An Artist’s Inspiration: Roots and geography

20 November 2008 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

I learned about roots in an intercultural communications class during college. Roots are where we come from, the culture and society we knew during our formative years. We may change over time, as we age, marry and move around, but our roots remain planted in our youth. You can’t get rid of them, even if you don’t like them.

I grew up in Western Nebraska, on the edge of the Sand Hills. Most people I knew as a kid couldn’t wait to get away from the small town (24,000 people) we lived in. The preferred dream destination was Denver, about five hours west of our community.

nebraska-sand-hills

The Sand Hills from space, courtesy of NASA

While I didn’t possess an avid aversion to the Sand Hills like many of my peers, I don’t really want to return to the fairly desolate region. I’ve come to appreciate the somewhat more urban residences of the last 15 years of my life. However, my formative years on the prairie left an undeniable impression on me. My present work is overtly influenced by the geography of my childhood.

For the most part, art depicting or obviously influenced by the prairie is usually looked down on in fine art circles. Even I turn up my nose at most cowboy paintings and Native American bronzes. Cityscapes or mountains are much more popular recognizable subjects in our culture. But things change. For instance, mountains used to be something people feared. A painting of the Rockies in the 1800s would probably not be what a person chose to hang over their sofa, if I recall correctly the reading I did on the sublime a couple years ago. Artists aren’t usually ones to pursue popularity anyway. The prairie and its thunderstorms will probably be a theme in my sculpture throughout my life, whether I’m living on the plains or not.

It’s not unusual for artists to draw inspiration from their natural surroundings. I noticed as a student that the printmaking crowd in particular seemed to draw heavily from their geographical surroundings, more so than students concentrating in other media. But every stripe of artist draws in some form or fashion, covert or overt, from the natural world around them.

Roots are more than geography though. They are family culture, religious background, peer influence etc. Artists who try and completely ignore their roots concern me. First off, it’s impossible to actually pull off. Secondly — and this will probably sound very post-modern to certain readers — everyone’s personal experiences are valuable. They are not the end all, they are not necessarily Truth or goodness or evil, but they are valuable. God gives each individual a different lens to look through, and that perspective will be useful in some form or fashion in another person’s life. Part of my beef with Thomas Kinkade as an artist, as I’ve said before, is that he seems to be covering up some of his experiences with his sugary subject matter, instead of using canvases as a vehicle to convey those experiences. Of course, his sour college art classes still inform his work as he aims for Eden on Earth with little scenes. What I can’t understand is why he tries so hard, at least judging by the interviews I’ve read, to suppress his university days instead of putting them to use.

Artists have a unique opportunity to communicate some of their own personal experiences to a broad number of people. Remember the Japser Johns’ quote from couple weeks ago, “The aim of an artist as a creative individual is to do ‘something a little more worthwhile than oneself . . . To be worth more, you would need to change in a fundamental way — change your life — or, at the least, experience change and become a channel for its communication.” Tap into your roots and influence culture for the good.

Filed under Art, Modern culture, Painting

Artist Profile: Guy Kemper

4 June 2008 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Ran across this glass artist today via EnvisionChurch. He does some very unique installations as windows, on a large scale. Envision picked my favorite from his gallery to include in their June Newsletter:

This work is titled “Rise,” and is located at the Catholic Memorial at Ground Zero, St. Joseph’s Chapel. The installation is 24 by 10 feet.

I really liked this following paragraph from Envision’s article:

    What glass as a material does best is to act as a vehicle to the sublime. Though abstract, my work is rooted in recognizable symbolism and natural phenomena. I feel refracted light may inspire a greater degree of illumination than literal narration. I don’t explain everything; I merely crack open a door to the Mystery.

I can personally relate to the statement, “Though abstract, my work is rooted in recognizable symbolism and natural phenomena.” This is basically my own artistic philosophy as well. It’s interesting and pleasantly surprising to read things like this, where others are able to concisely state what you haven’t been able to put in such specific terms as of yet. I also appreciate his attention to the sublime, even I don’t still understand that concept as well as I’d like to. And — while I’m at it I may as well compliment every part of the quote — the mention of Mystery (I’m wondering why the word is capitalized in the excerpt; I’m assuming it’s intentional) is something the arts are commended for regularly, and rightfully.

I feel the need to add that Kemper’s website appears to be very out of date. The last update apparently occurred in May of 2006.

Filed under Abstract art, Art, Art and faith, Installations

Beauty + Power = Sublime

18 March 2008 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

I’m perusing videos uploaded to YouTube detailing the storm and resulting damage from Friday’s tornado in Atlanta. It’s fascinating to me how websites like Flickr and YouTube allow for such dynamic and more or less real-time citizen journalism. These websites foster an organic creation of a veritable archive, of sorts, recording important, interesting and personal events. The founder and director of ArtsLink lives near downtown Atlanta but, thankfully, was unharmed; the house her and her husband just signed a contract one day before on is just blocks from a badly damaged neighborhood, however.

I’ve mentioned in one or two previous posts — posts probably more than two years old now — my own monumental run-in with tornadoes. Seven of them, in fact, all in one night. I was three years old and distinctly remember huddling in the basement with my mother. My father was galavanting around town with his sister, trying to rouse their aunt who they were worried wouldn’t heard the civil defense sirens. They were trying to do this without getting shot, knowing their aunt kept a .38 in her nightstand.

night-of-the-twisters.jpg

This is a photograph from the Night of the Twisters website, an eery
lightening illuminated cloud formation. The website doesn’t say,
but if I recall correctly this picture was taken looking west
over the Capital Heights neighborhood.

Even though I ended up with my first Big Wheel from a pile of rubble following the storm that devastated Grand Island, Nebraska in June 1980, I was terrified of tornado sirens for years afterward. I dreamt of the yellow noisemakers bouncing down the basement stairs of my home coming to get me. When the sirens would blair and storms were near, I would race into the house.

Somehow I overcame this phobia around the age of 12 or 13. By then I’d seen two other twisters in my hometown of North Platte, Nebraska, one as a funnel right over my little league game.

I can’t, unfortunately, lay out exactly how these powerful storms, with or without a tornado, went from being so frightful to so captivating for me. I would like to be able to understand how this shift occurred in order to better articulate the fascination I now have for thunderstorms, a fascination that impels me through my artistic processes.

As I’ve said before, I find storms both beautiful and powerful. They are beautiful when viewed from a distance (easily done on the prairies I grew up on); the textures, the forms and the light are stunning. They are powerful when upon you, which goes without saying. This combination awes me, how something so visually wonderful can also be so terrifying. Perhaps the best word to describe such a phenomenon is sublime.

Though I often lament living in Northwest Arkansas on account of it’s trees and hills obscuring the horizon, I still look forward to this stormy time of year. I’ve made note of a few places in town where one can look a ways into the sky and see approaching storms. I migrate to these locations with a camera whenever the forecast for thunderstorms is promising.

Filed under Art, Beauty, Intentional observation, Personal reflection

On beauty in the arts

7 February 2008 by pcNielsen 7 Comments

I speak regularly of beauty on this blog, more often in the context of the human physique or the built environment than with respect to the fine arts. Why or how it’s ended up this way I can’t exactly say, but I’m taking this opportunity to talk specifically about beauty as it relates to the tactile arts.

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From Wikipedia: The image of the young woman is a
symbol of human beauty in the West,
and a dominant theme in western art.
The above painting is “Nymph with morning glory flowers”
by Jules Joseph Lefebvre

Beauty has driven how I think about and create my sculptures (and occasional paintings) since I can remember thinking about and creating art. It influences every one of my artistic decisions. My works represent a process of searching for a Divine beauty, for a more palpable definition of a subjective and somewhat ethereal concept.

    beau·ty (byōō’tē)
    n. pl. beau·ties
    The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.

I hope the idea of beauty plays into every tactile artist’s work and process, but by no means do I expect every work of art to aspire to be beautiful. Art serves a much broader purpose than just beautification, even if, in my opinion, this is one of the most important aspects of visual art. Many other approaches to a work are equally valid, whether the crafter’s intentions are social, political, personal or relating to the interesting concept of the sublime. And, of course, using these in any combination is also an option.

I don’t know how to approach the subjective nature of beauty in this entry. Suffice it to say that I do believe there are aspects to beauty, artistic and otherwise, that cross cultural, social and personal aesthetics — though I don’t know what these would be off-hand. I suppose one can point to flowers or sunsets or mountains or oceans as universally eliciting a positive emotional response (Although, if I recall correctly, 19th century Europeans didn’t necessarily think of things like mountains and oceans as beautiful, but instead referred to them as sublime.). I personally like to think of beauty in terms of original Creation. What did Adam and Eve and the garden look like before the Fall? How can I emulate or capture a snippet of this ideal?

In asking how I can aspire to a Divine aesthetic I usually end up abstracting both the beautiful and sublime as I find them in nature, particularly — and you’ll already know this of me if you’ve read this blog for the last couple of years — thunderstorms as they occur on the American prairies. I also stick to forms and textures that mimic the natural materials and processes I prefer, generally employing natural visual elements such as wood grain into the finished product.

I’ll continue this train of thought with an article in the near future dealing with Gregory Wolfe’s most recent Image Journal editorial (take note of their new website), which is in defense of beauty.

614px-mehmooni2.jpg

Also from Wikipedia’s article on beauty, a painting in the Hasht-Behesht palace, Isfahan, Iran, from 1669, “of beauty.”

Filed under Abstract art, Aesthetics, Art, Art and faith, Beauty

A Christian idea of beauty

12 October 2007 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

This post is in response to an article by Rev. Peter Mullen titled “The Christian Idea of the Beautiful.”

I have a couple of observations. Mullen complains about Marcel Duchamps urinal as art. There are many good reasons for art and visual communication, including the elicitation of a visceral response and driving viewers to new thoughts, which displaying a urinal as a sculpture will certainly do. Although the Reverend is correct in saying that modern art students are naive to think the same kind of shock tactics work in today’s society, works such as Duchamp’s Fountain have their place. For a shocked response you must work in a culturally relevant manner, and not much is shocking in today’s world.

Secondly, art and beauty are not synonymous. On this Mullen and I agree, although he had me wondering through the first few paragraphs of his article. He says that

    Beauty reaches far beyond art, music and literature, for it is characteristic of the natural world — or as Christians would say creation. For beauty, like truth and like goodness, has its origin in God. But we mustn’t think of beauty as belonging to objects in the world, as if beauty were a quality like size or yellowness: beauty is in the relationship between the object and the person who comes into contact with it.

He goes on to suggest that the sublime sums up beauty; beauty is the “haunting presence of God.” (More on the sublime here.) “To see the face of God is to behold beauty, which is the source of all lesser beauty,” says Randy Alcorn in his book Heaven.

Mullen’s comments alluding to the sublime equaling beauty seem a bit simplistic to me. I’m pretty certain that I don’t think all things which are beautiful are also sublime, although I haven’t catalogued this to make certain. Regardless, Rev. Mullen’s writing poses some worthwhile thoughts that I hope to come back to in the future.

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Beauty, Christianity