Monday 6 August 2012

The difficulties of being an artist and how i see things explained

I have a problem with being an artist but I have a problem with being anything else.

When I look at other artists, I have the same disparaging view as I get from what I know when they say, 'I am an artist'.  Mainly because I studied so many artists at University and worked at more than a few Galleries after studying Fine Art in the same establishments that they went to instead of to LEARN THE THEORY FROM OTHER ARTISTS so I know a little more about what being an artist MEANS.

I am anti-establishment and daily have the same restlessness that other artists in time have had.  This unsettling unhappiness with the way that other people cannot see the world or daily life in the same eyes as I can is something that I struggle with my patience for.  I am interested in graphic design and advertising but could not happily work for someone else in an office as I have tried this before and it is just a waste of spurted energy as I come across so many people living life in THEIR way which is so diamettrically opposite to how I live MY LIFE.  I question myself in the role of an artist every second of everyday.  It is not a pleasant feeling because as an artist, you are outside of the box and it is a LONELY affair.  And the loneliness only gets worse the more you stay in the real world of other people than if you were to resign yourself to the way you are as an artist and try to settle that inner innate question of changing how people SEE THINGS.  THAT is the only thing that could settle my inner turmoil.  And it IS an inner turmoil.  SIMPLY BECAUSE it is so out of the box.

Even now I question why to be an artist instead of some guy in advertising or a graphic designer.  But to me, the art of a graphic designer is very much about the similiar way of getting peoples attention to change the way they look at things, it's just that you have to be GOOD at doing a job.  And you have to therefore be in the same system which as an artist you are outside of - the commercial sector.  Or the corporate sector.  To be a convincing artist, the problem of even charging for your work is a GREAT ONE.

Because you are questioning all of the time, the work you make is a response to the inner question, and THAT THEREFORE BECAUSE it is art you are making, why put any price on it at all?  You have to put a grandiose price upon it as that is funny and a laugh at the whole establishment that you don't believe in. (The capitalist one) SO the only way to MAKE MORE of your social response to in the form of art, IS TO SELL your work in the first instance.  As THEN you can make MORE stuff which is therefore using more expensive materials which therefore captures the imagination of the buyer more as it is more expensive in PROCESS.


BUT THE PROCESS OF MAKING ART IS THE EXACT SAME WHETHER YOU USE THE FINEST MATERIAL OR THE LOWEST BUDGET MATERIAL EVER.  As they say, a toolsman blames his tools.  When your tools are fabulously good (And looking at my drawings I know this to be true) then it is inconsequential what tools you use EXCEPT FOR them you being a slave to the establishment that buys your work in order for you to make more.  And if you MAKE MORE work and it IS MORE FREEING TO BE ABLE TO MAKE BIG MASSIVE WORK as then your work gets seen by more and it MEANS MORE as it is closer to CHANGING PEOPLES PERCEPTION OF HOW THEY SEE, then it is WORTH putting a price on it.  The art market has ALWAYS revolved around the normal economic market as it is quite unquantifiable.  Having knowledge of this myself as I have worked at galleries.

SO, THIS is the way I see things, and it is singular to me.  And my art has changed in its conception as my views on the world have changed, and what unsettles me has changed as I question more and more what I see as people living out fairly boring existances.  Therein the artistic quest is more needed to be heard, and therein I am yet more troubled as I sound YET MORE mental as I think in an 'Out-there' kind of way, and it would make everyones lives easier (my parents especially) if I just got a job and didn't follow this silly thing about art.  But it has always been my only interest and the only cure for my restless nature.  That is the way that I am wired.  I cannot help the way that I am wired but I CAN help myself by just going with it.  Even though one is up against a LOT of shit as an artist (And fellow artists that produce poor examples of art being on fine example.  I do not want to be within the same defined brackets as MEDIOCRE artists.  And I have AVOIDED that by avoiding being caught-up in the shit quagmire that so-called artists are up in at the moment)


Here is a formula for how I see things - 

Colour - you see first (As you feel it)
Form - you see second as you SEE it in the empirical world around you
EQUALS (an infinite thing so You can go back on the equation at any time and put it in any way at all and it still is there making sense)
Light - what you see (My formula is qualifying SEEING itself)

So, as a formula it is (C + F = L)2

But within that, F - for Form, already has a formula.  So you would insert the formula for F within those brackets if you wanted to, in order to describe more detail)

C = colour (That initial thing you see even when you close your eyes (Thought)  Automatic writing could connate te same.  But essenatilly it is the REASON WHY purple the colour is known as the third-eye in spiritually engaged people)

L = light, = vision (The whole thing about vision is it comes as one (infinity) with colour and form)



But I need structure in order to communicate this formula ~ A PICTURE.  The ONLY WAY to DESCRIBE seeing things in this way is to draw/paint it.  It doesn't need to effect social change, it is just a dialogue with other art works that have influenced me over time and what I actually believe in.

Vision is inifinite.

A thought -

If you were to think in an abstract way, therefore not paying attention to detail, then you need the structure of a grid in order to make a flying thought rational,  As people we need rational and read newspapers that are all according to a grid.  (The bare format of a newspaper, or of graphic design)

Therefore, abstract thought only makes sense in a readable way when positied with rational grid, (linerar thought) nonetheless it makes sense anyway as it is metaphysics (philosphy in its essential form).

This is a mixture of an old piece I wrote when I was fixated on metaphysics.  But you need to think about how and why and what which IS physics, in order to see the space in life.  The space in life that the Cubists pointed out or the space in life today which font-designers point out.  The reasons as to WHY the arial font is more readable to you, the reasons for THE EFFECT that a font has on HOW YOU READ SOMETHING.  How we can be affected by the space of feeling in life all around us on a daily basis if only we looked at things more.


HERE IS MY MANIFESTO I used for a recent show.  It should explain the tenets of my own theory. 



Yes, finally breaking through into a new type of deconstruction.

Quite glad to have arrived at this point. The gaps between the letters typed into a facebook message for example. My 'show' will only be hoping loads of other people can just use my old stuff for whatever they want to, wipe their nose on it, write a poem over it, step on it. All of that kind of stuff. Not a performance piece. Originality is banality to a certain extent.

All about things not going according to plan. Just a bunch of paper. And a bunch of people. Trying to get that FIGURATIVE space to make the essential marks. If a mark is even needed. Fuck whatever else according to whatever else themes.

It's about not owning anything you make. It's not why I made things, like drawings. Drawings are copying. Essentially. Drawing past that, is the more interesting thing. That ledge between ledgibe and unledgible. That part that makes everyone feel a bit disturbed, the [out=there] ness.

That makes sense to me. So empirical stuff is just not challenging enough these days.

Phew, that was a big message wasn't it. But it is helpful to me to think through what might happen, or might not happen. That bit BEFORE thought - THAT is WHAT i am interested in. What even IS THAT?!

ha.


Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha 






2 comments:

  1. This is a formula seperate from motion or etc. It qualifies things that move at a static level.

    Ignore other thoughts on what anything other than seeing is. That helps. Because otherwise it becomes very confused indeed. Just the ACT of seeing is the question within this formula.

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  2. AND SOUND is also disqualified from this equation. Sound is something separate. It is the essential metaphysics of that thing that is not describable in other ways that I am interested in.

    Sound is part of the feeling. Which goes alongside it. But you see sound, within the same brackets of feeling and colour and structure. (A piece of music has bars (structure you can grasp with an attention span) and also a swift conclusion. Never more than 3 or so minutes to get across that abstract feeling.

    Children are normally capable of concentrating according to their age. So a 3 yr old concentrates for 3 minutes, myself as a 25 yr old, can concentrate for 25 minutes. It is as simple as that. Ignore sound from this equation as it is the very indescribable thing that is the feeling at a metaphysics level.

    Which THEN gets very confusing.

    IGNORE being confused. Just follow a simple formula. I can prove my formula very easily through using brackets and other formulas already in existance if you asked me to. But a formula should just be simple. Read it as you will.

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