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Posted on 10/31/2014 7:20:59 PM
By Donald Fox
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There were images before there was art. Ancient ancestors sculpted figures from stone and painted pictures on cavern walls. The former we associate with fertility and unknown rituals. They were portable and likely traveled with those that wandered in search of food and shelter. The paintings were hidden away and accessible by a journey through shafts to underground chambers, not unlike a reverse birth journey back into the womb of the earth. Who knows what rituals accompanied either of these artistic expressions, but neither likely was called art.
Today the rituals surrounding art have to do with self-aggrandizement, self-awareness, and a kind of egocentric focus on status, celebrity, and the artist-magus as a mercantile phenomenon. The most successful are those that command ridiculously high prices, a single work valued many times more than the yearly wages of an average worker. This is true for far less than one percent of artists at work at any given moment in time. How has art come to be such a monetarily valued commodity while also deemed expressive of the human spirit at its highest manifestation? The history is long and there are many divergent paths.
Posted on 10/30/2014
By Donald Fox
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We’re almost at the end of October and here in Houston we’re still experiencing eighty plus degree temperatures although recently we’ve had some pleasant evenings down into the sixties. Tomorrow the weatherman promises a change. A cool front will bring temperatures into the forties with highs in the sixties. That will be a welcome change indeed.
When I first moved to Houston more than thirty years ago, the standing joke was if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes. Even though the weather might change quickly, that usually meant unexpected rain or a few degrees hotter or more humid. Adaptation to this climate has challenged residents for generations, and they typically rallied eventually to build the largest domed stadium of its time that was completely air conditioned: the Astrodome, once considered a wonder of the modern world. Its days, unfortunately, may be numbered and very possibly it will be torn down though many would like to preserve it in some fashion. After numerous rejected proposals – funding any kind of makeover is the real issue – there’s not much left as options.
Change is inevitable. Every time I visit my home town, which is less often these days, I find that something else that is part of my childhood memory is forever gone. There’s more and there’s less. This happens almost everywhere. Think of the small towns that have slowly disappeared from the American landscape. Thank goodness for the artists that have chronicled many of these places sometimes simply as part of their everyday experience and sometimes as reference to a receding past.
Humans in general tend to love their history. The young sometimes have to learn later in life how important that is as they gradually watch their own familiar landscape change before their eyes. In school they may chafe against history courses, but at some point they recognize that their own life experience is their personal history, and that tends to grow in significance as the years pass by. They hear their elders talk about the old days, which can truly seem ancient and perhaps a little magical when well told, but often these tales seem a kind of sad lament that to younger ears are a little boring. Given time, though, these youngsters will begin telling their own tales of the past with more than a little reverence.
Art has chronicled much of the past sometimes intentionally and sometimes simply as the by-product of an artist’s expression of what he or she experiences in the moment. These visions show moments or thoughts frozen in time, but any of them can spring to life again in the mind of the astute observer and sympathetic audience. What we often see is that dress or custom or outward appearance may change, but the spirit of people and place has consistency and continuity. Even as anthropological geneticists determine that there are few variations between genes of our ancient ancestors and modern Homo sapiens, we intuitively connect with those from a few or a thousand generations ago. We may love our modern conveniences, but at heart we are still connected to our basic instincts and essential needs. Art reminds us of this.
Posted on 10/29/2014
By Donald Fox
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In certain disciplines the concept of the center is very important. Dancers, martial artists, and gymnasts all experience the center of the body as an important focal point. It is from the center that one generates power, for the body is balanced and ready for action. For dancers to utilize their bodies to the maximum, it is important to maintain focus on the body’s center of gravity. Martial artists use the center both metaphorically and physically. These artists are trained to focus on their center and to always move by generating power from that center. When centered, a practiced martial artist cannot be easily thrown off balance. This idea is extended into the whole of life so that harmony and balance are sought and created by the practitioner. In harmony with self also means in harmony with the surrounding world. A juggler or acrobat also understands the center because so many of the feats that each performs require working with the center of the body or the center of some object.
In visual art, artists learn to observe masses in terms of their centers, and subsequently draw or paint objects by moving from the center outward. This is more effective for placement, proportion, and accuracy in the process of translating from observation to rendered subject. Outlines of objects can easily be distorted when the draftsman is ignorant of the center. In a sense everything moves in relation to its center. By noting this, the artists can better relate one object to another while also being aware how the center of a mass may shift as the objects that make up that mass are composed in different configurations.
When composing or translating observations into designs, artists often use the center of the ground be it canvas, paper, or some other substrate as a marker. It is a known place within a regular geometric shape like a square or rectangle. It is a natural place for subdividing a canvas into vertical and horizontal divisions. However, the artist would not locate something right in the center of a canvas because there would be no dynamic tension in the composition. The center is always there as reference (above or below, to the left or right), but it is not a useful location for something in the composition.
In some social settings one might become the center of attention. Some people readily make themselves that since they thrive on the attention directed at them. Usually this is fluid and temporary. One too much at the center of things could become tiresome and an annoyance to others. In some kinds of paintings, however, the center of attention (sometimes called the center of interest) is a compositional device whereby the artist can control the eye movement of the viewer. That center of interest often has the most clarity, is supported by shapes and movement around it, is the area of most contrast, and is also the point from which surface movement originates and usually come back to.
It can be a useful exercise to study master paintings and observe where the center of interest is located, how other objects are placed in relation to it, and the suggested movement or flow of the eye around the elements within the composition. Consciously thinking about this center of focus is the first step in learning how to use it effectively in a painting. With time and practice, the artist will develop a sense about the center of interest and will incorporate that into every appropriate composition as a matter of course. This center is one of several ways in which the artist organizes the elements within a painting or drawing. Acknowledging the center of interest and utilizing it effectively is a powerful way to improve paintings.
Posted on 10/28/2014
By Donald Fox
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Everybody has an opinion about something, don’t they? We certainly hear some variation on this statement often enough. Opinions can be good or bad, are based on reason or are based on emotion, have evidence to support them or are completely unsupported, but because everyone has an opinion about something, many opinions are often dismissed. One difference that an opinion might make is more in the presentation of it than in the opinion itself. Take art works, for example. Isn’t a work of art just an opinion that is dressed up in seductive garb?
An artist expresses many things through the work that he or she creates. There is feeling to be sure. The artist responds to something in nature or within the human world and comments on that by selectively presenting it in the form of art. The artist recognizes some resonant element in a setting, a situation or circumstance, or an issue that is compelling for what it does or does not illuminate about the human condition. The artist distills that resonant quality and gives it the form of whatever medium he uses. Nearly always there is at least an echo of the artist’s voice, and it is that trace that constitutes the artist’s opinion. The clever artist will create a kind of aesthetic distance between himself and the work so that the viewer, the audience, will feel like the work is reflecting something about his or her personal life and experience rather than that of the artist.
There are times, though, when the artist includes himself in the work as in Velazquez’s Las Meninas. The painter looks out from the canvas at the viewer as the viewer is looking into the studio of the painter. Georges Braque created paintings that included part of a shoulder or an arm or hand represented within the space of the painting. In these and other instances the artist is inviting the viewer into his world very directly. That something truthful and of value is being shown is a directly stated opinion of the artist. It is as though he is saying this is what I know.
The visual artist invites us to contemplate these visual opinions in the form of paintings (artistic opinions certainly in whatever medium is used). By employing symbols and metaphors, by manipulating light and color, by choosing point of view, and by sometimes having other characters comment on the depiction, the artist gives us complexity that mirrors that of everyday life, yet it is focused in such a way that everything is heightened for maximum impact. The opinion is a powerful artistic construction, and we may be swayed or seduced or enlightened by what we experience.
Posted on 10/27/2014
By Donald Fox
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The creative process is endlessly fascinating because there are no hard and fast rules that govern the process. Some visual artists, for example, will make many preliminary sketches and drawings to work out design problems before they begin an actual painting. Others will pull out the paints and start right in with no drawing whatsoever. The painting is a painting from the very first stroke to the last.
I’ve seen portrait artists begin by drawing a general shape of the head that mimics the subject, then add a horizontal line for the location of the eyes, then a mark for the bottom of the nose followed by a line for the mouth, and these divisions again placed in proportion to the subject. From the basic locator lines, the features of the face are developed. In contrast to that, I knew an artist years ago who began his portraits by drawing one eye carefully and completely before then moving to the opposite eye crafting it just as clearly defined as the first. He made no placement or dividing construction lines and did not create the basic shape of the face until much later into the drawing or painting. His portraits grew into life from that single eye gradually moving outward to reveal the whole face. His sense of placement was unerring; his proportions always accurate and true.
We typically would not say that one artist is more creative than another simply because of his or her working method. In many cases, we only see the completed work and don’t really know what the working method was behind the art work. Perhaps at some later time an academician or historian will accumulate information describing the particular artist’s working method as has happened with many artists of the past. Whether this helps us to understand the artist any better is questionable. Some people seem to think that it does. We may be able to follow somewhat the decisions that the artist makes in the process of creation and therefore think that we know something of the artist’s creative secret.
I do find it interesting to think about what artists have done and how they have approached their subjects. This is not so much to capture something about that particular artist like capturing his spirit as if to confine it in some way or to pin him down to a descriptive paragraph within the context of art history as so often happens in those giant art history survey books. Rather, insight into an artist’s working method is an insight into the larger creative process that is an ongoing form of human expression that is incredibly complex, multi-faceted, infinitely variable, and continuously expansive. We can find continuity all the way back to the earliest known expressions painted onto cavern walls. We can see sometimes how one artist has influenced another, and we can appreciate how sometimes one artist will continue and then alter the ideas of another. One artist responds to another, or one artist answers another as if given a challenge by the former.
The vast artistic mind composed of all aesthetic thought continues to grow with each insight, each variation, and each unique statement. Art outlasts its creator while also preserving that creator’s expression and also giving us, the audience, unparalleled access to the timeless understanding that art represents within the world of movement and change.
Posted on 10/26/2014 7:03:16 PM
By Donald Fox
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Friday evening my wife and I attended a lecture in conjunction with the preview of the exhibit titled Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. The exhibition will run through February 1, 2015. Unfortunately, the crowd was so dense that spending quality time with the paintings was quite impossible, but there will be many opportunities to view them over the next few months. The lecture by Dr. Helga Aurisch, curator of European art and the organizing curator for the exhibit, was both entertaining and enlightening. Monet’s fascination with the Seine began early in his career (the first painting done when he was 23) and lasted throughout his life. He lived in at least four small communities along the Seine and studied the river in hundreds of paintings many of them done from the small boat he had converted to a floating studio so that he could actually paint while out on the water.
Something I had not known before is that as Monet became increasingly popular in his mid-career, it became difficult for him to go out into the landscape to paint without being hounded by dozens of tourists (many of them Americans) who wanted to follow along and paint beside him. This is when he began to withdraw to his property at Giverny where he could paint in his extensive gardens undisturbed. So, in a way, all those annoying Americans were at least partly responsible for all those water lily paintings.
More is to come about this comprehensive exhibit, the first to concentrate specifically on Monet’s relationship with this river. I will be noting my own impressions of the paintings as I study them over the next few months. Stay tuned.
Posted on 10/25/2014 7:01:12 PM
By Donald Fox
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The elements of painting are few and are uncompromising: height and breadth, adjacency, direction (vertical, horizontal, or diagonal), shape, color, and value. The structure or ground that is painted is subdivided by these elements since usually the structure is fixed beforehand as the proportion and size of the canvas, panel, or other surface. Some painters have begun work on a not fully determined surface – unstretched canvas, for example. They may create an outer boundary and work inward by subdividing as would be done on a fixed surface, or, they may work from the center outward to edges that are created in the process of painting. These edges become the boundary when the canvas is stretched or affixed to some other measured surface or frame.
Any other suggestion of movement, forwards or backwards, open or closed space, is merely illusory and generally relates to observed phenomena that appear to exist in the outer world, what we glibly refer to as the real world. All the painter can do, however, is manipulate the basic elements of painting to symbolically represent what he or she observes. Shapes, lines, and colors are all representations (and abstract since by themselves they are not the things represented – they are only images of them).
The combination of painterly techniques an artist employs and that manifests as his or her characteristic style is an integral part of the completed work. Style reflects the artist’s personality and also his sense of personal vision, how he conceives of art as visual language. That vision may represent aspects of the observed world photographically or impressionistically, or it may be completely imaginary and abstract, what is often called non-representational. Either way the shapes and colors accumulate side by side to create the completed image.
Posted on 10/24/2014 8:01:59 PM
By Donald Fox
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The term self-expression is one that is used in a variety of contexts from suggesting personal freedom of speech without fear of retribution to proclaiming something unique and original as in artistic expression. The former implies that everyone has the right to self-express without any restraint or inhibition and where any sort of self-restraint is of no material consequence. The latter is the goal of most artists who pride themselves on being original and standing apart from what other artists or individuals may do artistically. Whether that self-expression is spontaneous – whatever and whenever the individual produces is important – or whether the expression is planned carefully in advance and perhaps is also part of some ongoing theme, that the expression occurs at all is fundamentally important.
The motivation to make art is as varied as the number of artists who are creating in any given moment. Aside from making a significant statement, manifesting personal aggrandizement, making money, or fulfilling a life purpose, many artists would say that making art is what they do because they don’t want to do anything else. Self-expression is of utmost importance.
What gets expressed is another point and might also include questions concerning why, who the audience might be, whether some larger purpose is being fulfilled, whether it is personal and private with no outside audience intended, or whether there is a broad message to educate, to incite, to call to action, to entertain, or perhaps to enlighten. We can easily find examples of art that does any one of these things or that may do several of these things simultaneously. Some art has been specifically private like the poems of Emily Dickinson, for example, which nevertheless became universally important when discovered after her death. Some contemporary art is momentary, like performance art, but is documented and then becomes a record of itself like some news event that is archived in history.
Obviously, the possibilities are many, and in most instances it is the artist that decides the when, the how, and the why of self-expression. Whether intimate or grand, the manifested expression is both revelatory of self for the artist and engaging for other selves, the audience, to reflect on their own creative connection while experiencing some aspect of the world from an alternative perspective. Self-expression becomes universal expression.
Posted on 10/23/2014
By Donald Fox
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Like many people who become artists or in some way affiliated with the arts, I was interested in painting and drawing at a very early age. I doodled and drew and played around with color and paints. Perhaps I had some talent, certainly an affinity for visual stimulation, but I wasn’t particularly precocious. I did have a very active imagination and spent many hours exploring imaginary places. Probably this interfered with the development of some social skills, but in my fantasies I was adept at just about everything. That ability to imagine and to visualize could have become a crutch and possibly led to a padded cell, but instead that ability has enabled me to explore many areas of artistic expression including visual arts, music, and to some lesser degree performing arts.
I think of many novels I have read that had one or more dream-filled characters who lived apart from the everyday drudgery of the life around them. I could have been penned by someone alone in a room with pad and pencil or mechanical typewriter, my thoughts being tapped out syllable by syllable and word by word. Perhaps in a way many of us do write our own narratives from some realm of detachment that helps us deal with those more intense thoughts and feelings that well up in response to the injustices that we perceive to be the truths of existence and which we sometimes use as a means for creative expression.
The grand novels of struggle against those massive forces of the world have been written many times over by the likes of Tolstoy or Dickens or Dostoyevsky. The great dramatic encounters have been painted by Goya or Delacroix or Rothko. Wait, did I just say Rothko? How does Rothko relate to Goya’s The Third of May, 1808 or Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People? Do human struggles only become personified in tragic massacres or bare-breasted women leading troops to victory? No, for herein lies the magic of art. The giant color fields of Rothko often generate as much emotional power as these other figurative renderings, and perhaps in some ways they are more powerful for they are less directive as to the emotional response one might expect from a particular pictorial expression.
This is not an argument for or against figuration or abstraction. Rather it is a recognition that human emotion and feeling are far more complex than a half dozen or so categorized responses to basic sensations like the shame and guilt and blame felt upon expulsion from the garden. We are, after all, regardless of what form we may have been crafted in, human beings, and human beings have always been at choice though we sometimes act as if we have been compelled by another, by a thought, or by a whim. Our creativity can take the harshest of circumstances and craft it into an experience that will resonate universally. We can also create experience that is most sublime and transformative not to complete with the awe-inspiring beauty of the world but to acknowledge it and through appreciation of it borrow some of its magnificence as a reflection of how we see what we see and know what we know.
Posted on 10/22/2014
By Donald Fox
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Art evokes many different responses intellectually, emotionally, and some would also say, spiritually. Typically the response is in the moment as viewer first encounters an artwork. I don’t think there’s any way to gauge in advance what a response might be. Certainly a viewer can feel excited about seeing a particular work. For example, I’m excited about seeing the group of Monet paintings that go on exhibition this weekend at the museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The focus is on Monet’s paintings of the River Seine – Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River. Having seen a huge body of his work, I am familiar with the responses from the past: surprise, delight, elation, awe, respect, intrigue, amusement, disbelief, excitement, enthusiasm, captivation, curiosity, inquisitiveness, peacefulness, and inspiration among others. My rational mind might question the process, the order of development, the choice of colors, the manipulation of paint, or the choice of size and format for individual paintings. I might also try to relate particular paintings time-wise in relation to other Impressionist works that I know.
Emotional responses to artwork often generate tremendous power. I can be instantly stopped in front of a painting, in a sense having been captured by it. There is no thought of looking away so totally caught up in the vision have I become. I’ve lost count of the number of times this has happened in response to works by artists known and unknown. This includes all manner of work as well, not just paintings. The most powerful pieces, though, are those that pull me right in so that I’m immediately immersed within the world of the artwork. Everything else disappears: sense of self, time, sensation, or any previously pressing concern. There may be emotion, but that is tied directly to the moment by moment experience of the work.
Yesterday I heard a portion of the TED Radio Hour on which several Millennials discussed aspects of their generation’s connectivity via the internet and social media. One of them works for You-Tube and is responsible for viewing submissions to that site. He spoke about the unpredictable popularity of certain videos including one by a guy responding to a perfect double rainbow that he had filmed. His extended response is quite emotional. He exclaims over and over his incredulousness at this awesome siting. He gushes his exclamations almost to the point of hysteria. He concludes with awe-struck repetition of “What does it mean? What does it mean?” Many viewers just laugh at his exuberance.
Sometimes, though, the experience before an awe-inspiring artwork is equally as affecting. I or others may not gush externally, but I am sure that we do internally. The feeling of elation is one of those natural highs unaided by anything except the beautiful that is manifest before us. Art lovers will know exactly what I mean. Whether that response is part of what the artist intended for his audience is an interesting question. Certainly if the artist feels profoundly while in the act of creating then some of that will be infused into the work. Emotion begets emotion. Human beings are usually affected by the strongly felt emotion of another.
Color, shape, form, and content all can have emotional impact, or perhaps I should say are features to which we can respond emotionally. Though some may also tend to intellectualize about their artistic experience, the emotional response is the more direct, and it is also likely the more affecting. Perhaps there is some loss in those forms of modern art that are cool, cerebral, and disengaged. They may have their place, but I think they will always be at the periphery simply because they lack that gut-wrenching power.
Posted on 10/21/2014
By Donald Fox
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Art is inherently subjective. Guidelines exist that may suggest underlying principles of design, order, emphasis, contrast, and so on, but ultimately all choices come down to the individual artist and what he or she decides to include or exclude from any given work. We can look at the history of art for examples of what might constitute good design or quality art, but even here choice will dictate one’s preference over that of another. For example, it is easy to see that the early Greek kouros figures are rigid and immobile like the ancient Egyptian sculptures they were patterned after. A few decades later and we find examples of graceful figures in Greek art that exhibit contraposto and a sensuality that did not exist in the early sculptures. Even so, some might prefer the solidity of the kouros figures because they are truer to the medium in which they are carved.
One of my early teachers was a semi-abstract painter who worked with simplified flat colored shapes in his representation of inhabitants of the North Carolina coastal region where he grew up and lived all of his life. He used to talk about Rembrandt as being an excellent painter, but he qualified this by also saying that he and Rembrandt did not speak to each other, meaning that his work was so totally different from the Renaissance master. My teacher saw himself as a modernist, and his style reflected his personal choices in art.
Since the end of the nineteenth century and the shift into the modern age, many artists increasingly challenged popular notions about what art is and what art can be. One can still hear today similar remarks from viewers looking at abstract paintings that may have been made by viewers looking at early examples of Impressionism or Post-Impressionistic art. What is it? What does it mean? Anybody could paint that – and so on. The uneducated public tends to have an understanding that art is a picture that resembles something in reality. This is a perfectly legitimate point of view, and one could easily argument the point with hundreds of examples from roughly six hundred years of art history.
The modernist perspective also has a cogent argument against literalism and in favor of abstraction and expressive statements that create a distinct reality that is solely that of art. In other words, art is not a substitute for anything, a copy of anything, or a re-fabrication of anything. It simply is whatever it is.
Very likely there will always be some who will claim that a poem has to rime in order to be considered poetry, music has to be sonorous and melodic to be considered music, and that paintings must resemble something in order to be considered art. That is okay, and I would support their right to their opinions. At the same time, I might feel a bit saddened knowing that those individuals are limiting themselves from experiencing a great deal of poetry, music, and art that is powerful, transformative, and communicative in its own right. On the positive side, though, art has become quite expansive compared to that of five hundred years ago. This is not to say that contemporary art is any better (or vice-versa). Each is unique and is there to be savored for what it offers. The audience makes its choice just as the artist makes his or hers. Personally, I relish the range of options that are available for it just makes my experience of art that much richer and abundant.
Posted on 10/20/2014
By Donald Fox
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Memory serves us on a regular basis, so much so that we have a tendency to take for granted the array of possibilities it creates for us in our day to day lives. Many people never quite grasp that memory is a flexible tool that if regularly exercised can actually be improved. Also, there are many little tricks we can use to enhance memory so that it serves us even better. Artists make regular use of memory to create artwork. A plein air painter, for example, is relying on memory in the act of observation to remember where shadows fall within the observed landscape, for those shadows surely will move considerably from the beginning of the painting session to the end. On an even more significant level, though, memory is at work while we scan a visual field.
Typically, our vision is composed of a series of snapshots that we piece together mentally to create what appears to us as a continuous panoramic scene, what we label as the world out there. These brief eye movements – our eyes do continuously move as we observe – are only a few seconds in length, and it is our short term memory that links these individual observations together into what seems to be a continuous whole. We don’t usually think about memory being operant here because when we look again at something, it is still there. We assume that it will be there. This is normal and natural. If it isn’t there, or if it may have moved, we would notice this, and our recall of what we saw earlier would inform us how the thing is different. We compare what we see to what we remember.
In truth, we do this all the time. Artists just happen to pay more attention to what is observed because they extract specific information to incorporate into the artwork. While doing this, artists are also recalling specific information from previous training regarding elements of design and other organizing principles that they apply to the work in progress. There may also be comparison of current work with previously created work of their own making or possibly of other artists that can make a particular work part of a series or alternately be a stand-alone piece that is unique.
Another kind of memory is also at work through the artist utilizing learned skills. This is remembering how to do something, what psychologists call implicit memory. Once a skill is learned, someone doesn’t usually forget how to do that thing. Particular kinds of skills can continuously be developed through practice and repetition, exactly the things that performance artists do all the time. Painters and sculptors are also performing in the act of creating their work. For example, think of those preparatory drawings as the rehearsal phase and then the execution of the work as the performance phase.
Other artists that might work from personal experience (mostly we would think of writers, but some visual artists work this way too) are utilizing episodic memory by recalling past experiences, feelings, or thoughts where they were personally present. Either the narrative of what took place is emphasized or focus is placed on what the artist felt or how the event impacted him or her. The greater the detail (not necessarily photographic detail but observed, selected, and noted detail) the more powerful the impact of the artwork. This could be illustrated by the highly detailed paintings of Jamie Wyeth on the one hand, or the abstract collages of Robert Motherwell by way of contrast. Wyeth uses his technical realism to paint carefully observed physical details of his subject and its surroundings. Motherwell makes use of personal elements from the studio, particular papers chosen for texture, color, or association. Personal memory is a strong current in the work of both artists.
For the observer, the audience, memory is equally as important as for the artist. The viewer is called upon to observe the work and experience it as a kind of witness that verifies its existence. While appreciating the art, the viewer is utilizing personal memory to link together observations and associations which make sense of the visual, intellectual, and emotional experience. Memory is indeed a powerful part of the art experience.
Posted on 10/19/2014 4:01:49 PM
By Donald Fox
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In medieval times it was thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system. The sun and the moon revolved around the Earth. Rather than a scientific idea or one based on reason and logic, the concept was a religious one strongly supported by the Catholic church, and anyone questioning the concept was questioning God’s creation and was subject therefore to severe punishment including excommunication and in some cases death. Most know of Galileo’s support of the Sun-centered universe and his being called before the Inquisition and subsequently imprisoned. In time, of course, his theory won out.
The center is an important concept. Within a rectangle, the center is one specific known place, a location that allows the visual artist to begin to manage that space compositionally with assurance and accuracy. Fine draftsmen like Delacroix encouraged young artists to draw from the center out rather than focusing on the outline.
Socially, we criticize someone who always seeks to be the center of attention and say that they are self-centered and egocentric. Yet, in design, the concept of center of interest is one of the cardinal rules around which a composition is constructed. It is likely based on the idea that while viewing something that thing is in clear focus and everything around it is slightly out of focus and of less importance. The further from the center of interest the less clearly something is represented thus heightening the sense of space and also keeping interest focused on that selected spot. This is not unlike a main idea in writing. All supporting examples are given specifically to enhance the main idea, to explain it, and to clarify it. Anything not related to the main idea has no purpose within that piece of writing and is edited out so as not to disrupt the unity of thought.
Dancers, martial artists, and performers that utilize their bodies for expressive purposes are taught to move from the center. By so doing they maintain balance and control even when appearing to be off balance. Ungoverned expression is chaotic and disharmonious. The successful artist maintains control, and that control originates from the center. Being centered (creating from the center) is important for all creative artists.
Posted on 10/18/2014 6:56:02 PM
By Donald Fox
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I suspect than when most artists begin a painting or other art project, they fully expect to complete it. The artist gives a kind of performance, which is the process of doing, and in the case of visual art, whatever art work results is the record of that creative process. It is not intended as a chronicle per se, for with painting especially, many layers may be hidden beneath whatever is visible on the surface. Is the expectation of the artist a concrete goal toward which he/she works or is the expectation something that is discovered in the process of moving toward a more general goal?
For me, the expectation is a general goal that becomes increasingly specific as the painting develops. The journey toward completion is a kind of search for visual meaning in the drama that plays out on the stage of the canvas. The players are the strokes, gestures, colors, shapes, and resultant forms that make the final image.
There are countless dramas in day to day life that are rarely noted except when energies collide in ways that manifest conflict and end up on the nightly news or in the following day’s headlines. Any busy street in a congested city is filled with these potential conflicts, but most never manifest because the hidden drama is contained and concealed with an individual’s purposeful movement through the space of that particular life. One gets lost in a crowd or another turns a corner and passes out of sight. Those potential dramas remain private and move on to other places.
This dynamic flow of human energy is part of the artist’s palette. First the painter builds an underlying structure of generalized shapes and colors. These could represent any number of disparate elements that become connected by proximity within the picture space. The painter chooses with each succeeding layer of paint what to emphasize or what to diminish. This is a natural part of creating order from which meaning emerges. Characters are refined and given their roles as protagonists or supporting players according to the artist’s conceptualization.
The expectation is for completion. The expectation is for expression. The expectation is for discovery in the process of expressing and completing. The artist trusts the process, and that too is a kind of expectation.
Posted on 10/17/2014 6:39:18 PM
By Donald Fox
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I’ve been a fan of Japanese film for many years. In fact, there are many aspects of Japanese culture that intrigue me including Sumi-e, printmaking, budo, and cuisine. One of the things that interests me about Japanese film is the range of subjects that incorporate folklore, history, class struggles, the individual verses the collective, the constraints of tradition and hierarchy, and the dramatic changes that have occurred from medieval times to the present. Particularly within the samurai tradition the emphasis on self-sacrifice is a constant theme as is the power of the established social order. Perhaps because of the rigidity of the social order especially in earlier times, Japanese literature and folklore tend towards the bizarre and the grotesque. What in western culture we might call the genre of gothic literature is a basic underpinning and major form of expression in Japanese literature and much visual art. It is as though the Japanese psyche is allowed free reign imaginatively in narrative but not in ordinary reality
Being bound by a strong moral code to the point of self-sacrifice seems quite counter to western thinking especially within democratic societies. Western artists, for example, chafe against any kind of restraint unless it is self-imposed for one’s personal aesthetic. Western artists typically resist government constraints or interference, cultural or societal criticism, religious or spiritual moderation, or any other sort of moral code or expected behavior. The artist may choose a particular path that is narrow and fixed upon certain goals, but it is choice that matters and the importance of free expression is paramount.
Most oriental artists accept the traditions and work within them. The only time we see deviation is when an Asian artist may be heavily influenced by western thinking. Even then, however, the traditional cultural influence shapes the eastern response to western perspectives. Think of Ai Wei Wei in China, for example. There is always something oriental in his ideas even when he is at his most conceptual and abstract in expressive form.
In western art most of the twentieth century revolved around the idea of personal freedom of expression. The artist has the right to explore whatever direction he or she chooses without limitation. Flipping through a list of the artistic movements during that century, one will see illustrated the unbridled sense of freedom with which artists approached their art. There is an incredible range of work in all media. It is as though Pandora’s Box was opened once more and every conceivable expressive spirit flew out into the world. This was not necessarily a bad thing unless one believes in some form of reservation or preservation of traditional artistic values. When art becomes non-art, for example, some might say things have gone too far (Dada, depravity, shock art, graffiti art, and so on).
We all are formed to a large extent by the culture in which we grow and thrive. Yet, with today’s global reach, we are also constantly exposed to other cultures and traditions. Whether in the long term this is a good thing or not – might overexposure actually diminish some of the cultural uniqueness, for example – is yet too soon to say. We can certainly learn from other cultures, and to truly learn from them, it becomes necessary to set aside some of our preconceptions, kind of like assuming an aesthetic distance or a suspension of disbelief as is required in the theater. At the least we might withhold judgment and attempt to assess our experience based on what is defined in the work itself. This may not always be easy to do, but it could be worth the effort.
Posted on 10/16/2014 4:29:41 PM
By Donald Fox
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Reflection 1
It is a popular notion in so-called New Age thinking that there are no accidents. The suggestion is that there is purpose behind everything. In a sense, all of creation is personified, and there is universal intelligence that deals out life lessons to those that need them. A corollary is that lessons don’t arrive, like teachers don’t show up, until the individual is ready to benefit from those things. Many who would scoff at these ideas as some sort of superstition might also hold beliefs that are less than rational. For example, we have quite a few expressions that often are used in particular situations. A saying like “what goes around comes around,” implying the existence of a karmic code of just desserts, is only one concept that many people readily accept without question.
We are capable, though, of critical thinking and probably should question many ideas, especially popular ones, rather than simply accept something at face value. Partly, this is the idea behind criticism in the arts. I’m not speaking about reviews in the press but professional and academic analyses of various art forms and artistic expressions. The purpose of these is to explicate, to educate, to interpret, to create cultural and historical context, and to spur dialog among artist, critic, and audience.
Us being human, however, and humans being subject to various character flaws, we sometimes may become a bit arrogant or pontifical and not be willing to hear the opinions of others. We may even dismiss or put down certain ideas with which we disagree. When there is dialog and honest exchange of ideas, on the other hand, we can learn from each other, which is a positive outcome for everyone. Art, being so personal and multifaceted as well as having that unique quality of ambiguity, teaches us about tolerance of multiple perspectives even when we may resist and insist that a specific meaning is necessary.
Perhaps, then, it is possible to believe that there are no accidents, that the universe has purpose, that each unique individual within that universe also has purpose, and that we are the lone species of sentient beings within the seemingly infinite cosmos of which we are quite an insignificant part. Art, at least, is one means through which we may continue to question and explore and express our thoughts and feelings while creating generally beautiful statements that mimic aspects of the world as we perceive it. Perhaps, also, it is our perception that is too limited, for our experience of the finite pales in comparison to the infinite, a concept so abstract that we may think it without ever possibly experiencing it. Our tales and legends address our understanding of infinity expressed as immortality, and now branches of science (the epitome of rational thought) posit ideas of infinite simultaneous worlds or parallel universes, an infinitely expanding universe, and other theoretical models that, like art, reach to explain the seemingly inexplicable. The rational becomes imaginative and the imaginative becomes rational. Art and science travel together like parallel worlds but worlds that constantly pass into each other and influence each other and are really manifestations of the same desire to know and understand, to comprehend this magnificent mystery that we experience on a day to day basis.
Posted on 10/15/2014 6:53:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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There is no question that we live in an information age. However, this time did not dawn with the advent of computers and the internet, but these things certainly accelerated accessibility of information if not its importance. If we look back into time before any sort of mass communication, say from the 1800s backwards, we still find information of vital importance to individuals, businesses, militaries, and governments. Knowing one’s competition is not simply a modern concept. Battles were won or lost based on strong intelligence.
When the fastest transportation (and dissemination of information) was by horseback or sailing vessel, it could take months or years for messages to reach distant lands. In spite of this, empires grew and thrived for periods of time, and all were dependent upon information that connected outposts that could be a year or more removed in travel time. The great European explorers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and much of the eighteenth centuries had no wireless communication, no telegraph, or any other means of sending information back to their sponsors having struck off on adventures that would last for years before anyone at home knew anything at all about their fate.
Today we might read about some of these past explorers and conquerors and maybe not think so much about the challenges they faced so used have we become to downloading our information instantaneously. With a little imagination, though, we can picture how things might have been for these predecessors and marvel all the more at their accomplishments. There is, of course, the brutal side to many of these so-called robber barons who claimed lands that were already populated by people whose civilization was far older than that of the usurpers. When something encountered is unknown, this can put one at disadvantage not knowing what to expect or give one an edge especially if that individual or group is aggressive and takes the initiative. The latter happened numerous times with Spanish and Portuguese explorers and with England’s establishment of its empire, which reached its height in the nineteenth century but began to decline in the twentieth century as subjugated countries vied for independence and freedom.
How we might see ourselves with respect to our forebears matters because we can learn a lot by noticing the mistakes they may have made. Arrogance is one major transgression. Whether we look at the Spaniards and their brutality against peoples they encountered (convert or die, you heathen) or the U.S. army violently protecting citizens who ventured into territories already occupied by not so friendly groups who also were not too keen on sharing with those that took without asking. In almost every scenario we might see, ultimately the winner had the most access to information and the resources with which to act on that information.
In the world at large today, gaining and utilizing information has become a full time job for individuals, groups, and governments. It is a question of survival. We speak of knowledge as power and ignorance as bliss. These days ignorance is more threatening to individuals or groups, and is not bliss at all but possible extinction at the hands of the knowledgeable. S too must artists use information pertinent to their work and to their success.
Posted on 10/14/2014
By Donald Fox
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From our vantage point in time, we often think ourselves superior to our forebears. Yet frequently, if we look for it, we find great wisdom and insight among those who lived long before the conveniences we have luxuriated in since at least the industrial age. The great Roman man of letters and philosopher Seneca wrote in letters to his friend Lucilius, “The artist finds greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture.” This sounds very modern and not just in relation to action painting or abstract expressionism. It is the work that provides the greatest sustenance, the activity that conjures most within the spirit.
Posted on 10/13/2014
By Donald Fox
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Anyone who has done strenuous physical exercise knows about recovery time. The body expends energy in the physical activity, actually a form of stress (but good stress, what psychologists call eustress), and when fuel is consumed the body must replenish its supply. This is a complex physiological process that requires the cooperative functioning of a number of bodily systems. Anyone going through the healing process after illness or injury or surgery similarly needs a period of recovery time for the body to heal and build itself back to a normal state of balance and health.
There can be other forms of recovery; in fact that word is often associated with healing from addiction and substance abuse. I used to be surprised at the number of people I would encounter who have or had one of more family members who had succumbed to some form of substance abuse. There are very strong physical and psychological forces at work that make this kind of recovery particularly challenging. I’m not surprised any more. When you deal with something in your own family, you learn very quickly how many others have been afflicted with the same tragic circumstances.
Recovery can also be of a lighter kind. The annual vacation that many choose to take is a form of recovery from the stress and strain of work and everyday life challenges. Someone who has to tackle a large work project with deadlines, production quotas, or coordination with teams and team members generally takes recovery time after task completion. In some ways this is similar to artists preparing work for a large show. There is usually an intense period of creative work as well as many logistical details that must be completed within a given time frame. Though there may continue to be marketing efforts after the show goes up, the intensity of the workload is much reduced, and most artists take at least a portion of the time during the run of the show to recover from their intense efforts beforehand. It is often during this recovery period – at least I find this to be true – that new creative ideas begin to emerge at a rapid pace.
Posted on 10/12/2014 6:45:12 PM
By Donald Fox
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The recent dating of cave paintings in Indonesia establishing them around 40,000 years old roughly the same as the better known cave art in Spain and France is a remarkable discovery indeed. Two basic theories are currently held. One is that art developed simultaneously in Europe and Asia but independently of each other. The other theory suggests that when humans began to migrate out of Africa some 65,000 years ago, they already had developed some form of artistic expression. "What this tells us is that when humans began moving out of Africa they were not all that different from us in terms of their abilities to use art and symbol," John Shea, paleoanthropologist from Stony Brook University in New York, said in an email. "Inasmuch as many of us would have difficulty replicating such paintings, they may even have been our superiors in this respect."
There is growing popularity and access to tracing one’s roots genetically back into prehistoric times. National Geographic offers one such opportunity through genome research. Historian Henry Louis Gates now has a second program series tracing people’s (usually famous people) roots that is aired on public television. I find it intriguing to look at these Indonesian cave paintings or those from Altamira or Lascaux and reflect that our artistic DNA was already fully formed in ancient prehistory. The seeds of Michelangelo or Titian or Rembrandt are there in these early artistic depictions even though they likely had very different meaning for the creators than what we think about art today. Still, it’s intriguing to imagine all that potential plus every other creative enterprise that came through subsequent ages. We have had a remarkable journey to say the least.
The full article may be found here http://www.chron.com/default/article/Study-Asian-cave-drawings-as-old-as-European-ones-5809342.php
Posted on 10/11/2014 7:26:54 PM
By Donald Fox
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Double Doors
I had surgery this past week which meant fasting the day prior. By the time the surgery was complete, I next spent several hours in the recovery room, and eventually made it to my hospital room, and by then was sufficiently awake and very aware of being quite hungry. Sadly, I learned I had been put on a liquid diet. I’m used to eating dinner late in the evening, but I was relieved to find that hospital meals were served between five and six p.m. That post-surgical meal was the best meal I can remember in a long time. It consisted of the most delicious chicken broth. I could have easily have been eating roast turkey with all the trimmings and that would not have compared as well. The lime Jell-O was superb as the most delicate side dish. I gave the iced tea to my wife, but I did drink the two containers of apple juice, a superb rounding out of the combined flavors and the contrasts of warm and cool. The meal was topped off by a raspberry Popsicle, which I savored to the last delicious crunch. This simple meal was absolutely superb, and I felt completely sated and nurtured.
The next morning I was served scrambled eggs, two large strips of bacon, a hefty scrumptious biscuit, and a container of pure grape juice. I didn’t drink the coffee (don’t like it) nor did I eat the corn flakes, but the breakfast was the perfect follow-up to my previous night’s dinner. I was reminded how the simple, direct experience is perfect in the moment when there is no expectation or distraction from that which meets the most fundamental needs. This is often true in art as well. The flashy, the exuberant, or the desire to create something apart can pervert the creative process into an outcome that is ultimately dissatisfying or outright offensive. As artists we reach for something that connects with our audience, and maybe that something begins with a basic connection within ourselves: straightforward, unpretentious, and in-the-moment experience of personal insight and awareness. From this the art flows naturally, and we are sated.
Posted on 10/10/2014 4:57:53 PM
By Donald Fox
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If someone is a painter and generally thinks about art through the lens of painting and visual arts, it is likely that he or she will naturally assume someone who declares him/herself to be an artist is a visual artist. What would you assume if you were talking with a new acquaintance, asked that person his/her occupation, and he/she replied, “I’m an artist”? Most of us probably might make the assumption of visual artist.
Writers for the most part would likely respond to the occupational question by identifying themselves simply as writers. We probably know that there are levels of writing from discursive prose to literary fiction. Writers are writers, yet there is a form of writing that reaches beyond the presentation of information or general entertainment to become what is called literature, and within this realm there is the Great Literature with names like Melville, Twain, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Dickens, and many others who share the rarefied air with visual artists like Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo, Velazquez, Goya, or Sargent. We typically think of the great painters or sculptors when talking about artists.
When I studied English and American literature in undergraduate and graduate school, rarely was the term artist applied to the pantheon of writers in discussion. We spoke of their artistry and craftsmanship but typically did not refer to the creators themselves as artists. Shakespeare was a dramatist or a playwright rather than Shakespeare the artist. I don’t think this a shortcoming nor any indication that the art of writing or composing or some creative work other than painting is any less an art. More likely we would find through sociological study that art has been thought of far longer as a field of visual inquiry. Look at any art history text or any course in the history of art and the discussion is always about visual art.
Still, I find it interesting in the endless dialogue about art and what it is that there are popular ideas concerning art that make many people automatically think visual art over any other expressive form. For myself, I find my own thoughts inclusive rather than exclusive. Art to me includes that vast panorama of creative expression. Whether some forms of expression may have shorter histories than others as forms unto themselves is interesting and worth learning about (as are most all historical developments), but that there is one grand form, as painting is sometimes referred to, seems less important than that it exists at all. It is that creative and expressive urge that is most intriguing.
Posted on 10/8/2014
By Donald Fox
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I found myself thinking along the lines of this earlier blog and decided to re-post it today since it not only addresses the topic of imagination but it also honors my friend whose work I greatly admire.
It has been said that the artist is the arbiter of taste. Rather I would say the artist is the arbiter of the imagination. Tastes readily fluctuate and in modern times have become subservient to machinations of the market place. Imaginative artists, often overlooked in their own time, have the ultimate say in future generations, even becoming classical where once they might have been considered radical or revolutionary.
Artists look at the ordinary and see the universal. Artists see and record with the eye of the camera or through the filtering lens of personal vision. Viewers are given an alternative to everyday reality. The active viewer becomes a co-creator as he or she recognizes the artistic impulse not only within the artistic creation but also within him or her self. The viewer takes away from the experience both the insight into the work, and thus into the self, and the heightened ability to experience creativity within any given moment assuming that the door to creative experience remains open. As William Blake said, the “doors of perception” lead to the infinite.
A friend of mine and fellow painter Steve Parker has the unerring ability to observe the mystical within the mundane. A landscape painter, Steve is in fact more aligned with abstractionists like Barnett Newman or Mark Rothko. These expressive artists didn’t simply paint elemental geometric figures in closely modulated hues. They painted myth and magic on the heroic scale of color field imaginings. They made the imaginative leap in design, color, and scale to wed an industrial vision with classical sensibility. My friend looks at the industrial wasteland or parts of nature yet to succumb to the developer’s redesigning schema and sees instead the harmonizing power of light. Through his deft manipulation of color and natural form, he renders a vision of nature inseparable from our selves. He reaches deep within and mirrors back a vision of nature that we are. We see more in his paintings than a landscape ‘out there.’ We are the landscape that we ingest with our eyes just as we are what we breathe, what we eat, or what we think. Such is the transforming power of art.
To truly experience a work of art is to succumb not simply to its seductive charm but to take on its transformative power, to use its language of imagery, symbol, metaphor, and figuration to re-configure and re-inhabit the world that for so many has become a take-it-for-granted throwaway. I believe that the artists who affect us the most are the ones who show us, tell us, and help us feel the most about life and the world in which we live.
Posted on 10/7/2014 7:39:48 PM
By Donald Fox
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Expression is one of those words with multiple meanings. We use facial expressions to non-verbally communicate major portions of our meaning in conversations, speeches, and other face to face situations. We also use colloquial expressions to convey regional concepts within a community that are unique to a specific region or cultural group. These, of course, are verbal expressions. One of the most important uses of expression is what we call creative or artistic expression. Now we are considering something that is as universal as facial expression but with far greater range philosophically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually while also being uniquely personal like the stylistic signature of the individual artist.
Artistic expression can reflect culture, nationality, individuality, as well as a timeless quality that transcends any other limitation. It becomes all inclusive and achieves universality not as a glib critical opinion as in many art reviews but on a truly global scale. For artists, this kind of personal expression is of supreme importance, and many see it as a way, perhaps not unlike the mystic, to connect with the source of all things and the whole of existence. For them, this is not hyperbole – it is the most real of experiences and can only be known directly and internally though the artistic channel is the attempt to make it real for others. It is the artistic leap of faith.
Posted on 10/6/2014
By Donald Fox
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When I was four or five years old, I was supposed to have my tonsils removed. I remember going to the hospital the day before surgery. It was hot, and those were days prior to air conditioning. That evening I had no dinner and before bedtime was given an enema. I vaguely remember the nurse but remember nothing about what she told me except that I would go to sleep and when I awakened, my throat would be sore. Actually, I don’t remember awakening in the hospital. My next memory is being at home in bed and my mother telling me that I still had my tonsils. Apparently, I had been given too much anesthesia (ether was used at the time), went into respiratory arrest, had to be resuscitated, and was considered lucky to have survived. I’ve held on to my tonsils in spite of recurring bouts of strep throat and have been fortunate not to have had any surgery since the aborted attempt.
This morning, however, here I am scheduled for surgery lying in my prep room listening to a team of doctors and nurses going through their morning banter while different ones ask me the same questions required by their status on the OR team. I tell my ether story to the anesthesiologist (who assures me ether has not been used in decades), her tall assistant impatiently holding the syringed cocktail that will initially knock me out – it is obvious that he relishes his power to put people under, and he wants to get on with it.
Eventually, questions are complete, an immense amount of paperwork is noted and signed, the cocktail is administered through my IV, and the whole team jubilantly whisks me away to the operating room. I’m still awake as we go down several hallways, through several doorways, and enter a large room that looks like a small warehouse for medical equipment. I’m transferred from my stretcher to another bed, and, for me, the lights go out.
I remember nothing until I am awakened by the sound of a cough that I realize is my own. I’m in another large room facing a central control desk beyond which I can see large double entry doors where nurses or doctors move in and out. A nurse says something from my right side, but it takes a moment before I realize she’s speaking to me. Would I like some ice chips? My mouth is very dry, my throat a bit sore, and I mumble in a hoarse voice that sounds foreign and distant. The PA system continuously blares and I tell her it feels like I’m in Wal-Mart. Her laugh is nearly as soothing as the ice. Other patients are brought in and wheeled to the left or the right. My wife comes in for a brief visit. Finally, a familiar face. She is then asked to leave. I soon get my room assignment and am wheeled to the main hospital wing. I feel exhausted, sore, and very hungry. The only thing I know for certain is that I still have my tonsils since this surgery was about another matter. Even so, I painted fiercely all day on every ceiling under which I found myself.
Posted on 10/5/2014 3:56:22 PM
By Donald Fox
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Art is global, universal, cultural, national, communal, familial, and personal. When the personal becomes universal perhaps art is at its best. Personally, I believe that the sensitive and intelligent and informed viewer will see the universal in any of the above categories, for art is as much about the appreciator as it is about the creator or the environment in which it is created. Some art may be intentionally limited in scope – political or satirical art, for example – but even that can rise above its intended purpose to serve a higher calling. It is possible to go the other way as well when art is merely propagandistic, this in particular with a decidedly negative slant. On the positive side, however, art is as unlimited as the human expressive spirit, and if there is anything that can be called true art then surely it abides in that rarified sphere.
Posted on 10/4/2014 6:05:31 PM
By Donald Fox
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Some artists know from an early age that art is their destined path. It’s not just that they are talented or spend their time drawing or painting or making music. Many others do these things in their youth as well. The exceptional few, however, appear to follow an unwavering trajectory in life that leads them to continuous expression and some form of recognition. Some of them function fully as part of the society they inhabit. Others live a more solitary life but nonetheless accomplish goals they seem to have set for themselves. We call these artists singular or gifted or geniuses. The very select few have a lasting impact on every generation that follows them. As a result, we say that history judges them superior and in a class by themselves, and whether they were financially successful or not seems irrelevant. It is the contribution to humanity that counts. They are entrenched in that pantheon of highest achievers and held up as the ultimate in human possibility.
There are many, many artists in the world at any given time. Most of these do not live the anointed life nor are they necessarily destined for greatness. Their lives diverge in countless directions and may only share a love of art but little else. They may be judged as lesser stars or ones that shine less brightly. These may include the peculiar, the secretive, or the wildly popular. They may be revered or reviled for what they do, and their notice may be a page or a footnote in the annals of art history, if noted at all. They may be like Hardy’s character in Jude the Obscure and live a life of expectation with little notoriety as they succumb to missteps that end badly. Not all is tragic, however, and some may even be triumphant within their particular sphere.
Possibilities within life can be seen as limitless or they can appear to be limited by choice, action, or circumstance. Psychologists will point to traits, nature (heredity), nurture (social influence), or other biological or psychological issues beyond the genome. Philosophers will speak of mindset and world view. All of these look to some deviance from a suggested norm. No one really knows for sure the reasons behind success or failure nor do many even agree on what constitutes success. The individual is the sole arbiter of his or her personal fate. Only he or she can answer for the choices and actions that occur on a day to day basis. This applies to the optimist, the pessimist, the dreamer, or the mystic. The artist can manifest in as many ways as anyone in any other field of endeavor. Thankfully this is so, for what great richness we find in the arts as a result.
Posted on 10/3/2014 5:27:41 PM
By Donald Fox
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Three light brown pigeons are perched atop the cross arm of a dark brown telephone pole that I can see outside my window. Like birds in flight, schools of swimming fish, or herds of antelope galloping across a savannah, this inborn patterning of flocking animals frequently works at the smaller level of three or four gathered creatures. They line themselves up even when not in flight. Since these birds were initially immobile, I did not notice them as separate from the phone pole; they seemed part of it until one of them moved. This blend of nature and civilization has become so normal that we often overlook it. Only when some problem arises like large birds near an airport or too many squirrels in one’s backyard, do we take notice and when necessary take action.
In truth, we are in nature all the time. Even those high rises stick up into Earth’s atmosphere and insulate us for a time from sunlight or rain or windblown pollen. Actually it is we who are the squatter’s on nature’s turf. Like those birds perched on the phone pole, we have perched on huge patches of our mother’s soil, but unlike them we have altered that upon which we sit. This is what we do as human animals, the imaginers and creators, the crafters and schemers among Gaia’s offspring.
Our ability to create has built an amazing legacy of enhancement and growth and expansion from our rather lowly beginnings. From wooden and stone tools to rocket ships and laser surgery, we have traveled much further inwardly than we have outwardly. In spite of our many gross errors, our movement forward seems positive though our deadly potential still lurks beneath the surface. We must use our best art and our best science to keep ourselves in balance with our natural home.
A helicopter crosses into view across the blue sky, but from this distance it is not much bigger than one of those pigeons. They are unperturbed by the red growling mechanical bird that has invaded their aerial domain, one that only a hundred years ago was solely theirs. Birds, however, do not typically sacrifice themselves for their kind. They do not work to resolve challenges that threaten their existence. Nor do they write sonnets, paint pictures, or spin tales even though they often are included in all these things. They do inspire us, and some of us at least give back to them in ways that express appreciation for sharing this space, this nature, of which we both are a part.
Posted on 10/2/2014
By Donald Fox
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Metaphor is an interesting use of language that must have developed later in the evolution of the human brain and thought processing. Initially it would have been vitally important for humans to accurately perceive and describe the world around them. Their lives would have depended on observational details and precise description. Somewhere, though, they made a very large leap in understanding to be able to make comparisons between things that were not readily observed, things that were associated imaginatively. Perhaps scientists have some explanation for how this may have happened, but however it came about this ability to associate and imaginatively connect things together has been a powerful tool for understanding, communication, and contemplation of our existence. It is also a major contributor to our ability to conceive and create art.
All art is metaphorical as well as symbolic. Whether we consciously think that a painting of a person or a field of flowers only represents that person or field and is not literally either of those things, no matter how seductively realistic the painting may be, we do know the difference between something that is real and something that is a fabrication. Under certain conditions, however, we may be fooled into believing that something is real when in fact it is not. For example, camouflage is found throughout nature as a means to hide something for its protection or advantage, or to make something appear to be something that it is not, generally for the same purposes. We accept this as an interesting and remarkable natural expression, yet we do a similar thing when we make art.
Art mostly comes to represent something other than itself. A picture of a landscape, for example, would not be mistaken for the landscape yet we might judge it by its verisimilitude to what we know or can observe for ourselves in the world. We marvel at the skill of the artist to render such an illusion through the manipulation of tools that themselves bear no resemblance to the things they make. An artist might choose to make a painting of some of his tools, and this we would admire for design, for image similarity to the tools, but we’d also understand a tongue-in-cheek reference to the craft of making and the artificiality of art as well as our ability to perceive something as a stand-in for the actual thing, which then becomes a thing apart to be enjoyed and perused quite differently from the thing it represents.
When we look at those realistic paintings, aren’t we looking for more than a picture of a place or a person? We don’t think in terms of the physical qualities of leaves or branches or skin or hair even though those may be depicted. We typically think about colors and shapes and the skillful manipulation of pigment that has created these illusions of skin or hair or leaf, don’t we? We may think about how this relates to our experience of the world and particularly what it means to have an experience of the world and what it means to have an experience of something that suggests an experience of the world that we would never see or experience out there in the world. We experience it only in the form of a crafted work of art, a work with which we may have all sorts of swirling associations as we stand there contemplating it. Were we to contemplate an abstract piece of art instead, we might have similar experiences and we likely would even make associations to real things from our life experience that are in no way depicted in the work we are observing.
Metaphor is amazingly powerful. Our ability to make and to perceive metaphor is amazingly powerful. We exercise our imagination and expand our experience of aliveness and consciousness and this allows us to visit realms that exist in a kind of alternate reality, for these experiences can seem very real to the practiced imaginer. Metaphor engages us with verbal wordplay, visual imaging, or musical or poetic intonations, and we step through that looking glass into a world that tells us more about who we are than we might ever have imagined even as we imagine it.
Posted on 10/1/2014
By Donald Fox
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Waiting rooms – everyone’s favorite places, right? Part of the issue is that we are on someone else’s schedule. We have to do the waiting. They are at work, and we are at wait. Of course, many people in those offices and places of waiting do attempt to make the wait somewhat easier by providing comfortable chairs, magazines, a few plants, music, and sometimes television sets. The latter can be an annoyance, however, rather than something pleasant. Often, the TV is set too loud and much daytime programming leaves a lot to be desired. Inane talk shows, endless commercials, or intrusive news bits create a background of white noise that takes some effort to block out. Add to that many people’s obliviousness to others as they use their cell phones and speak as though they were in their own private space instead of a publicly shared one – well, a person’s ability to concentrate on reading or writing or conversation with someone close by is severely challenged.
We may think of these situations as unavoidable given all the many places that we are required to wait in order to take care of ordinary business and general life concerns. Perhaps we attempt to make the best of those moments or just bear them knowing that eventually we will be able to regain some control over our normal lives. Such may be our rationalization.
Interestingly, though, we also self-create other kinds of waiting games, white noise, interruptions, or intrusions into those parts of our lives that we deem important, productive, and creative. We become the interlopers, the cell phone disruptors, or the inconsiderate schedulers simply by losing focus on that which is the most important. It can begin with a simple, “I’m too tired to do that right now,” or “I can spend a few more minutes with…” whatever that happens to be.
It’s not a matter of being lazy or slothful, but it may involve a slight lowering of our guard. Certainly these days there is much that competes for our attention. The history of television is instructive in this regard. In the early days, when owning a television was relatively rare, programming was extremely limited. The novelty of entertaining shows in the home was not too different initially from one tuning in to one’s favorite radio program. There was no set pattern of an entire evening centered around the television. Commercials were not so abundant and typically lasted about thirty seconds or sometimes a full minute. As the audience grew, however, advertisers realized there was a burgeoning market that could be tapped and manipulated. Commercials began to emphasize lifestyle and how a product could change one’s life for the better. Aired ads were shortened to fifteen seconds so that more advertisers could reach more people. This also began to affect people’s attention spans. Commercials grew even shorter to seven and a half seconds. The groundwork was already laid for what was later to be even more impactful with computers and other communication technology.
The concept of multi-tasking initially seemed like a new kind of efficiency. We could utilize so much more of our brain power, or so we thought, yet we began to raise generations of frenzied individuals primed for instant gratification and limited comprehension. This also pushed many towards distractions rather than real-time connection or simply staying focused on a task at hand.
Artists often speak of the luxury of spending time in the studio. Sacrosanct as that space may be, I know of some artists who paint with the studio television on in the background rather than supportive music or who take frequent breaks to check e-mail or post items on Facebook. Those who would be masters of expression are also tasked to master their time. Just because we have released the technological genie doesn’t mean we can’t control him.
