ARTIST'S NOTES
ON ART AND ARTISTS
♣ It is my firm conviction that an artist is self-made. Whether or not an artist attends an art school, or becomes someone’s apprentice, the ultimate embodiment of anyone as an artist is a self-creation.
♣ I am an artist, so I struggle, with every note, with every stroke, with every click of the mouse. We confront the void and do our best to fill it. It is an ageless encounter: to pull a rabbit out of a hat, to make something appear from nothing that anyone else can hear, or see, or experience. So, to others, it seems like magic, this act of creating. But, ah, if only others dared to do the same, they might inhabit that alternate realm of what it means to struggle with one's imagination and make something of it.
♣ Yes, we can all, to some extent, be taught to see, but we can’t all be taught to become creators.
The desire to manifest one’s perception is uniquely personal and bespeaks a special desire to transcend ordinary daily living.
♣ One of the things that we must acknowledge is that art, in any age anywhere, is an expression of consciousness. Consciousness regading what is understood, consciousness regarding what is not understood, consciousness with respect to what one is expected to believe or accept -- in other words, how the human consciousness is shaped, molded, how it interacts with the environment and is shaped by it. And then that becomes manifested on some surface, on some material, in some way. And that is what we have to understand as a first principle of what art is as an expression of consciousness.
♣ An artist operates at a level of visual intelligence that is virtually karmic in its uniqueness.
♣ The question of “why create” is not one an artist asks or spends any time pondering. The artistic impulse dwells in another plane of playful delight, intensely engaging and fulfilling at the same time.
♣ An artist conceives, produces, and presents gifts of consciousness to the world.
♣ Whether conceptualized or nonverbally felt, artists are haunted by the thought of whether their "children" will be loved or neglected. Of course, "giving birth" is a validating experience of its own, and the artist's "offspring" exists for better or worse. In a sense, one might say that art is a kind of marriage with life -- for better or worse.
♣ All artists are in the process of becoming themselves.
♣ We know an artist by the claim his/her work makes on our attention.
♣ Fortunate is the person who knows an artist for he or she will be among the first to see what an artist sees. Maybe.
♣ What does it matter how art is produced, so long as it is the result of a creative impulse, choice, effort, and commitment originating in the artist’s consciousness. The operative technology or lack thereof are only the means, and not the message. Neither the means of production, nor the tools employed in the making, are what art is. Whether one uses an open fire, a brick oven, or a microwave oven, the dish is what the senses feast on. And so too with the artifact, the concrete expression and embodiment of the work.
I would go so far as to reject “the fetishism of means” as any kind of validation or authorization, or indispensable requirement for the tangible result – unless, of course, the means and the
result are inextricably bound and interdependent for the result to exist in time and space.
♣ A Word On What Is "Original Artwork" In a Digital Art World
A digital file (comparable to a photographic negative or an image drawn on stone in lithography or an etching on a metal plate in engraving) is, in a manner of speaking, technically “the original” artwork, since it is the initial first impression that is the direct creation of an artist. However, a digital file (again like a photographic negative or an image drawn on stone in lithography or an etching on a metal plate in engraving) is in reality only an intermediary medium for the production of an actual visible, tangible, marketable artifact.
Consequently, each and every such artifact is really an “original artwork,” quite literally, a “production” and not a “reproduction,” regardless of how many times such an artwork is produced. Of course, the "original" provenance of such an artwork is only authenticated by the artist’s original signature or by the artist’s authorized stamped signature on the artwork.
Moreover, in the context of an artifact that by its nature can be "mass-produced," it is entirely up to the artist to decide to market his originally-produced artifacts as one-off artworks or as more than one production, or even as a sequentially-numbered “limited edition” for purposes of creating or affecting their market value through intentional scarcity.
In short, under such circumstances, there is nothing that dictates that only one or the first production is the only “original artwork,” where the medium employed by the artist can, by its very nature, facilitate producing a multiplicity of originals.
♣ Does an artist need a brush and some chromatic medium to “paint”? Absolutely not. Essentially, an artist “paints” with light, color, texture, and form. He/she can use a stick, a spatula, a sponge, a squeegee, a broom or mop, tissue paper or a paper towel, a spoon, a knife, a washcloth, hands and fingers or other limbs, spray paint or a can or tube of paint, an eye-dropper, dyes, and other natural or artificial pigments or coloring agents, printer’s inks, nail polish, a pencil, a piece of charcoal, graphite, chalk, crayons, colored lights, a computer – whatever. It is all – at all times – up to the artist to choose the means for realizing the result, and it is only the result that matters.
♣ I live in the Digital Age, so I create with digital tools, with the technology available and at hand. It is what artists have done from time immemorial, and is what they will naturally continue to do.
♣ What the artist thinks about the work is not what is defining for anyone else other than the artist. What is defining is the experience of the individual viewer – there is no meaning or value apart from that experience. And that experience is infinitely variable and subjective.
So, meaning and value inhere in the relationship or encounter, with a work, and, to that extent, it may be said that the significance of the art of any period lies in the realm of the uniquely personal. What did viewers of the 16th century think about the Mona Lisa? What did the cave dwellers of Altamira, Lascaux, and Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc think about the cave paintings? And as for those cave walls, perhaps they were humanity’s first pedagogic chalkboards – but we don’t know and may never know.
♣ When I produce a new work, I very much want to share my experience and not just keep it to myself. It's not a matter of having someone's agreement or acceptance, but of having company. No one else can ever sit or stand where I am, but in sitting or standing where he or she is can generate its own experience, and THAT is what I want to happen.
♣ As there is no single interpretation of reality, so is there no single definition of art.
♣ As one contemplates my MacroCosm series, one is confronted with mystery. Or rather, one is faced with an enigma, a “what is it?” encounter. There is a tension in the experience of seeing that engages the viewer. And, in the same way that a riddle may perplex, and someone, without a clue or intellectual stamina, or with very little imagination, may quickly say “I give up,” so too may a viewer lacking the time, patience or mental resources be quickly defeated or overcome by the tension of not knowing.
But it is not for the artist to answer the viewer's question. The artist creates the art so that the question can be asked and imaginatively be answered by the viewer.
Consider a rubber band, which when stretched produces tension. If someone were to then cut the rubber band, the tension would instantly disappear and be lost, and the rubber band would no longer be what it was. So, to not answer the enigmatic question ("what is it?"), why would an artist take a knife or scissor to his/her own work?
♣ No one can say that I haven't tried to help my viewers. I've gone so far as to accept that what they see is meaningful, and that what they take away is valuable and their own. There is no artistic tyranny in my work. There may be graphic explicitness, but I do not compel acceptance or agreement with my message. No one language is needed to read my work, because it relies entirely on the language of the eyes to see and the mind to feel and interpret.
♣ Art is the ultimate freedom, hence the ultimate subversion, which is why totalitarian regimes seek to rein it in and control it and punish it.
♣ Art is the technology of the mind. But, indeed, invention and science can similarly each be called “the technology of the mind,” as can the general category of creativity itself.
♣ Admittedly, there are times when a composition results from a serendipitous discovery – from a glimpse or momentary flash of awareness that something can become an artifact. But whether it is an unintended juxtaposition or a chance inspiration, it is certainly only the artist who will then endeavor to make the connection between chance and intention so that others too may see.
♣ Because we are incapable of seeing everything, an artist's vision can complement what we are missing out on. It is this synergy and symbiosis that makes the viewer's attraction to the creative showcases known as galleries and museums a vitalizing necessity. Of course, no one knows this better than artists, who find themselves in their element even if only in someone else's.
♣ When we suddenly see what was not seen, we can experience the elation of discovery. Artists act as mediums for the hidden or undiscovered and can thereby provide us an opportunity to experience such elation.
♣ A work of art is the truth in various dimensions. In terms of form, it does not matter what the actual subject may be. What matters is that what is seen projects aesthetic fulfillment – a sense of completeness that does not lack, nor is too full.
♣ Art compels a confrontation. It tangibly alters our landscape to influence consciousness. It forces an interaction with our senses, it provokes, it stimulates, it excites. It magnetizes and draws our attention.
♣ The pioneer welded-metal sculptor David Smith once observed that “if art isn’t the what artist says it is, then it certainly isn’t the opinion of the non-artist.” The German Dadaist artist Kurt Schwitters once declared that “whatever the artist spits is art.” Both are seeming responses to the question “what is art,” and each statement underscores and identifies the definitional provenance that makes something art as the artist who makes that something.
♣ An artist cannot be what anyone wants him or her to be.
♣ Anyone surveying my creations can readily conclude that my works encompass considerable variability or diversity, and, as such, display an artistic interest and expression that are more protean than stylistic. In short, my art is more liberated in expression and conception than that of many others because all of life animates and inspires me. There is wonder in much more than we allow ourselves to notice.
♣ As I have explained, art is many things. And, for me, as a True Buddhist, it is also the aesthetic conception, the physical elaboration, and the tangible expression of the Supreme Mystic Law of Cause and Effect (Myoho-Renge).
♣ An artist contributes to our world and culture and to the inventory of social artifacts that populate our environment and inform our aesthetics and awareness. This is so in a manner not unlike science and engineering, though one may quibble about their relative merits and importance.
Nevertheless, what are “the Humanities” if not the universe of contributions by individual artists in various realms of creativity?
♣ Artists "bleed" their creativity into the world as a kind of "transfusion of consciousness."
♣ Artists may not change the world but they do alter and expand our perceptual literacy and conceptual awareness of the world and can modify its landscape and appearance. If that's not good enough, then what is?
♣ You can own an object, but not a subject. An artist, whether by preference or necessity, may engage in making exclusive objets d'art, whether for himself/herself or for others. Or an artist may create non-exclusive objects as representations of a subject of creation. Exclusive ownership is the fetishism of the auction house, which is a total distortion and inflation of value beyond the reach of the many. It expresses the arrogance of excessive financial power and transforms artifacts into commodities to be traded in the marketplace. The monetization of art is the capitalization of art that turns artistic creation into an objectified manifestation of capitalism, when, in reality, artistic creation, as subject, is the aesthetic celebration of humanity.
♣ One of my creative processes is that I will take image A, and I will explore it at different magnifications, examining an ever smaller and smaller part until I discover image B. I will then play with resolution, color, hues, composition, dimensions, contrasts, sharpness, and granularity until I find what I’m looking for. That’s what I do to find the surprise in the box of Cracker Jacks – and I love finding the surprise!
♣ With my abstractions, I begin with a more or less explicit concept and create something equivalent to a digital base image or underpainting. Then I subject it to various digital manipulations and user-defined algorithmic procedures to achieve a desired final image and effect. It is an iterative creative search for an outcome that makes sense to me and that, I hope, will catch the attention of viewers.
♣ I truly love what I am doing in my art. It is teaching me so much about patience, discipline, judgment (knowing when "enough is enough"), enhancing my intuition and sense of balance, color, contrast, and harmony. A painting is not just a design, composition, or representation. It is an orchestration of various aesthetic factors and components, and it is also the fulfillment and thrill of getting an intention or outcome just right.
♣ An artisan is one who persists and overcomes the resistance of his materials. An artist is one who persists and overcomes the resistance of his audience.
♣ An artist's sensibility, what fascinates and engages and powers an artist's creative imagination, can become a proxy gateway for our own aesthetic literacy and growth. One might say that art is a society's acknowledgment of how artists can inform and enrich a culture. A culture grows in all dimensions of experience, and artists lead the way, as if they were our authorized guides and pathfinders. Aren't they?
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