successful abstract artist. A viewer can sense that power and emotion behind such works.
When approaching a subject, familiar or unfamiliar, the artist would do well to contemplate first and try to connect to something in that subject that may serve as catalyst for the artistic experience. By projecting him or herself into that subject, the artist may find a source from which to draw that coveted universal experience.
