Feeling Catty
September 8, 2008
Sometimes (as now) a blog is a good place to gripe. Imagine me on the other side of your fence. You ask me how I’m doing, so I decide to give you an earful. (Nice weather we’re having, though.)
Yesterday I saw a spread in a North Carolina newspaper (I’m still here, but should be getting home soon I hope). Anyway, it was a whole page devoted to art events. It consisted almost entirely of photographs. One particularly caught my attention, and if it didn’t bring out the nicest side of my personality — well, perhaps I can be forgiven.
A fashionably dressed young man was posed sitting in a wingback chair. Behind him stood his even more elegantly dressed and very attractive wife. The two were pictured inside the premises of what the paper said was a “cutting edge” gallery in town. And to one side, one could partly make out portions of the young man’s “art.”
My first thought was “congratulations to him for what must obviously be some exceptional marketing skills.” My second less kind thought bubble was: “too bad he can’t paint worth a damn.”
It grates on my nerves (might as well be honest over here at the fence) that I feel an unseemly bit of disgust at a young artist-in-quotes getting this kind of attention when quite clearly (to me at least) his “work” doesn’t merit it. Work. Geeze. It was the old cliche of “I could do that” and then some. Anyone could do what he does. Take heart all ye beginners! That’s assuming his “work” has anything in it worth emulating.
Few of us get our pictures in the papers. (Didn’t I just moments ago say artists are shy?) I’ve been in the newspaper once, but in my case, thank goodness, I actually had to compete with my painting for attention. We were posed together like sisters. But even then, it was the subject matter of my painting that got the attention not the art of my painting. I’m still waiting on the art thing … I’ll let you guys be the first to know when my ideas are getting the publicity.
So, why does one feel a grudge? Sour grapes? I don’t think so. It bugs me not because the young man is doing well. It bugs me that he is doing well when so many more deserving artists are being ignored. It bugs me his not having to pay any dues. More than that — it bugs me that he evidently has no interest in the dues. I would never have consented to have myself and my painting prominently displayed in a newspaper if my paintings looked like his. Sometimes it is meet to be demure.
The whole point of art is the art. The artist is the first and chief beneficiary of that, let’s be honest. What you learn in looking at the world, what you learn in making the true attempt to record life (regardless what your level of ability), what you get from the act of seeing and drawing, all those things become products of your mind, parts of your soul. They compose the memories you will carry around with you in life. They are hardly trivial!
But what, I ask you, is the point of anyone’s striving when the trivial attempts are trumpeted abroad?
Well, what you see is what you get. Quite literally. Though the papers be filled with the cheap and easy products of fake effort, no one who really loves art should ever lose heart. What you see is what you get. And the seeing of it — that’s life — that’s the living of it. In art you can live ideas.
Art is not for the faint of heart. If it matters to you, go blindly down the road. Just do it. (Not like a shoe commercial, but for real.)
Meanwhile, here at the fence, do you think we’re likely to get any rain?
Second Resume Bullet: I griped to my neighbor and drew a picture of an annoyed cat.
September 9, 2008 at 12:09 am
I hope we get some rain, we need some. I know how you feel and that you already know that this is how artists have felt forever and ever. There are 17th Century gripes from Ben Johnson and co on the same theme. In the writing world it is a well known fact that a pretty face will get you published quicker than a creative approach. The whole business side of art is a marketing scam, always has been. Anyway, those clouds are rolling in. I better get the washing off the line. Have a fantabulous day.
September 9, 2008 at 1:38 am
Paul, I think this has got to be one of the sweetest comments anyone’s ever left here. Thank you! Aletha
September 10, 2008 at 1:24 pm
You must paint for yourself and yourself alone. The acclaim of others (except those whos opinion you value) is mostly worthless. Being recognized, rich, famous, etc won’t make you better and if you have internalized what is valueable in your work, won’t make you happy either. Of course, a little of that money might bring a slight smile to your face.
Just paint – screw the rest of the world – let them watch baseball or tennis where they make all those grunting sounds.
September 10, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I agree completely. One does need to survive, though. Also, while painting for yourself, you are related to the world. Trying to find connections to the life around you can be part of one’s art.
I used to think of painting as only what I do for myself, and I must admit that commissions and things like that can test one’s patience. Yet most of the great art of history was made “to order.” Artists of the past found ways to be true to their own way of seeing, while making art that addressed ideas of their culture.
It’s a conundrum. But it helps to vent one’s frustrations from time to time. And then, too, when other artists feel this way also. They realize they’re not alone.
My disappointment with the young artist was precisely that he was trying to garner attention by doing the expected thing, but he has missed out on art’s real value — the ways that it teaches you about life. A genuine form of art is like reaching your hand out and touching something that actually exists. The world is there to be explored through our senses, and inside this mystery is found “reality.” But to get caught up in an artificial world of culture and convention, what is that? It is like reaching out to touch a mirage. It might seem to be there, but really nothing is there.
Except the metaphor breaks down, because in life even a mirage is something (it is light reflected from another location) but the conventions that govern the “art world” are fads, trends, passing ephermera; they are hemlines and hairdoos and advertising jingles. They have no substance. They have no roots in the self or in the soul.
Would that we were paid — even well paid — for being true.
September 10, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Hi Aletha,
good to read you on the other side of the fence.
Le chat est magnifique, pas en colère, plutot portant un regard de philosophe sur la vie, il sait commment ça marche.
Once again I agree with you. Art is made by you and for you, but should not be hidden to others, with all the highs and lows that that visibility brings.
September 10, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Bonjour Benedicte,
Mon chat est bien philosophique. I have to do the rest in English, my brain is sore today.
Yes, art begins with the artist. (Oui, l’art commence avec l’artist.) But the artist needs to be brave, too, and be willing to share his/her works. So, not hidden. (Pas cache.) And showing one’s art to others if fraught with risks.
I guess what I saw in the young artist was an unwillingness to take the full brunt of the risk, going instead for an safe, in this case, conventional “avant garde.”
But I need to tell the other side in a different post, about all the forms of beginning. About putting honest images out there even though they are still traces in one’s search — because nothing is ever perfect … and so forth. My gripe could discourage if read the wrong way.
Degas a dit:
Pierrot plus gai que delicat, dit partout qu’un chat est un chat. Moi, je dit le contraire. Souvent un seul mot en dit beaucoup trop. Mais qu’une gauze fine, sans cache les traits, voile le portrait. Le reste se devine.
I’m doing this par memoire so forgive any possible gaffe, as well as spelling boo boos!
Aletha
September 10, 2008 at 4:27 pm
well, your memoire is pretty good when your brain is sore so must be amazing on normal days.
I like that expression “un chat est un chat”.
I try to remember this when the brouhaha is overwhelming. I draw, I paint because I need to do it, and I am just starting to not minding others to look at it.
The mundane acceptance is an other ball game, some can play in it pretty well, others just can’t, with art or no art.
September 10, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Needing to draw, to paint, is the best reason for doing it. And not minding others looking takes courage, but one wants to be brave, right?
Now I feel like my grumbling at the backyard fence has brought some good effects. So, I feel better.
And by the way, over on my side of the fence, it’s raining!
September 11, 2008 at 12:54 pm
still sunny and cool up north…
yes, wanting to be brave that is good but sometimes it feels like being unconscious( not sure if it is the same as “inconciente ” in french)
your post always bring good discussion
September 11, 2008 at 2:11 pm
J’ai cheche “inconciente” dans Bantam New College French & English Dictionary et trouve: “unconscious, unaware, oblivious; thoughtless; subconscious” et puis, “dazed.”
Avoir de bon courage, c’est difficile parce que si on present son art, on present l’ame. Donc, on a besoin d’un autre identite, possedant maitre de soi pour gagner du distance entre le prive et le publique.
It is hard to say subtle things across languages — to express in a second language an idea that is very nuanced in one’s own. And the difficulty is somewhat like what the artist experiences in trying to draw and paint. In making an image, we are using a “third” language, common to all, the language of sight. Yet every drawing is a translation, in a sense, because this vision is very personal and it has many elements within it of the unknown. And every drawing is an act of creating and making up the language as we go, for there is no one certain method, there’s no “one size fit’s all” for thoughts, and the drawing is itself an exploration as much as it’s a statement of something.
And that! is what really troubled me about the artist young or old who tries to evade the difficulties — who jumps upon a trend and tries to ride it to “success” — because that’s an evasion of all that art really is: the journey into life’s nuance.
L’artist est inconscient quelque fois, comme le disciple du Socrates qui quitte la cavern et qui est frappe par la lumiere! On a besoin du bon courage!