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Crossroads....
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Message
Posted
No, I haven't started wearing a Benny type knitted hat yet, but I really do feel I'm at some sort of an artistic crossroads with no map or compass as guides. To explain; I've drawn, if not painted, most of my life, pleasure and technical as I worked a s a project manager/designer for quite a few years. I have to see all that time as learning and improving from constant practise. Now, after all those years all I feel I want to do is bow reverently in the direction of the Rembrandts ,Constables and all the other what I term, "photographic detail artists" and pass on to the gallery of utter simplicity.
I really enjoy making little mean much but somehow feel a bit guilty, maybe even lazy, for preferring this approach, but it's more and more the way I want to go. More than ever before, I can begin to understand the direction several real artists too and the obvious examples of it happening; Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, indeed all the impressionist artists who changed direction. What I really need to know is can any of you relate to the feeling or desire to explore new horizons (even at my Methuz alah age group). I'm still having a lot of fun and pleasure from art, but in a totally different way. Am I ready for the knackers yard ...or what, and why the vague feeling of guilt? Can anyone relate?
Posted
Glad your feeling a bit better Jim and upto posting and doing a bit again. Yay!!!
Art is for you to personally enjoy no one else, if others enjoy looking at it then it's a bonus. Do what makes you happy and what you enjoy. If it's finger painting or a technical masterpiece it doesn't matter. It's all art and it's all personal to you. The main thing is that your enjoying doing it.
I'm still finding my way, I don't really know my style yet, or my medium, i like to try new things, learn new things and experience new things. It's fab to be a master in one art form but once you do master it then try something new. It's good for the mind.
Don't feel guilt your just moving in a new direction. It's a new phase of your life. Some people buy fast cars, some people get new wives, some get tattoos, you cheat on your usual art form 😂😂 there's worse things in life.
Posted
You're certainly not alone here. I've been painting watercolours for years and have sold very successfully for an amateur artist. I do still enjoy commission work (I've done 8 so far this year) and I still do demonstrations and run workshops locally which I get great satisfaction from. However beyond this I get bored with painting watercolours just for personal pleasure. I am not exhibiting in local exhibitions any more - they seem to be more trouble than they are worth. Also (and now I'll get into trouble here on POL ) I find the vast majority of paintings in the gallery to be predictable and - yes - boring. BUT I am still experimenting and love my simplistic line drawings and abstract works - I find them exciting and love the unpredictably of them. On top of this my poetry is taking on a life of its own with quite a few now having been published - I have a catalogue of over 600 works which I am adding to almost a daily.
Heres another Senryu (Japanese form 575 syllables) which expresses my thoughts on abstract work:
Reality free
Space for the mind to travel
Imagination.
So yes I can relate.
Edited
by MichaelEdwards
Posted
Many of us arrive at the crossroads. Robert Johnson (blues musician) sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads; Eric Clapton's Crossroads centres help to bring hardened alcoholics back into the real world (after going through rehab himself more than once); I turned professional as a musician when I could have gone back to investment banking.
You make the decision you think works best for you and follow the path that calls you loudest; that makes it the right decision even if it's the unexpected one.
Posted
I guess we've all noticed a shift in some of your recent posts, but there's not the slightest reason to feel guilt, however vague. All you can ever do in art is what YOU want to do, and if that means a change of tack that's just fine. So get on with it, Jim, and enjoy it. I like to try different styles occasionally, but with me it's just once in a while. Any 'shift' in my output has been towards more work in sketchbooks. In them, I feel free to do whatever I want without being tied down to too much reference work. That's a slightly nonsensical thing to say, because I'm free to do whatever I want anyway...I don't make pictures to sell, I make them because I like doing it. Luckily, the gallery features a lot of sketchbook work, if I didn't post sketches, I'd hardly post anything at all. I can relate slightly to the 'guilt' thing...chiefly because I'm posting sketches when other people are posting full blown paintings. I suppose when people stop looking at them, I'll stop posting them. Thinking over my efforts this year, most of my better work has been in my sketchbooks anyway. (If I were to make a shift it would be to work entirely in my sketchbooks...and what would it matter if that's the way I wanted to go?)
So, just do it, Jim.
Posted
I'm not sure I can just jump into any one style. I'm not sure I even have a set one. I draw and paint so many different things, but sometimes I feel I'm going over old ground rather than new, but I really do wish I'd experienced another slower older era rather than this one. History fascinates me and everything seems so rapid and passes so quickly today.. I'm not unhappy with any of it, but just unsure of where I'm at. It'll pass soon enough, no doubt, these things always do........as Mr Bennet would observe...Paint on meanwhile....hehe:
Posted
Definitely not ready for the knackers yard Jim. And it is really good to keep exploring new horizons whatever one's age, that's what keeps us going. And why feel guilty? Personally I really enjoy your lovely freestyle work, and limitless imagination, I don't comment on all of your paintings but do on a selection. The main thing is that you're enjoying the direction you're heading so keep going, you give a lot of pleasure to the rest of us too. All the best with those new horizons Jim.
Posted
There's nothing wrong with wanting to try something new, Jim.
Just keep in mind we all have our 'natural' way of painting, and to alter it, might, be a great challenge. Don't let it get to the point of frustration
that you give up on painting just because you can't get the hang of it.
Like Michael, I have been practicing the genre of short form poetry, and have come a long way in the last eighteen months, not perfect but, getting there.
I've gone back to calligraphy, and am now interested, also, in a more modern form of 'lettering' this also includes art work, so keeping my hand in.
Go for it, Jim, and enjoy the experience. Just give it time. Most of all keep painting.