Thoughts and influences

What I struggle with the most when I read articles by artists is that they start off great. The argument is convincing, the artist seems to have a good bit of common sense that comes with experience. There is also humility, a shared story of embarrassment (hence the painter who criticized Camnitzer), and eventually a turn for the worst that involves pride, self satisfaction, justification of that persons' specific art form, and so on. I found myself at the beginning of the article going, "Yes! Craft! Important!" and at the end kind of disappointed and tired of reading. So it goes with most articles I read by artists.

The best artists I know currently don't really write articles in this form. I mean, some of them have blogs where they describe how they made what they made. However, they don't really try to justify their work. There's joy in what they do, and that's all the justification they need.They create. They can't stop. And eventually, through the work they do, it pays off. The craft and the concept are there, but the artist needed years of creating to get to that point. That being said, I agree with Camnitzer in the sense of craft being important (and come on, you all have heard me rant on this subject before, or at least read my first post). Other than that, the article sadly seems pretentious and is one of the factors that causes me to despise "art school" (sorry, I'm an opinionated artist. Big surprise, right?). I think we spend too much time judging other art, and not working on our own. I think we also spend too much time writing about why our art is "relevant," and not enough time actually making art. Alas, DaDa, you ruined it for us all.. at least for me.

I feel as artists we would do much better to embrace both, craft and concept, instead of making them enemies.

That's my rant in response to Camnitzer.

*Small edit: for a really positive response to art and creating, I suggest the movie Beautiful Losers.

Here are my influences:

Last week my windshield wiper broke at the base as I was driving home in the rain (I commute from Southside, Pittsburgh. About an hour and twenty minutes each way). Unfortunately, this was on the drivers side, and made the drive even less pleasant. Because of this, I couldn't make it to school the next day due to the rain, and was stranded at home saying, "Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crit coming. What am I going to do?" Oh, and it's still not fixed. I'm waiting for the part.

This time off forced me to start going through reference photos to see what I could come up with. I have linoleum blocks and some other printmaking tools at home which I use when I can't get into a class (thanks for phasing out your program, IUP) to stave off my desire to be in a studio. I also have hundreds of photographs my boyfriend and I took of Carrie Furnace last summer, many of which I wanted to use as references to paintings or drawings. So I have a side project happening, just in case I can't finish my current, and will probably keep this up for the remainder of the semester. If you look through images, you can probably see why it's inspiring. I'm pretty sure we met Swoon on our way there. Or her twin image. She and some friends helped us find our way in.

Why is this an influence? Because it was at one time lucrative. The place is enormous. Something that seemed indestructible at the time (technology, anyone?) collapsed, and is now being taken over by nature. It's completely covered in rust in large areas, plants are growing everywhere. For me, it's interesting how invincible we feel when we create. I imagine that the guys running this place when it was working thought that it would never come to an end. But everything does, eventually. Now, it's a giant playground for adults (or nature!), and I love it. We spent most of the day taking photographs and climbing to the highest points we could.

I've mentioned that I love collage, right? Well my artist's influence for the week is Alexander Korzer-Robinson. I ran across this guy when I first started doing collage. This caused me to have a small temper tantrum and say "Why didn't I think of that?????" I love his work because it looks complete, it is collage moving into a three dimensional format, and he makes them inside of books. Have I told you guys how much I love literature? Sometimes I don't get any work done because I'm reading. Which brings me to my final influence this week:

C.S. Lewis. But not your typical Mere Christianity or The Problem of Pain. I'm talking about a series of three books I've read at least ten times each, called The Space Trilogies. The strange thing about Lewis is some of his books are incredibly difficult to read. They're just weighty and wordy and long. They are the words of a man who spent a great deal of time thinking philosophically, and questioning every single one of his thoughts. His fiction, however, is incredibly easy to read. What I love about this particular trilogy is he uses a mixture of Greek mythology, science fiction, Biblical narrative, AND language (!) to create a story about traveling to other planets. Sweet. If you are just reading without much of a history of literature and mythology, it's still pretty entertaining/inspiring. If you are reading with the knowledge (especially language), it's quite exciting. I've read them so many times that I will sneak reading them to avoid being made fun of by friends and my boyfriend. They don't know what they're missing.

I will end with one of my favorite quotes from the second book, Perelandra, and head to the dealership to hope that my car will be fixed. The quote is referring to embracing what you're given, instead of unfulfilled expectations. It's gotten me through some rough/disappointing moments in life.

"'What you have made me see,' answered the Lady, 'is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before-that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished-if it were possible to wish-you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other...

...You and the King differ more than two kinds of fruit. The joy of finding him again and the joy of all the new knowledge I have had from you are more unlike than two tastes; and when the difference is as great as that, and each of the two things so great, then the first picture does stay in the mind quite a long time-many beats of the heart-after the other good has come. And this...is the glory and wonder you have made me see; that it is I, I myself, who turn from the good expected to the given good. Out of my own heart I do it. One can conceive a heart which did not: which clung to the good it had first thought of and turned the good which was given it into no good.'"