i think this banana sketch was created close to the end of 2004. i don't believe
that it was up on that wall you see there
(march 16th, 2004)? memories. :) ahhh...
by the way james... i'm on book #24. looks like i may stop once i complete #25? hard to say. each book takes me approx 3-4 months to fill up completely give or take some torn out pages and things i've scribbled elsewhere and then later cut and pasted into it like a scrap book. i started book #24 back on janurary 9th, 2006. it was goin so-so, kinda running out of motivation to fill it with anything worth while like i used to. i guess i was feeling the winds of change and the sketch book gave me nothing. it wasn't calling to me the way it used to. very sad indeed. people would say "hey, greg! where's your sketchbook man?! you take it for walks like a puppy dog! it's like your dog man! hahahahaha!!!!!..." and then i would say "fuck you man! it's no dog! you're the dog man! your the dog! matter of fact, you're a "dog-man"!!! that's right, you heard me jerk head!!! DOG-MAN!!!". so i'm in the middle of book #24 and i've torn out at least a half dozen sheets already. since my lay-off from palliser on march 2nd 2006 i just kinda stopped caring. i feel museless... is that a word? :p ...oh well. *sigh*... go
14 comments:
Feeling muse-less (Sounds like muslix. my favorite cereal)?
Have you ever tried dots, hehe. Back when i used to paint, I would occupy myself by filling large canvases with tiny dots. The "no brainer" activity eventualy turns into (very slowly) an immpossible compositional puzzle. It is when i get lost in that density that I most often found meaning, or sometime was even inspired by the lack thereof. How about some autobiographical "I got no idea" art. On that note, I have a question that also pertains to Justins post below..."Is all art auto biographical"?
I think it's brilliant that you've kept the sketchbooks going as long as you have, since the official start anyways, since you've been sketching in books for hundreds of years, eh?
Whenever I have a sketchbook I'm constantly tearing out the pages, and lately have been putting them into binders with those plastic divider thingies. Weird habit! But a necessity in my practice.
Now you've got Saidman filling those little books too. Sounds like the premise for an art show if you ask me. The tough part is displaying the little books. we'll let the curators come u0p with that(since we're all just a bunch of organizers)
I think all art is autobigraphical in the sense that it becomes part of your history once you create it, but I suppose an apple pie could be considered autobigraphical too.
(after all, only certain people from certain locations can make an apple pie).
But.... not all art is autobiographical or political(sorry keith and dave) These blanket statements attempting to define art are ludicrous. Art is art. I hate being the contravener, but isn't art a blanket definition enough. it covers so many things already to try and give it another definition is an exercise in futility, but I guess, like the dots, at the end of it all there may be enlightment(dotvana)?
i often do word-dots. when i'm stuck, i just start typing. doesn't matter what, just get the fingers moving.
i agree that all art is autobiographical. it's by YOU, therefore it reflects something about you in some way. as ondaatje put it, "all art is ultimately a self-portrait". that's why he so often uses mirrors in his stories.
and as someone who used to do a lot of baking, an apple pie was and is autobiographical, and over the course of time, my exact same recipes underwent subtle but important changes that reflected my habits, diet, tastes, budget, etc.
blanket statements are dangerous and/or silly... but when YOU sit down and do a drawing/painting/poem, it's 100% utterly YOU, and the final result is something that no one else could ever create. so there is an autobiography at work there, no?
p.s.
whaddya mean "WHEN I USED TO PAINT"??????
"I used to paint" = self ctiticising my recent slackerness.
"statements attempting to define art are ludicrous" = who pooed in your bathtub (hehehe).
well, get back to it!!!
painters paint. writers write. artists... art?
"We are in the business of making the kids feel good about themselves and reinforcing self-confidence. Sometimes that little positive reinforcement is enough to change a kid, or at least guide them in a direction towards creating more and more art." ~ Susan on Long Island
"My artwork is never bad,
There's no right or wrong way,
My effort makes me feel glad,
I would draw anything,
an ocean or a bay.
Bright colors, lines are bold;
artwork is like gold."
From a student - Cedar Creek Elementary
"Art is literacy of the heart" ~ Elliot Eisner
"Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us." ~ Roy Adzak
"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your
attitude. Don't complain." ~ Maya Angelou
" Revolution in art is to paint a new vase of flowers!" ~ Oscar Araripe, Brazil
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." ~ Aristotle
"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery." ~ Francis Bacon
"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." ~ Henry Ward Beecher
"What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things . . . it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface."
~ Brancusi
"The function of Art is to disturb. Science reassures." ~ George Braque
"In whatever one does there must be a relationship between the eye and the
heart." ~ Henri Cartier-Besson
"What a society deems important is enshrined in its art" ~ Harry (?) Broudy
"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art." ~ Paul Cézanne
"Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations."
~ Paul Cézanne
"What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is a harmony parallel with nature."
~ Paul Cézanne
"When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art." ~ Paul Cezanne
"Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing." ~ Marc Chagall
"Great art picks up where nature ends." ~ Marc Chagall
"There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books."~ Charlie Chaplin
"The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it."
~ Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) - French artist
"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing."
~ Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - Spanish artist
"Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master." ~ Leonardo da Vinci
"Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world." ~ Leonardo da Vinci
"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death." ~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) - Italian artist
"To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and commonsense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams." ~ Giorgio DeChirico
"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things." ~ Edgar Degas
"Painting is easy for those that do not know how, but very difficult for
those that do!" ~ Edgar Degas
"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." ~ Edgar Degas
"What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough." ~ Eugene Delacroix
"We work not only to produce but to give value to time." ~ Eugene Delacroix
"Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything." ~ Eugene Delacroix
"The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently."
~ Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) - French artist
"When I feel a little confused the only thing to do is to turn back to the study of nature before launching once again into the subjects closest to heart."
~ Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) - French artist
"The big artist...keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools." ~Thomas Eakins
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." ~ Albert Einstein
"If apple is the language of the future, then art must be the core." ~ Elliot W. Eisner
"We live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in a chaos without norms,
even though this is how it sometimes appears." ~ M. C. Escher (Dutch)
"Art is a passion or it is nothing." ~ Robert Fry (Vision and Design)
"A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places."
~ Paul Gardner
"Art is either plagiarism or revolution." ~ Paul Gaugin
"I shut my eyes in order to see." or "I close my eyes in order to see"
~ Paul Gaugin
"...the object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity." ~ Alberto Giacometti
"Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word." ~ Eric Gill
"The essence of drawing is the line exploring space." ~ Andy Goldsworthy
"Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels."
~ Francisco Goya (1746-1828) - Spanish artist
"The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint....I'd like to pretend that I've never seen anything, never read anything, never heard anything...and then make something....Every time I make something I think about the people who are going to see it and every time I see something, I think about the person who made it....Nothing is important...so everything is important."
~ Keith Haring (June 15, 1986 NYC)
"Talent! What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way." ~ Winslow Homer
another version -- "There is no such thing as talent. What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way." ~ Winslow Homer
"No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination." ~ Edward Hopper
"When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college- that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"
~ Howard Ikemoto
"They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my reality." ~ Frida Kahlo
"I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could..." ~ Wassily Kandinsky
"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul." ~Wassily Kandinsky
"There is no must in art because art is free." ~ Wassily Kandinsky
(on Pre-Columbian art) "The great epoch of the spiritual which is already beginning, or, in embryonic form, began yesterday... provides or will provide the soil in which a kind of monumental work of art must come to fruition.' ~ Wassily Kandinsky 1910-11
"A line is a dot that went for a walk." ~ Paul Klee.
"Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible." ~ Paul Klee (1879 - 1940), Creative Credo, 1920
"I paint in order not to cry." ~ Paul Klee
"The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract."
~ Paul Klee
"Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms." ~ Roy Lichtenstein
"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist." ~ Rene Magritte
"Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to create." ~ Nicole Malebranche
"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be." ~ Abraham Maslo
"It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else." ~ Henri Matisse
"I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me." ~ Henri Matisse
"I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it." ~ Henri Matisse
"Work cures everything." ~ Matisse.
"What I dream of is an art of equilibrium, purity and tranquility, devoid of upsetting or troubling subject matter ..." ~ Henri Matisse
"Beauty is the purgation of superfluities." ~ Michelangelo
"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." ~ Michelangelo
"A great sculpture can roll down a hill without breaking" ~ Michelangelo
"Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish." ~Michelangelo
"A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it." ~Michelangelo
"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." ~ Michelangelo
"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection." ~Michelangelo (1475-1564) - Italian artist
"Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life." ~ Henry Miller
"I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music."
~ Joan Miro
"The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel." ~ Piet Mondrian
"I do not want ART for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few." ~ William Morris
"If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens." ~ Grandma Moses
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
~ Thomas Merton, 'No Man Is an Island'
"Art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind." ~ Louise Nevelson
"I just feel that I'm in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I'm in the process of working." ~ Louise Nevelson
(Here is the complete quote) ". . . I knew that a day I took away from the work did not make me too happy. I just feel that I’m in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I’m in the process of working. I always felt right when I was right here. And even if I didn’t want to compose, so I painted or stacked the pieces or something. In my studio I’m as happy as a cow in her stall. That’s the only place where everything is all right."
~ LOUISE NEVELSON
"There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or
a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks." ~ Emil Nolde
"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe
"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe
"Fill a space in a beautiful way" ~ Georgia O'Keeffe
"Still - in a way - nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe
"One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself -- I can't live where I want to -- I can't go where I want to go--I can't do what I want to -- I can't even say what I want to --....I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to."
~ Georgia O'Keeffe, 1923
"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-things I had no words for." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe
"If I didn't think what I was doing had something to do with enlarging the boundaries of art, I wouldn't go on doing it." ~ Claes Oldenburg
"Imagination is the true magic carpet." ~ Norman Vincent Peale
"Art is a lie that helps us to realize the truth." ~ Pablo Picasso
"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~ Pablo Picasso
"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun."
~ Pablo Picasso
"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a
child." ~ Pablo Picasso
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." ~ Pablo Picasso
"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary." ~ Pablo Picasso
"I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else." ~ Pablo Picasso
"It takes a very long time to become young." ~ Pablo Picasso
"What good are computers? They can only give you answers."
~ Pablo Picasso
"I believe it is impossible to make sense of life in this world except through art."
~ Daniel Pinkwater (author)
"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing." ~ Camille Pissarro
"Every good painter paints what he is." ~ Jackson Pollock
"The painting has a life of its own." ~ Jackson Pollock
"The artist is the antenna of the race."
~ Ezra Pound (from the book, "Art & Physics" by Leonard Schlain)
"You see what you know!" ~ Frank Stella
One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.
~ Auguste Renoir
"Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated."
~ Auguste Rodin
Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.
~ Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) - French artist
"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere." ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos
"All art is but imitation of nature." ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - 65 A.D.)
"Art is the signature of civilizations." ~ Beverly Sills
"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks."
~ Simonides (500 B. C.)
"Art should reveal the unknown, to those who lack the experience of seeing it."
~ Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith
"I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating, I don't
care if it's a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece
of music--anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience
with us--I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you."
~ Steve Soderbergh (winner of the 2001 Academy Award for Directing "Traffic."
He also directed "Erin Brockovich.")
"As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color."
~ James McNeil Whistler
"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."
~ James McNeill Whistler
"As a suffering creature, I cannot do without something greater than I --
something that is my life -- the power to create." ~ Vincent Van Gogh
"It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures." ~ Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) - Dutch artist
"I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.' " ~ Vincent Van Gogh
"I often think the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." ~Vincent Van Gogh
"Architecture is the triumph of Human Imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own Earth. It is at least the geometric pattern of things, of life, of the human and social world. It is at best that magic framework of reality that we sometimes touch upon when we use the word order." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright, 1930
"Architecture . . . is for the young. If our teenagers don't get architecture -- if they are not inspired -- we won't have the architecture. . . that we must have if this country is going to be beautiful." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
"You can't make an architect. But you can . . . open the doors and windows
toward the light as you see it." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
"I am an artist… I am here to live out loud." ~ Emile Zola
...
Artists Quotes
Quotes by Students:
"Make art. See art. Buy art." ~ a first grader in Kathy Douglas' Choice Based Art Class.
“Art is the key to life” ~ first grader
“It’s an art world after all!” ~ first grader
"I love art. I not only love art, I live for art!" ~ third grader (Deborah Johnson, teacher)
"I run the tundra of my dreams, I howl to the stars of my imagination. I fly on the breeze of my mind and I pour my soul into my pencil. I dream in color, and see the world through a rainbow." ~ Angela, 8th grade, Los Cerros Middle School, from "Who I Am", a poem she wrote.
"Art is what lets your mind explore." ~ a sixth grader
"Art is like recess for the mind." ~ a second grader
See what some other middle school students have to say about art:
Los Cerros Middle School, Danville California - Teacher, Mrs. Kramer
Read some student quotes from L.A. Ainger Middle School
"Art is not just a mixture of color on canvas, but a feeling; a magical feeling the embracer creates and cherishes throughout life's journey." ~ Harrison F., 5th Grade
"I might not like how my painting turns out, but I always love art." ~ primary student
"My mind flies away when I do art." ~ primary student
"Art and I are like best friends, like salt and pepper, or socks." ~ primary student
"Just do Art with your heart." ~ fourth grader
"I love art because I can impress myself." ~ fourth grader
General Quote from Art Teachers
"Self esteem comes from being faced with a challenge, whatever it might be, and meeting it." ~ Linda Fields
yellow curds no less!
But come on, let's just let art be art okay?
And listen...art can be autobiographical, but isn't always.
and art can sometimes be political, but isn't always.
Not that I'll put this into words succinctly, but here goes. An artist makes a painting and hangs it on a wall. The artist walks out of the room. Another person walks in the room and looks at the painting. Will the person viewing the painting have any idea about the artist's history from looking at the painting? Could the artist have painted something that would give the viewer no clue?
Enter the 'tree falling in the forest'.
So......I suppose to the artist, all art is biographical(including apple pies, yellow poo, under the blanket of the term art), but to anyone else, no, not all art is able to clue the viewer into any type of history of the artist. Sure, if Michealangelo paints an oversized fish and says it's a whale, you'd think that part of his history is never having seen a whale.
Hence. "AUTO"-biographical.
I understand your frustration with art definition, it is truely, too broad of a subject to fully encapsulate, but that's the fun. It certainly can't hurt to compare each others view of what it is, or is all about, no matter how futile it is to actually try and solve the great conundrum of art. And what would you suggest? That we no longer talk about art, and what it is? (I bet you can't go 3 days without art-talk, hehe). I have been in the "definition limits meaning" camp myself before, but for the most part I have to admit, Herring and all his buddies inspire me to think of my non-verbal language in verbal ways. My intent isn't to close off boundaries and contain creation; it is to understand the things that I have already found under my ever expanding "blanket".
But really, lets put it to the testshall we ?! You put up any obscure piece of art and I will tell you about the person who made it, the socio-political environment in which it was made, and when. How's that for ludicrous?
"There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books."~ Charlie Chaplin
yep, yep.
of course.
is
be.
i don't listen when people tell me what to do. a year or so back, a local art snob told me (and i quote): "don't write about art history. you're not an art historian." and they were right. i'm not. so therefore i can't discuss it? nope. i don't listen when people tell me what to do. partly because i'm a taurus on the cusp of gemini, partly because i have problems with authority stemming from a tumultuous upbringing with a domineering father.
sometimes i should listen when i'm told what to do. sometimes not.
so, everyone do what works for them, and we'll all work around that. and with that, and within that.
"letting art be art" doesnt' mean, as macro pointed out, that we can't continue to discuss and "dance" within and without its ideas. (dance, of course, being the better metaphor for arguement than the usual battle metaphor-- arguement as a shared activity, a co-operation rather than a war.)
and i love chaplin's quote that macro provided b/c, as we've been discussing before, history itself is a work of art/fiction/autobio.
"Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs." -Thomas Wolfe
holy crap!!! what the heck happened while i was gone?!! ;) LOL... so you enjoyed my sketch i'm guessing? LOL...
go
I know what art is.
It is doing whatever it is you do...
...and paying attention.
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