Art is illuminating the quality, the truth of existence.

A friend of mine, Kay Lorbecki, who frequently sends me comments on my blogs, sent me something that I would like to share.  She recognizes that my constant question in  my blogs is “what is art?”  And those of you in the arts recognize that that question has been asked time and time again, and to date, and to arts credit and to the credit of those involved in the arts, it has not been pinned down to a solid, unmovable concrete answer.  The concept of art, does change with the times. 

My need to maintain the “life” in art is what my blog is all about.  The life in my own work and the life in the work that others who call themselves artists do.  Kay is an artist.  She said she understands art as follows: 

Joseph Conrad interesting as it pertains to “what is art.”  

Written in 1957, the title of the work is offensive, but the thoughts contained within are worth a look.

I am captivated by this line, “To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of

the earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to glance for a moment at the

surrounding vision of form and color, of sunshine and shadows: to make them pause for a look,

for a sigh, for a smile—such is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for a few to achieve.”

This  applies to my goal to make people stop and not just glance at my work but really see it and the

world it conveys. 

Kay send me the entire preface and I found the article rich in understanding.  I personally like two sections and I will quote them here with my comments injected into them – by doing this you can see how I read and how I take things apart when I read and think about them – it is complex and yes one not only needs to think when they read this, I told Kay it was thick reading but beautiful, but one also needs to inject oneself into the reading and ask oneself just how is it that I understand that statement.  So here goes:

“Art itself may be defined as a single-minded,” I understand single-minded as the artist herself, “attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, maniforld and one, underlying its every aspect.”  Ok, I have trouble with that sentence because I hold the position that other and my higher power, the truth of an object depends on the beholder, thinking about and looking at an object. 

Here is the part I love, Conrad seems to understand truth as life.  “It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colors, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspect of matter and in the facts of life what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essential – their one illuminating and convincing quality – the very truth of their existence.” 

Art is illuminating the quality, the truth of existence.  Wonderful.  Yes, yes, yes.

Land of Angels

Morning coffee with angels.

Land of Angels

That dimension

    Invisible dimension

    Sensed not

    Seen

   Felt

   Not touched

Angels surround

    Me

    Touch

    Me

    Fill

    Me

In this land

    Where

    spirits

    Live

    Peace

Heaven on earth

    And

    another

    dimension

Perhaps our human lives and the changes that happen to us are like the life of a dragonfly were we transform into another different dimension.  One life ends another beings.

Featured image:  "Shamans" 15"x10.5"  Acrylic on Paper. Part of The Fishing Cabin Series

Gremlin Green Moss

Gremlin green moss

Darkly green pines

Wind tickling glassy lake

Sun reflecting back at me

Soaring like a bird

Featured image: "Out To Pasture."  8"x8" Acrylic on Paper.At the Cabin Series 2018

"Heading Out"

I felt the now familiar tug, then the pull, then the really powerful pull.  I knew there was a very large fish on the other line.  It gave me; I never know how to tell a female fish from a male fish so the fish will remain an it, a great struggle diving deep pulling the line far out.  As it tired, I was able to pull it closer and closer to the boat I saw it was a huge northern pike. 

Some people fish the lakes up here for pike, I am not one of them.  They smell and they are slimy.  What in the world is that slimy stuff all over them?  I have no trouble with touching a walleye, removing the hook that captured it, but the pike, nope, no way I will do everything in my power to avoid touching them.  I even bought myself a pair of plastic pink pliers, they even had a heart in the middle of them where they came together.  Don’t laugh , it was a good choice they had flat, not pointy, heads at the end, which I thought important so as not to ripe the fishes mouth open when I held them and they wiggled to get free and I was trying to remove the hook that caught them.

A side note to this story, one of those northerns stole my pink pliers, every day we have gone back in hopes that they will surface, for they also floated, but have not seen them yet.  I have even named the island here where I lost them, pink pliers island.  Tons of fun

Anyway back to the big northern I was pulling in.  Brad had caught a 37” northern the day before, it looked like this one might top his record.

As I got the pike closer to the boat, Brad asked if he could help.  Pride took over, I didn’t answer.  I could do it myself I thought.  Land this big one independently. Guess what, I couldn’t.  The pike not only bit me but also broke my line and got away.  I lost the “big one” because of my pride and sense of competition.

Most of you know that I will debate for the independence of an artist and their work until I am blue, what I learned from this experience, but I already knew it, was there are times for collaboration and there are times for independence and it is not a one size fits all.  Our times have changed and we can no longer fight for just what we believe is right, there are tons of others out there who think otherwise; they also think they are right, there is a place for collaboration and a place for independence and I hold the beliefe that politics is a place for collaboration and not dogmatic independence.  I might have caught that pike had I given myself time to accept the help Brad offered and be objective about the whole thing, telling myself you can’t do this by yourself that is obvious.  Perhaps it is time in politics to also take the personal, independence out of it and work with objectivity, reason and reality.

Objectivity, reason and reality is not a one size fits all either, except perhaps when it comes to ones own artwork.

Featured image: "Heading Out" 8x8 Acrylic on Paper. At The Fishing Cabin Series

Is reality real?

"Is reality real?"

Remember the age old philosophical question?  If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it fall does it make a sound?  One can extend the question to does the tree exist, does sound exist if no one hears it no one sees it.

Well if no one is around to hear it then no one hears it. But that does not mean it doesn’t make a sound.  It is an objective fact that the tree makes a sound.  Just as it is a fact that just because no one sees it it still exists.  It is real.  A tree is a tree, a sound is a sound.

I believe that reality does exist within our perceptions.  We can’t make sound anything other than sound, we can’t make an object anything other than an object.  A tree is a tree.  A sound is a sound. 

But we can create other things that we can identify as a tree, a sound.  We can make purple trees for example.  And sounds that sound like a falling tree but it isn’t the sound of a real tree falling. 

We allow creativity, and we identify with things that we create because of their relationships to some reality.  Something real.  We create ourselves, self.  If a collective: a group say a gang, a political party, creates a notion of self, example all the individuals who belong or identify with the political party or gang, then the self does not exist for the party is just taking relating the elements of the party to a real self.  Good examples, a rich self, a poor self, a flamboyant self.  The real self can only be “you” your foundations, your personal contexts.  They are like no other reality.  Just like no two trees are alike and no two sounds are alike. 

Self is an original, unique one of a kind.  Art is also unique, original and one of a kind.  We create art not to give it’s power to identity and others to use but so one can identify with being a thing in itself, not a thing of a collective.  The power of a collective destroys self.  The power of a collective label destroys art.

The collective cannot exist in a vacuum cannot exist without a concept of the self and without the context of the self a collective power cannot exist.  If we had all individual, independent selves and no social collective there would be no need for an individual independent self.  Same is true for a social collective.  We need a binary, opposites, differences to create values for the self and the collective.  Omit the binary and just have harmony and you end up with nothing. 

The self changes, as self changes collectives change.  It should not be the other way around.

"Galaxy"  by Christine Alfery  22x30 Watercolor 

How Do We Know It Is Art?

To know something is to have knowledge of something. So how do we know something?  Do we used words, numbers to know something?  Words and numbers can be manipulated to suit desires and needs.  So we may know something that is based on desires and needs but that isn’t a kind of knowledge that can be valued and judged by all as a truth.  How we know something, our knowledge of something needs to be based on facts.

Words numbers need not be related to something, they can be arbitrary and based on social conventions.  Facts need to be related to something, visible to all, they cannot be arbitrary.  Words often are based on social conventions.  If knowledge, how we know something, is based on social conventions such as words and numbers then knowledge is arbitrary.

Knowledge with this kind of foundation, words and numbers based on social conventions and desires, is only valid because it is convenient for it to be valid.  To validate something in this manner makes value and truths arbitrary and variable simply said not valuable. 

Knowledge with a foundation of facts that don’t change based on desires and social conventions can validate something.  Facts are valuable.

So how should we validate art?  How do we know a work is indeed art?  Should art be validated through arbitrary words such as, I like it so it is good, or I call it art so it is art. 

Where is the power behind art?  In the past and indeed to this day art has been validated through aesthetics.  But the aesthetic is arbitrary and personal and filled with desire.  The power behind art lies in the values we place on art.  Art must have value, it cannot be anything and everything. 

Where is the power behind art?  It is not in arbitrary words and numbers that change with desires, rather it is through facts, real facts.  What are the real facts of a work of art?  Is it original?  Is it one of a kind? Is it unique? Does the artists self shine through the work?  Does the concept of what the artist is trying to convey shine through the work?  Is the context of the work evident? 

I have talked about concepts before, so I will just give a brief summary here.  Concepts are created from abstractions, abstractions are floating around in the artists mind, and when the artist relates them to something, interlinks them to something they become conceptual.  Once they are conceptual they are integrated with context.  Context is how we know something.  How we know something can be based on facts which are real or words and numbers that can be manipulated. 

The power behind art is how we value it.  How we value art is based on how we know art.

Art needs to be valued.

                What should art be within our culture?  There is no question that there will be many diverse answers to that question.  Some see art as a social tool to manipulate a political agenda, others see it as something mystical that appears out of nowhere and is beautiful, others see art as historical showing the reality of a time.  However you understand or see art, art needs to be questioned as to how it is understood and used.

                Art today illustrates the enormous gulf between what we know, that is what is objective, physical, real and knowable and the mystical, the unknowable, superstition and imaginings.

                Art can be understood, judged, questioned through the knowable.  Art cannot be judged on the unknowable.  Aesthetics is not an unknowable.  Aesthetics are knowable and can be valued as knowable, beautiful and real.  Aesthetics magnify discovery.  And are identified and judged through our lives and how we live our lives. 

                For an artists that means judging the work they create through the abstract meaning of their work.  Abstract meaning is the concept/s that are formed by the artist through real life experiences.  If an artist can convey meaning that can be understood and seen by a viewer, by one who would judge it then it can be valued. 

                Art needs to be valued. How we value art, is the same as how we personally value life.