Last night I went to an artist panel hosted by the local creative arts association that I just joined. The topic was basically how we write ant talk about art, and how we *should* be and what ways are helpful to engage the public. We had a journalist, historian, and a director from a gallery that works in tandem with MECA.
We talked about how art is a business and how culture/art and the economy go hand in hand. Art festivals are great because people who wouldn’t usually go to a gallery will come and be exposed to the arts. We talked about how the arts in Maine are changing and picking up speed, how many people really do care about the arts even if their not vocal about it, and we talked about how there are so many opportunities to learn, or to teach and make it all accessible.
What struck me
We talked a bit about how to know what good art is and how a lot of that is subjective. How people today have advantages to “build their eye” because we can see everything on the internet. Not just art, but subconsciously, design. How the biggest thing we can do to develop our “eye” is to keep looking. everywhere. cartoons, internet, books, galleries, fairs. Art is everywhere and becoming more and more accessible. We can learn anything we need to with the tools that we have at our fingertips (not to discount classes…). But, we need to start a dialogue. We’re not used to having honest discussions about art, and we should be having those conversations.
I wrote a lot more in my notebook that makes sense to me, but I can’t translate it into a coherent post separated from the context in the ink strokes. I write in lines, and when I see them I understand the context and the subtext on a subconscious level, but getting that out of the lines and ink and into words on a screen takes a while of chewing and musing and letting the words create themselves.
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Shortly after my meeting in August I went through my old notebook and wrote down a few things about my art – what movements I identify with, what I’d like to improve/want to see, and what I need to do.
my art is inspired by:
idealism – art is imagination, psyche over body
mannerism – perspective less important, idealized figures
romanticism – authentic, intuition, non utilitarian
post/impressionism – not telling morals, follow own vision, emotional
aestheticism – art for the sake of art, subtle moods/color
post/modernism – exploration of vision, noticing the world changing, art is imperfect
futurism – new and vital, celebrates technology
I want:
to have more depth in my figures so they look less flat. To learn how to create more convincing backgrounds and how to create glowing effects/more luminosity. To learn how to shade better
I need:
to practice and research everything I want to get better at and understand.
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It must be a weird thing, because I trust my ability to find things on the internet more than my ability to find what I’m looking for in a book. I think my biggest fear is: a book, is a book, it’s there, it’s not changing or updating, I could find a book that could be erroneous or horribly outdated and I wouldn’t really know. I could get an art history book that’s huge, but might have less accuracy because of the time and viewpoint of it’s writing. So I’m weirdly more apt to trust a google search and look at multiple sources and hope that I get a more whole view. The problem is finding out where to start. I did a search on VanGogh last week, I guess I’ll just search for things as I feel like I should learn about them and when I’m inspired to look up particular topics.
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Anyway, after the meeting I feel a mix of self conscious in my creating and validated in my quirky methods (cartoons/tv + internet). I’m still very much trying to bridge the gap and everyone in that room has been creating for years, and I presume, have closed that gap. Although, I suppose, I shouldn’t assume that. Then again, I was the youngest in the room, and I’m pretty sure I’m the youngest in the group. I have so much to learn, and honestly it’s a bit intimidating. Doesn’t help that I have this thing where I jump between different things, which is great for me because then I learn a variety at once, but hard when I need to figure out what to start first. Maybe I’ll make a list of things to research and then go through that. It might be easier to do if it’s not “RESEARCH ALL THE THINGS!”.
If you’ve made it this far without being bored from my rambling, thank you. With that I’ll leave you with a bit of something I wish I remembered more often. From Pinterest. 
