THE JOY AND FUN OF CREATING ART.

I always find that Slipknot provide a nice backing track for painting :)

Music'smy day job, and evening job; oh, and weekend job too. Outside of that I can barely go ten minutes with the radio on before I'm irritated by the mindless drivel coming from the presenter, so when I'm sitting down with a sketchbook and a pencil I find it better to work in more or less total silence. We live surrounded by farmland; summer birdsong is a most excellent soundtrack.

Much of the discussion here can be gathered under ideas and opinions around what is art? Or maybe Art, what is it? What puzzles—and frequently frustrates—me is that when people, who I will refer to here as ‘traditionalists’ for want of a convenient term, speak of art they most usually quote the authority of the ‘old masters’; the oil-painting technique used to portray the real world in what I will, for convenience, call a ‘photographic’ realism. This is usually presented as the keystone, the foundation, the absolute, against which all else must be judged. There are many writings on how and why this ‘tradition’ came about from Berger’s brief Ways of Seeing to Hockney’s more comprehensive Secret Knowledge. But go back not very many years before the establishment of oil painting as a specific technique and it’s clear to see that depicting that same kind of photo-realism in painting was not the first concern of the artists. Look at the perspective on, for example, an early medieval manuscript page and—judged by that standard—it’s laughable. Look at the Egyptian depictions of the human figure and it’s easy to see that they are depicted in a manner that is not about a ‘likeness’. So how—or more accurately why—did this form of ‘art’ become the standard by which everything must be judged? Read either of the above books to get an insight into that. It’s a ‘way of seeing’, a European way and because Europe dominated the world for so long, the European ‘way of seeing’ has dominated art. Chinese perspective for example is very different and bears more comparison with pre-Renaissance Europe than with post-Renaissance. So how does this relate to “…just slurping paint…” around? The abstract painters of the first half of the 20thC demonstrated that art (‘…early 13c., “skill as a result of learning or practice,” (Online Etymological Dictionary)) can depict abstract ideas, concepts etc. Were Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline or a hundred other Abstract Expressionist painters just slurping paint around? One may or may not ‘like’ such works, but that’s something else entirely. I would suggest that the fluid painting that Adele describes can be, as she says just fun or it might also be done “…as a result of learning or practice” and, I would add, integrity. The ‘skill’ (as a result of learning or practice) is knowing when to say enough perhaps; is knowing and appreciating the ‘lost and found’ qualities. Much of my own landscape drawing and painting involves the accidental to a significant degree. The constant question is when to stop, should I lose this bit? Have I found something here? When to say it’s finished. And I often look at the photos I take as a work progresses and think ‘maybe I should have stopped there’. As for the distinction that seems often to be made here between ‘serious’ art and art as a hobby, well why can’t a hobby be serious? A subject for serious study. And in anticipation of someone coming back with the working full-time comment, I'm not saying it must be serious. I watched a programme last night about Japan and a Zen garden was featured. There were fifteen rocks in the garden but from any position around the garden it was possible to see only fourteen rocks. Why? Because it reminds us that we can never see (know) everything. I like that a lot.

Examples of pretentious art-speak are not hard to find and it is regrettable that artists often feel the need or feel obliged—or are persuaded perhaps—to use such language, however I think it’s important to keep in mind a number of things. For example— • That the words are not the work (although they do have an impact and when I come across such art-speak I find it harder to give the work itself a fair break). • That art is a form of visual communication and just as a TV ad you don’t understand is probably not directed at you, an artwork may have an appeal to those with a particular experience—an experience that is not your own. Art works that seek to portray an accurate likeness will, of course, appeal to a much wider audience because they have associations in photographic representation, and we’re all exposed to that a thousand times a day (…not knowing anything about art, but knowing what I like…is fine but do you want to expand your knowledge and understanding or not? It can be great fun and it may also promote good mental health). So obvious is it that the Cubists (for example) were not seeking to portray this kind of accurate likeness that is ridiculous to come within a mile of ‘seeing’ them in a similar way. landscapeart—the implication in your …easier to learn non-traditional skills… remark is that art should be difficult. Where does that come from? The implication in your …attending courses… remark seems to be going in almost the opposite direction. As to being accessible to the public, see above. My own particular blind spots are what I refer to a the brown stuff. That is to say that the rooms in my local gallery that contain the dark, varnished paintings in ornate frames are just rooms I might have to walk through to get to the good stuff. But, I maintain, my dismissal is not unthinking. Those works (most usually) portray a world I don’t relate to in imagery that has little or no meaning for me and therefore do not excite or inspire me. My contemporary blind spots are ‘installations’ especially the video kind. They seem, so often, ill-considred, lazy and evoke a yeah…that’s like what Andy Warhol was doing in the sixties response from me.

I've been a writer - I've been a painter. And I still am both, when I can be bothered to be either. I don't wish to describe my painting in words - though I suppose I do sometimes illustrate my writing; not sure how much, really. But these are separate disciplines. I don't believe you can, or should, seek to explain painting or any other artwork in words - if you have to do that, you should have written about it in the first place. You can write about methods, theories, technical details - but if you rely on writing to explain your actual work - it'll never ever work: if the painting, or whatever, doesn't say it, your words never will.

There are far too many nevers and shoulds for me. It's very limiting and tends towards just reproducing the much same thing over and again.