Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Friday, June 22, 2007
"You only have control over three things in your life--the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take (your behavior).
How you use these three things determines everything you experience. If you don't like what you are producing and experiencing, you have to change your responses. Change your negative thoughts to positive ones. Change what you daydream about. Change your habits. Change what you read. Change your friends. Change how you talk."
Jack Canfield – The Success Principles
How you use these three things determines everything you experience. If you don't like what you are producing and experiencing, you have to change your responses. Change your negative thoughts to positive ones. Change what you daydream about. Change your habits. Change what you read. Change your friends. Change how you talk."
Jack Canfield – The Success Principles
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
A Fresh Crop for the Market
Review by Jen Graves
A little-known fact of Seattle art is that contemporary dealer Scott Lawrimore first became involved in art as a grade-schooler singled out for his drawing of Scrooge. Presumably the Lawrimore Scrooge had a sufficiently miserly presence to inspire his teachers to spirit him away to special advanced art classes, and this is how many art students are first identified—by their ability to reproduce something already known. This, however, is the last thing we actually want from artists (or just about any graduate of anything).
Every spring in Seattle, the two most prominent art schools, University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts, hold exhibitions that display the proposed answers to the never-ending riddle of innovation, like the queen coming to Rumpelstiltskin one more time. The whole setup is dramatic. And in the meantime, as the artists are trying to find themselves, you're trying to find them. Most people with art degrees don't become career artists. Student shows are a way to make early bets on who's going to make it. It sounds harsh, but it's true.
The students at Cornish are supposed to be less polished; they're receiving bachelor's degrees, while the UWers are being declared masters in their field. In general, the art by the UW students, on display at the Henry Art Gallery, is competent. It's also sedate. With a few exceptions, it feels small in scope, and in some cases, shriekingly derivative. Has news of the hot art market reached all the way into UW classes and sent students scrambling to offer their most obeisant selves to dealers rather than to push the limits of what they can do? Or does graduate school itself feed complacency?
It's no coincidence that the two artists who stand out are the ones whose works seem the least fixed, the least contained in the gallery, the ones still squirming with play: Fred Muram and Matthew VanHorn.
Muram made three modest videos: one of him being fed a hamburger by three hands (two of a pair and one misfit, as if in reference to the clunky collage effect of early digital manipulation); one of him struggling comically inside a plaid blanket; and one with writing on his palms and the backs of his hands indicating his left and right and your left and right, with his voiceover reiterating the written phrases. Each video has its charms, but each is easily criticized, too, as if it were built with intentional chinks in its armor. They are actually part of a larger performance series (not included in this show) in which Muram narrates and critiques his own work.
VanHorn's piece, titled "Yes," she said... yes, is a giant crouching monkey made of scrap wood (and with a beard that looks like a frayed used carpet fragment), a big bright yellow tub, and a bunny costume. VanHorn says he intends to wear the costume to interact with the objects. As the story builds, other objects might be substituted, or added. The objects already bear the marks of contingency: the sculptures stand on wheels, the costume is apprehensive on its coat rack. Even the artist doesn't know where this piece will go, but given the uncanny attraction of the objects, I'm inclined to give it a chance.
Other artists worth watching are Michael Simi (is his Beef Stew Monster stalking visitors or imploring them?), Benjamin Eckman (do not miss his folk-artist statement), Nola Avienne (one hopes she is not quickly running out of things to do with metal filings), and Aitana de la Jara (whose large paintings are conventional, but feel devotional, and true). Already humming along nicely in his practice is Ross Sawyers, who has shown his photographs of false interiors at SOIL and CoCA, and who'll solo at Platform Gallery in July.
The art at UW has a lot of robotic moving parts. Cornish, meanwhile, is all body, in states ranging from muscular spasm (Robert Randall) to pleasant sedation (Jessamyn Johns, Justin L'Amie). (The show has already closed.) The women are in the lead. I'm taking down the names of Nicole Laverty (for her video of herself as a dirty old man and a pigtailed girl), Rachel Setzer (for her White House made of birth-control-pill packages), Ashley Bubacz (her sugar-decorated eggs with tiny disaster scenes inside), Madison Stratford (her acerbic celebrity collages fashioned using gauche lights and a handheld label-maker include the line "Everything I need to know I learned from [dealer] Greg Kucera"), Laura Kinney (dirt and delicacy), and Redd Walitzki (her Victorian digital animation).
Almost every one of these women is also showing weak work, which is fine for now. It's the sparks you look for
A little-known fact of Seattle art is that contemporary dealer Scott Lawrimore first became involved in art as a grade-schooler singled out for his drawing of Scrooge. Presumably the Lawrimore Scrooge had a sufficiently miserly presence to inspire his teachers to spirit him away to special advanced art classes, and this is how many art students are first identified—by their ability to reproduce something already known. This, however, is the last thing we actually want from artists (or just about any graduate of anything).
Every spring in Seattle, the two most prominent art schools, University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts, hold exhibitions that display the proposed answers to the never-ending riddle of innovation, like the queen coming to Rumpelstiltskin one more time. The whole setup is dramatic. And in the meantime, as the artists are trying to find themselves, you're trying to find them. Most people with art degrees don't become career artists. Student shows are a way to make early bets on who's going to make it. It sounds harsh, but it's true.
The students at Cornish are supposed to be less polished; they're receiving bachelor's degrees, while the UWers are being declared masters in their field. In general, the art by the UW students, on display at the Henry Art Gallery, is competent. It's also sedate. With a few exceptions, it feels small in scope, and in some cases, shriekingly derivative. Has news of the hot art market reached all the way into UW classes and sent students scrambling to offer their most obeisant selves to dealers rather than to push the limits of what they can do? Or does graduate school itself feed complacency?
It's no coincidence that the two artists who stand out are the ones whose works seem the least fixed, the least contained in the gallery, the ones still squirming with play: Fred Muram and Matthew VanHorn.
Muram made three modest videos: one of him being fed a hamburger by three hands (two of a pair and one misfit, as if in reference to the clunky collage effect of early digital manipulation); one of him struggling comically inside a plaid blanket; and one with writing on his palms and the backs of his hands indicating his left and right and your left and right, with his voiceover reiterating the written phrases. Each video has its charms, but each is easily criticized, too, as if it were built with intentional chinks in its armor. They are actually part of a larger performance series (not included in this show) in which Muram narrates and critiques his own work.
VanHorn's piece, titled "Yes," she said... yes, is a giant crouching monkey made of scrap wood (and with a beard that looks like a frayed used carpet fragment), a big bright yellow tub, and a bunny costume. VanHorn says he intends to wear the costume to interact with the objects. As the story builds, other objects might be substituted, or added. The objects already bear the marks of contingency: the sculptures stand on wheels, the costume is apprehensive on its coat rack. Even the artist doesn't know where this piece will go, but given the uncanny attraction of the objects, I'm inclined to give it a chance.
Other artists worth watching are Michael Simi (is his Beef Stew Monster stalking visitors or imploring them?), Benjamin Eckman (do not miss his folk-artist statement), Nola Avienne (one hopes she is not quickly running out of things to do with metal filings), and Aitana de la Jara (whose large paintings are conventional, but feel devotional, and true). Already humming along nicely in his practice is Ross Sawyers, who has shown his photographs of false interiors at SOIL and CoCA, and who'll solo at Platform Gallery in July.
The art at UW has a lot of robotic moving parts. Cornish, meanwhile, is all body, in states ranging from muscular spasm (Robert Randall) to pleasant sedation (Jessamyn Johns, Justin L'Amie). (The show has already closed.) The women are in the lead. I'm taking down the names of Nicole Laverty (for her video of herself as a dirty old man and a pigtailed girl), Rachel Setzer (for her White House made of birth-control-pill packages), Ashley Bubacz (her sugar-decorated eggs with tiny disaster scenes inside), Madison Stratford (her acerbic celebrity collages fashioned using gauche lights and a handheld label-maker include the line "Everything I need to know I learned from [dealer] Greg Kucera"), Laura Kinney (dirt and delicacy), and Redd Walitzki (her Victorian digital animation).
Almost every one of these women is also showing weak work, which is fine for now. It's the sparks you look for
The Fine Art of Pushing Yourself
Wisdom from Robert Genn
While it's generally a good idea to move in the direction of
successes and proficiencies, from time to time it's also
valuable to take a look at weaknesses. Pros try to understand
and disarm them. Amateurs either deny them or don't know they
exist. Here are a few thoughts on the fine art of pushing
yourself:
It's painful, but you need to make a "baddy inventory." You
need to identify no more than three at a time. If you pick too
many, the task overwhelms and discouragement can set in. Homing
in on specific areas of difficulty is easier if you see them as
"zones of temporary avoidance."
Get specific. Be honest. Give instructions. Make notes to
yourself: "Due to the persistent and chronic failure of looking
and seeing, my trees have become overly simplified, clichéd,
and limited in species identification. I must now resurface
with baby eyes and look again at trees. I must step outside in
all lights, open my eyes to variety, and rethink arboreal
anatomy by notation and sketch."
There's no better cure for mediocrity than a dose of truth. And
there's no better reason for taking the cure than the
challenge. Fall in love with potential accomplishment. Central
to this process is the realization that it's a personal quest.
It's not a mentor or instructor but the trees themselves that
give the demos and crits. Taking this course and building
accomplishments one by one is like putting shiny new coins into
your pocket. Accumulated pushes lead to creative wealth.
To push yourself to higher ground you need an attitude. The
attitude is both achievable and hard won. It's possible to be
deceived that this attitude is the result of natural causes.
Further, it's easy to give credit to what seems to be inborn
talent or irregular creative genius. Digging deeper, the better
artists often have many "eureka" moments when the way forward
is seen to be clearer. Eureka can happen by simply looking at
your hands and realizing that you have everything you need to
overcome. "Genius," said Thomas Edison, "is one percent
inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Perspiring
is part of the attitude. Evolved creators are just as curious
about their failures as they are of their successes.
PS: "If I have accomplished anything good, then it's mainly
because I've been driven by the need to know whether I can
accomplish things I'm not sure I have the capacity for."
(Vaclav Havel, playwright)
Esoterica: We artists are fortunate in that most of our tasks,
while often daunting, are also relatively pleasant. The
art-push needs to be noble and yet modest--one step at a time.
Helen Keller noted, "I long to accomplish a great and noble
task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as
though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not
only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the
aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." This is
the nature of our theatre. "Work," when it involves "play," may
just be the key to "push." In the words of Arnold Toynbee, "The
supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and
play." To perspire in play is to know progress.
While it's generally a good idea to move in the direction of
successes and proficiencies, from time to time it's also
valuable to take a look at weaknesses. Pros try to understand
and disarm them. Amateurs either deny them or don't know they
exist. Here are a few thoughts on the fine art of pushing
yourself:
It's painful, but you need to make a "baddy inventory." You
need to identify no more than three at a time. If you pick too
many, the task overwhelms and discouragement can set in. Homing
in on specific areas of difficulty is easier if you see them as
"zones of temporary avoidance."
Get specific. Be honest. Give instructions. Make notes to
yourself: "Due to the persistent and chronic failure of looking
and seeing, my trees have become overly simplified, clichéd,
and limited in species identification. I must now resurface
with baby eyes and look again at trees. I must step outside in
all lights, open my eyes to variety, and rethink arboreal
anatomy by notation and sketch."
There's no better cure for mediocrity than a dose of truth. And
there's no better reason for taking the cure than the
challenge. Fall in love with potential accomplishment. Central
to this process is the realization that it's a personal quest.
It's not a mentor or instructor but the trees themselves that
give the demos and crits. Taking this course and building
accomplishments one by one is like putting shiny new coins into
your pocket. Accumulated pushes lead to creative wealth.
To push yourself to higher ground you need an attitude. The
attitude is both achievable and hard won. It's possible to be
deceived that this attitude is the result of natural causes.
Further, it's easy to give credit to what seems to be inborn
talent or irregular creative genius. Digging deeper, the better
artists often have many "eureka" moments when the way forward
is seen to be clearer. Eureka can happen by simply looking at
your hands and realizing that you have everything you need to
overcome. "Genius," said Thomas Edison, "is one percent
inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Perspiring
is part of the attitude. Evolved creators are just as curious
about their failures as they are of their successes.
PS: "If I have accomplished anything good, then it's mainly
because I've been driven by the need to know whether I can
accomplish things I'm not sure I have the capacity for."
(Vaclav Havel, playwright)
Esoterica: We artists are fortunate in that most of our tasks,
while often daunting, are also relatively pleasant. The
art-push needs to be noble and yet modest--one step at a time.
Helen Keller noted, "I long to accomplish a great and noble
task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as
though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not
only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the
aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." This is
the nature of our theatre. "Work," when it involves "play," may
just be the key to "push." In the words of Arnold Toynbee, "The
supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and
play." To perspire in play is to know progress.
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