If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that I often rail against what I consider the widely-held concept of inspiration. The myth of the artist sitting alone having that "eureka!" moment and then producing one of the world's great masterpieces. This is not only a comfortable fiction that widens the chasm between artists and those who consider themselves to not be creative, but it is inherently dismissive of the artistic process.
I believe art is a Way. Like martial arts (my daughters just started karate) it is, in the truest sense, a practice. One is never done; it takes a lifetime to properly master a practice. This runs counter intuitive to a product-focused culture, but that is another post.
I am always painting. Sometimes that takes the form of actively running around my studio working on multiple canvases, and other times it takes the form of reading quietly, or sitting in the back yard sipping bourbon and contemplating the stars. I look at the sky a lot. Whatever name one gives the divine, that presence is one hell of a painter. I've traveled end to end and border to border in this country and I've seen the many skies it offers. So I concede that yes, I am inspired by not only the sky but by everything around me all the time. But I say that without discipline and applying oneself to making the idea concrete in some way, inspiration is little more than daydreaming.
I have an active drawing practice as well. I am always sketching or otherwise getting visual information down in some form or another. I think visually. I think spatially and in abstract; and it took me most of my life to understand that other people do not. I recall meeting with a director when I was doing freelance set design, and he kept asking me for a rendering. I kept explaining the set, walking him through it and yet he could not see. I'm capable of envisioning a 3D model and rotating it around in my head, walking through it, looking at it from above, below and inside. I had to let go of my perceptions and communicate based on his perceptions, and that is a lesson I've always remembered. In visual communication, the job of the communicator is to make the listener/viewer see.
I once described my paintings as "constructed spontaneity." They look very spontaneous and perhaps even accidental, but they are consciously constructed. They are compositions in the true sense, because they are revised and edited and intentional in construction. It seems provincial to perceive abstract art in the 21st century in terms of "my kid could do that." Yet many people respond to amateur, flat landscape paintings because they do not challenge anything they believe. I don't think that's art. I don't think it ever will be. Gauguin famously said, "The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty; never." Aesthetic debates about the definition and qualities of beauty aside, I couldn't agree more. I don't dedicate my life to decoration.
The artist's job is to challenge perceptions and to allow us to see things in a different light. That can be accomplished through representational art, absolutely, but there must be something to it beyond realistic rendering. Take a photograph if you want documentation.
I was thinking the other night that my goal is to be an artist of my time and to create art of my time; art that somehow comments on this moment of the world, culture, civilization. I have no interest in making art of the moment. I told a friend this past weekend that sometimes I feel like I'm making art for 50 or 100 years from now.
One final thought this morning. I recall the opening reception for the SAM show back in January and what struck me is this; ask an artist what their work means, and they will start searching the room for an out. Ask an artist about their process and they will talk your ear off. We are process-oriented beings. The journey is the destination.
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