Art & Perception

Stephen Dietz is a playwright I admire greatly, not only for his wonderful, beautifully crafted and deeply insightful plays, but also for his incredible attention to process and craft.  Once, after watching Stephen listening intently to an actor reciting lines that Stephen has just revised during a workshop of one of his plays, I asked him why it was so important to him to hear the words read aloud.  He told me he had learned, long ago, that when he was confronted with a choice in his writing between meaning and sound, to go with sound every time.

A few years ago, I had the extraordinary good fortune to hear one of Stephen’s lectures, in which Stephen proposed what he called “The Four Seductions” – pitfalls that ensnare us and seduce us away from the real business of creating art and instead lead us down blind alleys and stymie our growth as artists. 

Stephen’s list of the Four Seductions is:

• Distrust of Beauty 
• Disparagement of Craft 
• Criticism 
• Blaming the Audience 

Distrust of Beauty – In the current art world, it’s fashionable to advance our work by making it ‘edgy’.  There’s a sort of consensus that ‘beauty’ has been done to death, and that if a work is beautiful, then it  must be passé.   There’s a sense that since beauty is a quality that’s awfully hard to pin down, that it  must therefore be unimportant, and that striving for beauty is a fool’s errand.  It’s a whole heck of a lot easier to provoke an emotional response by doing art that’s gratuitously offensive than it is to make art that arouses a passionate response by making something beautiful.  Because of these pressures, it’s often the case that we’re not attentive enough the place of beauty in our art.  And, before we get caught up in the “I don’t want to just make pretty things”, I’d like to quote Eolake Stobblehouse, who wrote that “Note that beautiful does not necessarily mean pretty. Pretty is Beautiful’s popular sister.”

Disparagement of Craft – Likewise, there’s a sense that craft is not what art is about, and therefore it’s unimportant.  Thus we get plays that are poorly structured, with poorly written dialogue and hopeless plotting, offered up with the excuse that because the subject matter of the play is socially relevant and ‘edgy’ (note the implicit disparagement of beauty) we should excuse the poor craft.  Stephen told an anecdote about going to Europe with his family and some friends, and seeing all the glorious sculptures done by Michangelo, Donatello, et al.  He asked his friend (a sculptor, apparently) why no one did representational sculpture any more.  His friend replied “Because, Stephen, it’s Very Hard to Do.”  Craft is sometimes hard, and the temptation to slip one past can be overwhelming. 

Criticism – It’s far easier to criticize than to create.  There are lots of artists in the world who look at work and say “Hey, I could do that, and do it better”.  But somehow, they never seem to get around to doing the work – they’ve been distracted by the flush they get when they elevate themselves above the productive artist by picking apart work that’s actually been done.  Stephen suggested that when you catch yourself engaging in some criticism, that you should look at what you’re thinking/saying.  Are you trying to figure out what went wrong, and what might be done to put it right?  Or are you looking at the work and trying to find ways to run it down so that you feel superior to the artist? 

Blaming the Audience – Finally, when one of our works of art fails, the temptation is to blame the audience.  They aren’t perceptive enough, they aren’t smart enough, they don’t have the right education, or perhaps they simply aren’t sensitive enough to respond correctly to your work (which you feel is absolutely superlative in every respect).  If only we had the RIGHT audience, we assure ourselves, our work would get the recognition and acclaim it (and we) deserves. 

I’m sure I’ve done an inadequate job of trying to capture Stephen’s ideas accurately – for one thing, he advanced all of this in a far more articulate way than I ever could.  But I heard the lecture a couple of years ago, now, and I find that I’m still turning all these ideas over in my head. If you can look past my meager presentation and try to get to Stephen’s ideas, I think there’s a lot there for consideration. 

This landscape painting by Tracy Helgeson caught my eye. This work is something of a new departure in Tracy’s work, I think. She often works on the border between abstraction and reality, but in this painting there is a cross-over, albeit a subtle one. The result is almost unsettling, but I like it. A question for her is, does she want to go further with this? There is also a psychological element to this landscape painting, as I see it, which captures my attention.

Tracy’s blog raises interesting questions about what it means to be an artist today. In the past, artists liked to cloak themselves and their work in mystery. Tracy is open about her work (good, bad, unfinished) and her difficulties in the process of creating and selling. There is a refreshing and direct quality to her writing style that makes mysterious 20th century artists seem a bit comic in comparison. Is Tracy a good example of what 21th century artists will be doing, or should she hide her unfinished work and cultivate a more refined public image?

Posted by Karl Zipser

I made this painting in the summer of 1985, when I was sixteen years old. I painted it over the course of several mornings, standing on a dock in Woods Hole, Cape Cod. This is one of my first landscape paintings in oil.

I was able to do work like the above because I was part of a group of motivated students in the art class of Walter Bartman, a high school teacher in Bethesda, Maryland. more… »

The difference is evident in the artworks (e.g. paintings) that they buy.

An art patron:

• causes an artwork to be made that would not otherwise exist
• has a direct influence on the content of the artwork (and thus on the creative process itself)

In contrast, a gallery consumer:

• selects a ready-made artwork
• has little or no impact on the creative process

Anyone with money can buy a ready-made artwork. But to be an art patron requires more than that. Besides money, an art patron must have

• a good idea of what the artwork should be about
• discernment to select the best artist for the job
• patience and persistence to deal with problems, delays, and drama that accompany any serious artistic project

Being an art patron is difficult. It is something of a lost art in itself.

The gallery myth

Art is sold in galleries along with a myth:

Art should be created for the sake of art.

This phrase is inherently meaningless. A painting is an inanimate object. The person who buys it does the appreciating.

The gallery myth runs counter to the interests of both the artist and the buyer. This is evident when one considers the economics of making art.

When an artist works for a patron, the goal is to please a real person, and get paid for it. This is a well-defined goal. It gives the artist a focus for creativity, and the assurance that creativity will be rewarded.

When and artist creates works to sell in a gallery, the goal is to please an imaginary person, a stranger who might buy a picture. How does one please an imaginary person? This goal is not well-defined. Creative energy gets wasted in guesswork. The artist, through uncertainty, makes many pictures — hoping some of them will sell.

Galleries incline the artist to a mass-production approach. Mass production is fine for blue-jeans. It is inefficient for artwork made by an individual, where the goal is to be creative and produce something unique and of high quality.

I believe that the gallery myth is a good part why painting has fallen into such a sorry state: the link between the artist and buyer is broken by the gallery. This alters the economic relationship and puts the artist into an awkward mode of production.

And of course, the buyer, in the role of gallery consumer, must settle for something not made specifically him or her.

Escaping economics?

Is it impossible for an artist to create what he or she really wants to create? Must painting be done either for a real patron, or for an imaginary customer?

Of course there is an alternative: an artist can paint for himself — if he can afford the time to do so. He is then his own patron. He does not paint “for the sake of art”, but for his own sake. Perhaps this is the best way to make great art.

And yet, there are some problems with an artist being his own patron. The artist gains creative freedom, but at a price. A regular patron can provide meaningful constraints in the form of:

• specifications for subject matter
• deadlines
• payment

These three constraints are lost when an artist acts as his own patron. The purpose and content of the work can continually change or evolve. The painting may never be finished. The artist cannot meaningfully pay himself for his work. He spends his time, he gets a picture in the end if he is lucky. But there is no money involved.

If the artist has the money to be able to afford to paint for pleasure, he also can afford to spend his money for easier forms of pleasure — like vacations. Thus, a rich artist will have a lot of distractions from the hard task of painting — and good painting is very, very difficult. A poor artist, on the other hand, will starve if he spends too much time acting as his own patron.

If the goal of making an artwork is to produce something that will satisfy a buyer, then the artist/patron relationship, unhindered by the gallery, can be the best way to fulfill this goal. Being an art patron is not easy, of course. But who said art should be easy? Whereas the gallery consumer makes a selection, the art patron is involved in expression. Here is the ultimate difference; the artwork will reflect this.

(I would like to get critical feed-back on this piece)
first posted 28 March 2006

“Begin to submit yourself to the direction of a master for instruction as early as you can; and do not leave the master until you have to.”

This may be the most significant sentence in Cennino Cennini’s Il Libro dell’Arte, but I did not understand the reason until yesterday. The key is to ask, why does Cennini say this?

. . .

The clue came from Tracy Helgeson, who commented:

“I think almost any kind of job that is free-lance, which an artist essentially is, requires a second, more stable income for a good period of time. Unless one is willing or able to live in extreme poverty and upheaval.”

In Cennini’s time, an artist did their non “free-lance” work in another artist’s workshop, as an apprentice. In this workshop, the young artist developed the skills he would need later, while receiving a living wage. When he established himself as a master, he became a “free-lance” as Tracy says, and got his own assistants.

Nowadays, because artists don’t generally collaborate as a team in a workshop, the artist must often get their stable income from a source not directly related to art. The time in the “day job” is time lost from learning how to be an artist. Cennini recommends staying with the master as long as possible, because this gives the opportunity to learn without having to survive as a “free-lance,” which is what is so difficult for artists today. Herein is the significance of what Cennini wrote some six hundred years ago.

Cennini adds, “There are those who pursue [art], because of poverty and domestic need, for profit and enthusiasm for the profession too.” Not quit the situation today, is it? In our time, art can be a cause of, rather than a cure for, poverty.

…

Tracy Hegelson, Jon Conkey and David Palmer discuss their “day job” experiences in comments to the previous post on art education. The “day job” can provide valuable knowledge, even if it is not the same nature of work as these artists do in their studios. But their comments also confirm the distinction between our time and Cennini’s.

…

Earlier I compared the education of a scientist to that of an artist. A biologist, for example, will spend four years in graduate school (ages 21-25), then another two to four years as a post-doctoral fellow, before becoming an independent assistant professor. The post-doctoral years are some of the most productive in a scientist’s career: free from coursework, free from the demands of teaching and administration, the post-doctoral fellow focuses on research under the guidance of and in collaboration with a recognized scientist. There is nothing comparable for the artist, as far as I know.

Simple: to learn how to make a living as an artist. Art school education, no matter how stimulating, cannot be considered complete if the graduates need to seek other employment in order to support part-time, non-profitable art making.

Of course, the question of “how to make a living as an artist?” is not trivial. It brings together two things: 1) being an artist, with all the personal expression and integrity implied; and 2) how to live from this. Combining 1) and 2) is a serious topic for research. This should be one of the functions of an art education — to do research into how to sell art.

If how to sell art? is a mystery, then finding the answer will be as exciting as solving any other important problem. Advanced education is not only about learning, but also discovering what is not known.

The only problem is, if art schools could really fulfill their mission, they might loose their faculty — the professors would likely go off and do art full time.

…

This post was inspired by Bob Martin, who is on the board of an art school and commented “I would be very interested in learning what artists want from a school and an instructor.”

What do you want from an art school and instructor?

—
[Thanks to those of you writing the great comments, David Palmer in particular, for giving me insight into the art school education, where it succeeds and where it fails.]

The is art school worthless? question brought in some amazing comments. Here are two that make it even harder for me to make up my mind on the issue:

Art dealer Dan Fox said “nearly every fine artist of any repute either went to art school or studied with a master for years, or both.”

Artist Rex Crockett replied, “I know a lot of artists who make good livings at art. About half of them went to art school, and half of those, like me, dropped out in disgust. (I lasted one day.)”

Now, how do we reconcile these views?

. . .

When I am feeling adventurous, I cross-post my blog entries on the unmoderated news group rec.arts.fine. If a blog is cosy like a living room (to paraphrase Arthur), rec.arts.fine is like a New York city street at night. You never know who might attack you, but they are bound to be someone interesting. [I add emphasis to quotes below]

Dan Fox asked if I went to art school, and when I replied in the negative, he wrote:

The foundation courses you get in art school, drawing in particular, are crucial to becoming a competent artist. This means regular classes, lots of drawing, lots of teaching, over a period of time. Learning to draw is like learning to play the piano. Books and workshops contribute very little.This is the reason nearly every fine artist of any repute either went to art school or studied with a master for years, or both. The exception is the genius like Francis Bacon, but these people are rare.

Before I could reply, Rex Crockett dropped this bombshell:

Nonsense. What is rare are people who are willing to repudiate a failed education.Good repute? With whom? Galleries, museums, the press, and the buying public do not care at all, not at all, whether you have a degree in art. It simply does not matter. It never did. It never will. I know a lot of artists who make good livings at art. About half of them went to art school, and half of those, like me, dropped out in disgust. (I lasted one day.) This idea that “It is really hard to survive as an artist” is one of the biggest lies ever told. The reason it is so hard for so many is because their work is crap.

Rex doesn’t have much sympathy for artists who don’t sell, does he?

I think that Dan Fox is making a strong statement without providing any evidence. Rex brings in the weight of personal experience, but I think he misses a key point: some artists find it difficult to make money because they continually push themselves to do things that are extremely challenging. It doesn’t mean their work is crap, but it might mean they are not being practical.

There is more to this debate to be read on the complete rec.arts.fine thread.

Thanks to Courtney, Bob, Tracy, David, and Angela for your insightful comments on the original post at my [our] blog.

One lack of comment I found interesting is that no one disputed my statement: “In art, professors and students do not generally collaborate in the process of creation and discovery in the same meaningful sense as they do in science.”