Laura Tyler – Characters in both of your novels seem to struggle with life choices that pit the desire for a conventional family life against artistic or creative aspirations. Can you explain what interests you about this theme and why you think it’s a compelling subject for contemporary readers?
Janelle Brown – Well, being a novelist who is married to a filmmaker, this is definitely a subject that hits close to home. But it’s also, I think, one of the conundrums that’s been raised by the promise of New Economy: The rise of the Internet promised to give voice to all the artistic urges has ever had, and for a while during the boom years it seemed far likelier that you could make a living off your creative aspirations than it had in years. Anyone who ever imagined themselves a writer or artist or photographer or singer thought they had a shot at finding an audience, and making some money pursuing those “talents.” And then all that was yanked away again by the recession.
In general, I’m fascinated by the idealism of artistry, and the pursuit of the dream of a “creative” life, and how that rubs up against the reality of our shifting economy, plus the need for stability that family life triggers. I’ve seen so many people struggle with this – spending their twenties and early thirties trying to be artists or writers or musicians or filmmakers, only to hit a certain point in their lives when the reality of marriage and kids and mortgages starts to grind away at those dreams. How long do you keep trying? Do you ever give up? Or is the creative life a never-ending negotiation of time versus income versus artistic fulfillment?
There’s a good interview with Pamela T. Boll, director of “Who Does She Think She Is?” at Salon.
A choice quote:
“… In the arts, there’s no guarantee for success. Even if you’re working at Wal-Mart, if you show up, you get paid. In the studio, you don’t. It’s very risky business. You have to create your own life and have a very strong understanding about what your have to offer. There will be a lot of people telling you that you’re just fooling around. Society just doesn’t consider an artist’s work as “work” — just like motherhood isn’t often acknowledged as being real work.”
Here’s another gem from the Thiebaud transcript. When asked why such a high percentage of art students never go on be artists, he says:
Well, it’s too damn difficult and too painful on the one hand. I think it’s a kind of neurosis. You have to give up a lot to gain a little. There are no guaranteed results. Those are not good options for a life. But if you are willing to make a life out of it, if you can learn to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst, and see the painting itself as an extraordinary human invention, that becomes enough for you. Going to museums, taking it on, loving what you’re doing, conditioned to the failures, getting some good instruction and critical reaction, which has nothing to do with success but… with a realization of where you are, what kind of progress you’re making… and to form … a kind of community of your own with some of the people, whether it’s one other person or a group of people. Those groups represent a kind of balancing act where you can have some kind of frank, honest confrontation and some sort of shared, communal love and a series of responses; then you’re going to be okay…
And another…
Try and avoid becoming what I might refer to and an “art wold employee” where you develop these products of commercial value, where you manufacture some kind of product. That’s not what painting is about. Painting is about, for me, research, confrontation, taking risks, going on and trying to challenge yourself to get better always… It has to do really with some kind of self confrontation, continuously…
Challenges wrapped in encouragement. May they inspire.
My love affair with the The Sartorialist is over. I deleted photographer Scott Schuman’s blog from my blogroll for posting too many glamorized pictures of cigarettes being smoked and for aggressively moderating anti-smoking comments out of his conversation while allowing pro-”ciggy” voices to hold sway.
There are good arguments both for and against the use of destructive imagery in art (yes, I think glamorized images of smoking are destructive). John H. Richardson’s personal take in, “My History of Violence,” is great and though his focus is on violence his arguments apply to all images that depict self-harm or the harm of others. An excerpt:
When I was a cub reporter starting out at the Albuquerque Tribune, I found a report in the police blotter about a pair of 16-year-old lovers who gassed themselves in a car. I about choked on how great a story it was, did a little reporting, found out they did it in a closed garage and that their bodies were discovered by the very same parents who were trying to split them up. Then I pitched it to my editor. no way, he said. I said, “What? Are you crazy? It’s Romeo and fucking Juliet!” He gave me a sad look. “If I run this story, and give it big play and a nice layout, I guarantee you there will be a copycat suicide. Maybe a bunch of them. Do you want that on your conscience?”
I said, it’s not my responsibility what crazy people do. It’s the truth and that’s what I want to write, the truth. Would you tell Shakespeare to stick to comedies? Would you tell Tolstoy to write Peace and Peace?
…
Somehow, my editor managed to resist my blinding rhetorical onslaught. He didn’t run the piece. And I thought, this little burg is just too small-town for me, baby. These people don’t understand art. They don’t understand transgression. So I went to Hollywood. And just after I got there, some guy made a movie called The Program that had a scene where some kids lay down on a highway divider as a dare—and sure enough, there were copycats out in Pennsylvania who laid their dumb asses down on highway dividers and got squashed. And the studio said, hey, it’s not our responsibility what crazy people do. These people just don’t understand art…”
Here’s an excellent story from the NYTimes about the current state of American art. Though the author, Holland Carter, is a little snarky about the professionalization of artmaking (big art world trend of the last 8 years) his enthusiasm about the art being made right now, or just about to be made, is wonderful.
The last day to see Emerging Artists at the Macky Gallery in Boulder is Wednesday. The painting above is one of two I’ve got in the show. It’s called Bear & it’s one of my favorite paintings I made last year.
As a painter, I’m into visual transformation. I love it when the imagination goes to work on a familiar object turning it into something else. Bear started as a large scale gesture drawing of a plum leaf. But after being cropped and painted it shifted into something dark and mountainous. It’s a friend to me.
Emerging Artists at the Macky Gallery
Date: January 14th – February 11th, 2009
Time: Wednesdays 9 AM to 4 PM
Location: Andrew J. Macky Gallery University of Colorado, Boulder.
Archway from the Darb-i Imam shrine, Isfahan, Iran.
As a passionate observer of nature’s patterns (plant symmetry, honeycomb, etc…) and a long time migraine sufferer I found this article by Oliver Sacks fascinating. It hints at the idea that there’s some kind of universal/chemical truth underlying all instances of geometric pattern and it has something to do with how we’re physically made.
A choice quote:
“There is an increasing feeling among neuroscientists that self-organizing activity in vast populations of visual neurons is a prerequisite of visual perception — that this is how seeing begins. Spontaneous self-organization is not restricted to living systems — one may see it equally in the formation of snow crystals, in the roilings and eddies of turbulent water, in certain oscillating chemical reactions. Here, too, self-organization can produce geometries and patterns in space and time, very similar to what one may see in a migraine aura. In this sense, the geometrical hallucinations of migraine allow us to experience in ourselves not only a universal of neural functioning, but a universal of nature itself.”
I’m not sure exactly how this works but the demo caught my eye. It’s a new video game in which physical properties are applied to crayon drawings. Mesmerizing, eh?
Don’t you just love road trips? I had the pleasure of tripping it up to Nebraska for a Sister Bee screening at the Chemical Free Beekeeping Conference right before Thanksgiving. Here are some images from the road.
I’m a nature girl so it’s usually grass and trees that ensnare me. But on this particular trip, trucks ruled. Their primary logos read like emblems from a distant kingdom. My favorites had a map or puzzle-like quality to them. But I enjoyed the simple ones too. And the cattle trucks were exquisite. From a distance they look like simple metal grids. But get close and you can see eyes, noses & hides peeking through.
Great food for painting.
Special thanks to Michael Bush of Bush Farms for hosting such a thought provoking show. I learned some interesting new/old things about beeswax & look forward to posting them soon.
Alyson Stanfield, the Art Biz Coach, has come up with a new series of affirmations & they’re just what the doctor ordered for this weird economy. You don’t need to be an artist to appreciate. Just open to hearing a postive message about money and flow.
Here’s a pumpkin drawing I made in Pencil I at the Denver Botanic Gardens. (They’ve got an amazingly good botanical illustration program.) It’s satisfying to draw realistically from life. There’s something about it that feels magical. But this drawing doesn’t qualify as art to me. I need transformation. When a recognizable form shifts & becomes something new… that’s art.
Curious to learn more about how to respond and talk about art? Good news! John Borstel, co-author of Critical Response Process has a new blog & it’s off to a roaring start.
MacArthur award winning choreographer Liz Lerman of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange was in residency at the ATLAS building in Boulder last week. She and colleagues did two presentations. The first was a panel discussion about the making of Ferocious Beauty: Genome – a large scale multimedia performance integrating scientific concepts with sound, dance and video. The second was a mini-workshop in Critical Response Process – a prescribed method for eliciting constructive feedback about any creative endeavor (from choreography to cake!) I attended both.
As an artist, I think it’s important to develop the ability to judge one’s own work – at least somewhat. Unfortunately the self-assessment process is a sloooowwww one. I’m not always able to “see” my work right after I make it. It can take days, weeks, sometimes even months before strengths and weaknesses are clear to me. Outside feedback is a gift when I can get it. Alas, finding it is a hit or miss experience.
Liz Lerman has spent a lot of time thinking about how to talk about works in progress, judge them and give good feedback. She acknowledges it’s uncomfortable to both give & receive critical feedback and came up with the Critical Response Process to make things easier. (Aren’t you glad someone’s working on this!?!)
Here are a few impressions from the workshop:
• Feedback exists on a spectrum from nurturing to rigorous. We need to honor both ends of the spectrum to have balance.
• It can be hard for artists to hear feedback unless it’s unqualified praise.
• What makes something good?
1. The artist or performers are 100% committed to the project or performance
2. All performers know why they’re doing the performance
3. Something is revealed.
• When defensiveness starts, learning stops.
• It’s helpful to ask neutral questions where opinion isn’t embedded in the question. (This takes practice.)
• No detail is too small to notice.
• Personal reflections are OK.
• It’s important for the artist to have some control over the feedback session.
• Liz Lerman on competition – “When I see great art I’m ecstatic! To want that for a colleague is fantastic.”
I could go on, but a better way to find out more is to get your hands on a copy of Critical Response Process and try it with your friends.
In the meantime I’m curious to hear your thoughts about creative feedback. What’s worked for you & what hasn’t? How do you self-assess?
