Each December I take a moment to reflect on the past year and try to peer into the next. It’s an agenda-less non-ritual with a few symbolic visuals, good smells, candles, flowers, and cowbells. This year I carried objects of continuing fascination to my (slab-roller) altar. I also brought my lists: 2016’s Successes and Suckages and 2017’s Future Games. This writing is intended to be my last post for this year, so I will dwell on 2016’s Gumbo of the Sublime and see you back here bright and early in 2017 to discuss what else I can see on the creative horizon and how you and I can meet there.
We’ve been reading Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful in my Beastly Beauty Philosophy Class. Not gonna lie, it’s tricky stuff and I’m glad I got this far in life before attempting it, because I have the fortitude of undaunted age to hang it on. The best part of getting through Kant is that he delivers: there’s a big fat nougatty nugget of truth as a reward for swimming in that 18th century wordalicious deep end and here it is:
Beauty is SUBJECTIVE!!!!!
The hell you say, because you, in your Kant-free state, already knew it: Eye of the Beholder and all that. And, sometimes bad is bad too. But how do you tell? And why should you care to? Can you change your mind? What if it’s just as vital to say what’s NOT beautiful? Is that a truer root of taste and discernment? Does any other opinion besides your own really count? Let’s discuss with a visual.
Here it comes, the Yuletide season, the holder of both our dreams and our culminations. SO many cultures have important festivals right now. I think I read there were 29 of them between November 1 and sometime in early January. You know, regardless of the occasion, it’s a pretty sure thing that there will be a lot of eating and maybe even more drinking. Coffee, tea, hot cocoa. Eggnog, mulled wine, mead. You might want a few special cups. Some for you and some to share or give. I’ve got a great idea for how you can find some unique handmade ones from where you are right now.Read More >
Graphic courtesy of A Modern Blog by kchaloux.blogspot.com
Knowing me as you all do now, you might think I made up Stuckism, especially when I’m bemoaning creative blocks. I did not. It’s legit, though. See that turquoise circle down there on the lower right, sticking out beyond all those played-out Post-modernisms? It’s in the vanguard, but taking aim over its shoulder at Art’s 20th Century Pompous Bad Guys: “Against conceptualism, hedonism and the cult of the ego-artist,” proclaims the subhead on their Twenty Point Manifesto from 1999. I like Stuckism, it’s cheeky and makes more than a few savory points I can relate to. It may also have saved my artistic soul. So let’s cherry pick and see how the thoughts of some grumpy British painters apply to a philosophical American ceramicista.
Mamma Mia! Here’s a new one: What if a bunch of artists got together for a group show made up entirely of personal renditions of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa? All media welcome. Could be a rollick and I said, “Sì Sì.”
Sometimes an artist just needs to go wandering. It’s good for refreshment, perspective, inspiration. Good for body, mind, spirit. In college I took the train back to school in Santa Barbara a couple of times. It was better by far than a rideshare car, the Greyhound or a small plane. For one thing, the train is smooth and level, and for another, one can walk around. Plus that particular section of Amtrak’s Coast Starlight – San Jose to Santa Barbara – passes by always-interesting and at times spectacular, world-class countryside. So, while I have been away from the studio and exhibits this week, I have not been without a fascinating and poignant trip to stir up the juices. Here are some highlights from the journey South.
For this discussion, PTCS means “Post Traumatic Critique Syndrome” and Defectology, means focusing on lack and limitation.
A Story
I can still see my Beginning Painting instructor’s bushy 70s walrus mustache motating as he critiqued – no, outright criticized – my certainly awful attempt at the current assignment: paint a self-portrait as a famous person. On a 3’x4′ canvas I had modeled a full-bodied gesture of Greek-robed, barefooted Isadora Duncan in mid-bound and was having trouble putting my features onto it at all convincingly. I particularly remember the mustache’s emphatic contract/expand curl as he sneered the word “dumpy” in slow motion. “IS-a-dora DUN-can WAS NOT DUM-PEE! ” he intoned as he was actually looking down his nose at me.
Thing is, this guy worked hard in his critiques at tearing apart the whole line-up of our work. I was not singled out here, but by the time he got to me I was seething. At the sight of that slo-mo sneering ‘stache, I blinked. Out of hot shame and powerlessness, I sputtered back with all I had: my born fightin’ Ulster-Scot sense of justice and fairplay. “We already know our work is bad!!!!!” I yelped, “Why don’t you help us see what’s good about it???? Or at least suggest what we could try to make it better????”
I wish I could tell you what happened afterwards, or even the rest of the semester, but soon after that episode I had an emergency appendectomy and took an Incomplete. Within the year allowed to remedy the INC, I returned to his office with several other paintings I had done without the torment of his criticism. I got a B. Not sure it’s a direct consequence, but I have never taken another painting class.
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