Art is a Sword:
Art in its purest form should be a sword: forged in the fires of obsession; cooled by the waters of the subconscious; “striking” and “edgy” when regarded, and elegantly crafted to “get the job done.”
Like an expert weaponsmith, a painter knows his alloys (paints), hammers (brushes), and the anvil (canvas) so the ideal picture is achieved.
Objectivity and Subjectivity of art:
At the highest levels, art engenders a sense of awe from the superhuman explanation of the great mysteries of interconnectedness. This kind of art has certain objective qualities. Their significance is the quality of the eternal that the artwork has. Reaching the infinite (a niche in the history of art) is the pinnacle of artistic expression. The objective work of art is the purest expression of culture humankind can aspire to create.
Claiming art is purely subjective is to value a child’s painting equally with a Picasso (which many people do). The rudimentary understanding of the herd is apparent when it comes to art. They say, “My child could do that,” and don’t bother to try to see any further.
It is as though they are unable to read and refuse to try to learn. “Those symbols and squiggly lines don’t mean anything.” Maybe if they could read, the symbols and squiggly lines would express words they understood and ideas they grasped. Perhaps, they would see the poetry in the conversation taking place in a painting by artists like Wassily Kandinsky or Joan Miro.
The language spoken by artwork or an artist is legible to the informed. Occasionally, it can be seen by those people who are free of preconceptions about “…the necessity of realism.”
Salvador Dali’s work, such as “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus” (1937), has a universal quality and predates all magic realism to come. The greatest artists are seers of the vanguard like Dali, yet they exemplify qualities that fall in line with Western art history. The ability to “predict what will be” is another quality of the objective in art.
To use Picasso as an example again, he could paint anything he wanted, and so a part of his genius is in what he wished his art be. He selected with intention. Understanding this, Picasso’s place in history becomes apparent. He pursued the “edge,” for a long time, on the forefront of artistic perception, advancing the boundaries of what was understood to be art.
Picasso’s striking images powerfully express emotions nearly anyone can perceive. “Weeping Woman” (1946) is a good example where Picasso’s distortions forcefully deliver the artist’s subject—sorrow. The ability to capture the human condition on a primal level is a quality of art’s eternal and objective nature.
Johannes Itten, the color theory instructor at the Bauhaus School in the 1930’s, disseminated his conclusions to a generation of future creators. His book, The Art of Color, was a product of extensive research, but more than that, it was an outgrowth of Itten’s spiritual journey. His obsessive pursuit of the quality of color fostered measurable knowledge even though such subtle distinctions of color qualities are “nearly intangible.” At some point, obsession can become a person’s reality. At some point, the mystery becomes a belief.
Beginning with obsession and keeping an eye on the future, the artist can select his path. With knowledge of personal strengths and limitations, the result is “…the illumination of planning” or “…the happy accident,” but usually, it is somewhere in between.
There is one more point I would like to make about the objective quality of art. Some say art is all a matter of opinion…It is just whatever people want. That is what I am trying to refute here. There are qualities of art that are eternal, and what makes good are is measurable. The GOODNESS OF ART IS NOT JUST A MATTER OF OPINION!
My final proof is that EVERYONE seems to like the same art/artists. If it were all just a matter of what each individual likes the best, there would be no predicting what people found beautiful. But people are drawn to the same things. This alone is proof of the objective quality of art.
Optimism and Pessimism:
After I came of age, I quickly grasped that there is only light equally with darkness in this world. There are good and bad people, and there is justice right beside injustice.
Attempting to use this dichotomy as motivation and style for my art might seem like a far stretch of the imagination or an inappropriate springboard for any art in general. However, I consider the disparity of positive and negative in life to be an energizing influence. The duality of existence is a part of each life. I am alive, yet because I reject society and its vulgarities, it is as though I am half alive.
Manifesto:
I reject all television and commerciality; I reject violence, believing we should do whatever it takes to remove all guns from society; I think our nuclear stockpile must be decommissioned and our army turned into a force of builders and doctors rather than a threatening aspect of the aging American Empire; I believe we need to open a real dialogue on hunger—we must face how 1 in 9 people go hungry each day; I try to stay open to dialogues about race and inequality; I try to enjoy the aging Earth, where overpopulation, mounds of trash, the continued reliance on fossil fuels, and impossible levels of consumerism continue to destroy it; even though global warming spins the planet out of control, I try not to fear for the future—although we are citizens in a “corporate-controlled” military-industrial police state I keep an eye to freedom; I believe in a superior K through 12 education, one on par with any in the free world… free of a standardized mold that is governed by testing… With much higher teacher pay… I believe we need free college education; I believe in education that prepares our people to be well-rounded citizens rather than debt-laden servants of a system where the super-rich grow their wealth exponentially at the expense of everyone struggling to make it to the next paycheck.
I believe in free health care for all; I seek the end of special interest dominance over our political system; I am pro-choice; I am pro-immigrant; I support the protection of animals and any place in the world that is still pristine and beautiful; and yet I believe that civil, positive progress is possible and a big city skyline is an example of what we can achieve when we work together.
I write politically motivated novels and poems, giving thanks all the while for the bountiful table that God has set before me.
To forget that there are those separate from my world is to do them a disservice, so I try to express my dissatisfaction with the status quo in all I do…especially in my art. It has been said that art must be explosive to be successful, and what is convulsion other than sudden action after inaction, “a pattern of yin and yang.”
Art Altruisms:
Real art is not easy; it is not repetitive; it isn’t a gift only the acknowledged masters hold; it is something that both a child and a professor can love; it is not over-worked. Nothing looks more like a daub than a masterpiece; real art is done quickly, but not from a formula; originality is the opposite of what 99% of the people expect it to be until it’s intrinsic quality is recognized; the artist can be a wise man, or child-like, or in between, but the quality of the work is undeniable; often what is not painted is as important as what one sees.
At some point, most artists feel they are struggling in an uncaring or callous world, often in obscurity. Many artists approach the infinite with their work yet never find public acclaim. Circumstances, and sometimes fear of conceit, keep them from view. Some artists wrestle with their own immorality (I have enough to eat, clothes on my back, a safe place to live, while so many do not. I carry this burden on my soul). But with gratitude, despite the gross inequality in society, I try to be satisfied rather than sad.
The Artist and his Artwork:
An artist is not a work of art—the artwork should stand alone. Ideally, an artist should believe in their creations and stand by them… And artists usually are found advocating what they do. Thus, art is often more about the artist than the artwork itself. Also, it is about the social framework that it originates from and where it is situated. Date of creation, exhibition space, the artist’s background, and his standing in culture… All these are a part of a better understanding of an artwork. However, there are exceptions.
How I see my artwork:
As far as me telling you about my work… I am one of those artists who is likely to be a critic of what I do. I can tell you what is wrong with my work, but ask me what I like about it… I probably will have only a few words. If I have succeeded in making the image do what I want it to, I will show it, and maybe I can say a few words about intention and what went right…
But I will not try to sell my paintings hard, impressing a potential buyer with an intelligent, rambling explanation of meaning. For the vast majority of my work, the image says all it needs to say. I have created something… beyond that, I’m likely to draw a blank.
Oh, I’d love to speak (ONE) Using some rehearsed speech to describe my art, or (TWO) With profound situational improvisation, or (THREE) Telling about my artistic background.
These three ways of describing one’s work are good enough for many artists, getting them where they wish to go. But none of them are enough for me. Summarizing my relationship with a work I have spent hours painting or spent a lifetime arriving at in a fifteen or thirty-second speech is simply impossible for me to do. Where to begin? How to keep the interest of those I’m speaking to? How to avoid digressing when fielding stubby questions? No. I can write about my artwork and say a few half-serious words about it, but in the end, it must speak for itself.
My Training as an Artist:
I was well-known at the University of Nebraska as the painter of “Eyeball Sandwich” (which I called “The Model” after the song by German electronic band Kraftwerk). It was an outstanding work to paint in the first year of college. I often found the attention I drew as the artist to be a negative or critical consideration. I remember specifics that I won’t bother to discuss here.
Insanity versus Intention:
In creating my abstract and surreal art, I strive to consider Salvador Dali’s “Paranoia-Critical Method of Consciousness,” where everything references the observer and holds personal meaning for him. During my formative stage as an artist, I read all of Dali’s autobiographies and carefully studied his artwork to better understand the difference between madness and modernism.
After my withdrawal from the University of Nebraska, I did some soul searching. I traveled in Europe and around the Southwestern of the United States, using what I believed to be Salvador Dali’s “Paranoia-critical method” to “understand through creative interpretation” how people spoke.
Thus, on the radio stations I listened to, TV broadcasts I watched (such as the TV News), songs I heard from my punk and post-punk music collection, restaurant dinners, museums, movies, or shopping trips, and passenger airplane journeys, people were referencing me when they spoke and acted in the world.
I became adept at my hallucinatory state so that even the static between radio stations in Los Angeles was a trigger. The various half-heard voices as I spun the dial on my car radio, along with the random noise made by detuning, was a beautiful cacophony describing what I was doing, had done, and what I wanted to do.
But I could not easily “switch it off.” (I had proceeded too far down the rabbit hole). To return to normalcy, I found myself continually saying “Sleep…” “SLEEP…” became my mantra.
Seattle University was a much more relaxed school than The University of Nebraska.
Yet to my surprise, upon graduating with a 3.2 GPA in college overall, my cooperating professor at Seattle University told me, “You were asleep when you got here, and you’re asleep when you leave.” I had been successful, for Sleep was what I was after. Yet, he had meant it as an insult. Professors at the University of Nebraska had been so disappointing, and I realized this was likely par for the course. Art school Professors may be good at teaching others, but my experience with them has often been less than favorable.
Going on into the 1990s, I wrote a lot of poetry and belonged to several artist’s co-operative in the Denver Area. I organized poetry events around my shows and had a three-month show of my work at The Mercury Café. I also had a two-year show at the Wynkoop Brewery next to Coors Field. I showed at the Starbucks Coffee in Littleton, Colorado, where my first wife and I lived. I was on TV and the radio in connection with my art and poetry.
The ability to draw:
Gesture, an intuitive or natural ability to express successfully, is the crucial element of art. Two modern masters whose work exemplifies this quality are Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Skill at the level of these artists is inherent and extremely rare. Others, such as Van Gogh, learn gesture by obsessive study and repetition, nurturing it until second nature.
Good art is almost exclusively intentional; each choice made with volumes of deliberation, and even the decision to paint quickly or freely is a choice. In the latter case, the subconscious takes over, still leaving a little to chance.
Usually, throughout his/her life, an artist has rejected many commonplace choices. The artist attempted to see the world in a way that sets them apart from the herd. This rejection of the subconscious, everyday decisions that people generally make can play into the “originality of an individual artist’s subconscious mind.” Originality springs from the font of the subconscious, not from being hit on the head with a rock. It comes from struggling against what is considered “normal” over a long lifetime.
Line, form, media use, and other expression aspects sharpen into a different and unique vision. GESTURE makes the choices that precision and planning don’t exactly make. Intention works for many artists; however, the best art happens through the subconscious acting on the environment. Over-thinking in art is far too familiar and does not solve “what to select” adequately.
So much of life is subjective that rational thinking, like figurative art, often fools a person into believing that there are clear definitions and clear choices in life or art. Every intelligent person would agree that adaptation is superior to rigidity, but few people strive to exemplify that principle. The world is fluid, and artists must especially be so.
The problem of style is a constant…With so many artists working within a set of parameters known as a “style,” an artist becomes redundant nearly as soon as he or she reaches a certain level of notoriety.
Why is art good:
Art is “a unifying force in a static object.” People see the same thing in an abstract landscape: it has brought them together with an image. Each person sees the world from their perspective, but art takes commonly held conventions and uses them to suggest a previously unseen point of view.
My “Non-Objective Surrealism” attempts to reach a state of balance with minimal references to existing forms. The seen is equal to the unseen. The symbolic is with the formless. It is hung on subconscious design choices to achieve harmony.