The subject matter of art can be anything that the artist chooses. The content however will always and only be who the artist has made him or herself into.

There is a lot of truth in this statement. I’ve said before, particularly when talking about painter Thomas Kinkade, that the subject matter of art is not something I’ll debate with an artist. I may not appreciate every subject, I may not be drawn into every subject, but subject matter is up to the artist. Frame’s point about content being separate from subject matter is not something that I’ve considered, at least not using those terms.

Subject: An object, scene, incident, etc., chosen by an artist for representation

Content: Something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts

In general I think of the subject of a work of art as a tool for conveying what Dictionary.com suggests as the content (more commonly referred to, it seems to me, as the message or meaning). Frame’s comment about content seems to born out of Modernism, which commonly glorifies the individual. Curiously though, his observation seems somewhat aloof — if I can make this kind of judgment based such a brief video interview. For some reason, the comment comes across as academic more than personal.

This is an age-old debate really, one that is not a stranger to The Aesthetic Elevator. How much of the artist should come through in a work? Is serious artwork self-expressive or reserved? Is the content of a painting negated by the raucous lifestyle of of the painter?

We expect each artist to have his or her own style. We each work a little bit differently. We each respond to inspiration around us in our own way. Each artist has their own process. We each come from different roots that color our approaches, our choices on subject matter and so forth. Each artist has a different passion that will show up over time in their style. But is this, “who the artist has made him or herself into,” really what amounts to content, the meaning of a work? Frame talks about meaning a little later in the interview.

When people ask what the work is about, the real answer is that it isn’t about anything and that’s not to say that it’s meaningless rather than it carries its meaning in its own way and on its own terms. And I really think the only way to understand that meaning is by looking and letting go of thinking.

Again there is truth in what the artist says, but I can’t agree wholeheartedly. I’m not going to argue with an artist about whether or not there is intended meaning in a work. That’s for the artist alone to know, and share if he likes. Of course, content, meaning, comes through regardless of an artist’s intentions. I appreciate Frame’s emphasis on looking, but I’m not certain why letting go of thinking needs to be part of viewing art.

I do agree that our own roots, preconceptions, baggage as it were impede looking. If he means that we should let go of or carefully moderate these sometime hindrances while viewing a sculpture or painting I agree. If he’s suggesting that we should check our intellect at the door of the gallery, I disagree.

Still, it’s a good interview and fascinating interactive sculpture. Have a look.

A long while, actually. Probably since I graduated from college almost ten years ago now.

Julie's sculpture does not forget it's roots.

In my architecture classes, in my graphic design classes and some of the time in my ceramics classes I watched aspiring artists and designers, myself included, forget the basics of design. We’d go after an assignment with passion, with dreams of being featured on the front cover of Architectural Digest, and forget that there are certain building blocks to every visual and spatial solution. They were overthinking the problem.

I suppose this is a symptom of the genius mentality, the drive for stardom usurping the desire to make useful and beautiful contributions to our surrounding environments.

In my opinion, people have underestimated the notion that Hitler considered himself an artist, in fact, an artistic genius, and that much can be deduced from this self-image, this overheated artist’s ego. However, this has hardly played a role in the research to date. . . Hitler’s deluded view of himself as a genius is based on the confused system of thought emerging in the late 19th century, which centered on the idea that a genius — a strong personality who outshone everything else — could do anything he pleased. . . You mustn’t forget that the concept we have today of a genius is so much more harmless than it was back then. We define a genius on the basis of his talent. At the time, talent was not the main focus. A genius had to have a strong personality. He was a larger-than-life talent who was permitted to do anything, including evil things.

Read on at the Art Market Monitor. Or see the interview in its entirety at Spiegel.

The following is an excerpt from Conway’s entry:

The former is exemplified by what I think of as the “creativity business,” the idea that the untrammeled flow of primal “free” writing—uninhibited by an inner critic—is in fact the best writing. And evidence of the divine within us. This is promulgated by The Artist’s Way and its permutations; it is the kind of writing one practices in the Tuscan retreats advertised in the back pages of Poets and Writers. It says that everyone is a writer, a statement with which I do not entirely agree. But I do agree that there is a sobering amount of talent out there.

A recent New York Times column by David Brooks outlines a radically different slant on the creative process. Offering a contrast to those who see genius as “the product of divine spark,” bestowed on those “who are best approached with reverential awe”—such as Dante or Mozart—Brooks points out that the key element of genius is the repetition of the basic elements of craft. Recent neurological research stresses that simple, unglamorous practice is how one gets better.

The “divine spark,” the columnist concludes, is merely romantic “hocus-pocus.”

Unlike Brooks, however, I do not discount the divine spark. I recently finished the new Flannery O’Connor biography by Brad Gooch. I found the book uninspiring, but I smiled to see how “touched” O’Connor seemed from the beginning—closeting herself, even as a tiny child, with her drawing and writing, imagining a guardian angel who was half-bird, half-man. She was, in a word, weird. And driven.

The word “genius” has so much baggage in our culture, especially in terms of the arts. I’m wondering if we’re not just batting around semantics in this discussion, and that from a Christian point of view “genius” could be equated to a gifting. I don’t think anyone will disagree that some people are born with talents that others do not possess. However, when we talk about a genius in our culture we imply — based on my own understanding of the word — something beyond a God-given talent.

Read the article in its entirety here.

Regardless, since we have so little apparent direction, I gave my sister-in-law’s idea a few minutes worth of internet research. I learned that real estate in Muncie seems to be very inexpensive (from what a person can tell on the internet, not knowing the quality of a neighborhood and such), and found in particular a swell old house on the historical registry for under $45k.

I also surfed around Ball State’s website and learned that BSU offers an MA in studio art, but not an MFA. This was a bit surprising; I expected a university of that size to offer the latter.

I haven’t given serious consideration to an MA up to now, mainly because it’s not a terminal degree, required for teaching at the college level. I asked a friend at JBU if they’d hire someone with an MA, and he replied “Yes, if they’re working towards a terminal degree.” That makes an MA pretty much worthless to me from what I can tell, unless it counts towards an MFA program in the future — which it might (if you know, please comment!).

I’ve had some conversation about MAs and MFAs with artist Sarah Irani. Sarah has a friend who earned an MFA from the University of Dallas and had a terrible experience. She quotes her friend: “As for grad school, it’s a waste because it is 1% useful instruction on making/becoming an artist and 99% a vetting and indoctrination process to weed out ‘the unworthy.’” I have to hope that my own alma mater, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, is more than this based on my knowledge of its ceramics department. However, the Art School Confidential stereotype has all to much basis in reality.

Sarah has an MA. She listed her reasons for not getting an MFA in an email:

* I was working at a college that offered an MA. I got tuition reimbursement for working there.
* I didn’t want to deal with the crap that they dish out at art schools.
* I was working as an apprentice to a sculptor on big commissions from the time that I graduated until after I was married. There was no sense in paying to get an MFA when I was operating my own studio and getting paid to do big sculptures.
* By the time I was done with the commissions, I was married and wasn’t in the position to move to be close to a school. I could have driven over an hour each way to Baltimore or Washington, but the expense would have been unbearable.
* The expense. My friend who went to University of Dallas is so overwhelmed by student debt that she’ll never afford a home. I do not recommend getting into debt with an MFA. It doesn’t pay off.

“All of that being said, an MA works for me and my situation. What are your goals? If your goals are anything other than being a college professor, I say skip the MFA. It is probably a waste of your time. If you want to be a professor, then you more or less have to go,” she continued, and then suggested Notre Dame, which apparently doesn’t charge MFA students tuition. Sounds too good to be true, but I plan to look into it anyway!

Of course that’s just what I need, another option.

Sarah reminded me this afternoon, as we chatted via Gmail, that such a circumstance as my wife and I find ourselves in is also an exciting time. She quoted her father, who used to tell her “that if I didn’t have a word from God, to move in the direction of my desires and trust God to care for me.

Not my selfish desires, mind you.”

Flash of Genius is based on a 1993 New Yorker article of the same name. I actually took the time to read the well-balanced twelve page article which included interviews and a brief history of patent law. The term “flash of genius” was issued by the Supreme Court in 1941 case to help define what an invention is, something that patent law has never really be able to do in a concrete way.

Discussion stemming from the film, between my wife and I and later with our friends, came to a mostly unanimous conclusion: The creative process of an inventor and an artist are very similar. Just like an artist, an inventor works from a set of cultural, social and technological tools.

Of course, the end results are of a different character. Inventions are generally functional solutions; paintings and sonatas are communicative reflections on an artist’s observations. I suppose this is why inventors’ intellectual property is protected by a different system, patents, than artists who use copyrights.

Both systems are somewhat outdated minefields, however. Copyright has done little or nothing to adequately keep up with digital technology, namely the internet. Likewise patent law, from what I understand, struggled to adjust to a tidal wave of electronics in the 20th century.

As I’ve noted before, creativity comes in different forms and by all kinds of processes. In my own work as a graphic designer I’ve experienced flashes of creative genius, but this doesn’t happen with every project. Other creative acts require patience — such as Alfred Stieglitz waiting three hours in a blizzard for the above photograph — and sometimes outright failures. Edison reportedly made 300 attempts at the light bulb before getting it right.

The New Yorker article quotes Henry Ford: “Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the great forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.” While I don’t agree with everything I’ve read about Ford, these two sentences speak clearly and accurately (although in context, as I recall, he’s essentially discounting individual inventive effort altogether, something I’m don’t necessarily agree with). There is nothing new under the sun.

Image from Wikipedia.

Every year art schools across the country spit out thousands of groomed-for-success graduates, whose job it is to supply galleries and auction houses with desirable retail. They are backed up by cadres of public relations specialists — otherwise known as critics, curators, editors, publishers and career theorists — who provide timely updates on what desirable means.

I didn’t know it was my job as an [aspiring] artist to supply galleries and auction houses with art. Hm.

“Quality,” primarily defined as formal skill, is back in vogue, part and parcel of a conservative, some would say retrogressive, painting and drawing revival.

I can agree that there is a certain contingent (properly lampooned in the film Art School Confidential) who consider quality and skill retrogressive. Such people, in my opinion, have no sense of history, and probably suffer from the modern artist-as-genius syndrome.

For a while we heard a lot about the radicalism of Beauty; lately about the subversive politics of aestheticized Ambiguity. Whatever, it is all market fodder.

How much attention should an artist pay to the art market? On one hand, it’s a good thing to be in the know from a business perspective. On the other, doesn’t an artist do his or her best work when drawing from their own training, talent and inspiration — not so influenced by what’s popular?

It’s day-job time again in America, and that’s O.K. Artists have always had them — van Gogh the preacher, Pollock the busboy, Henry Darger the janitor — and will again. The trick is to try to make them an energy source, not a chore.

I’m hard-pressed to believe so many recent graduates possessed such a fairy-tale image of the art world that they figured on jumping right into a profitable art-making career. Then again, my own art schooling seems to have been much more realistic than many others. Exaggeration or not, I suppose schools such as the one depicted in Art School Confidential do exist.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRgvKkGcRd4]

I feel the need to add that I was thrilled, in this day and age of old media hanging on to the last vestiges of archaic copyright laws, to see this in the FAQ of Comics.com:

Q: I want to embed a copy of a certain strip on my Web Site or Intranet. Is that ok?
A: Not only is it okay, it’s awesome! In fact, it’s not just awesome, it’s kind of what we built the site for!

Finally, a company that realizes the power of blogs and small websites as marketing and not infringement, unlike others such as NPR or so many professional photographers.

In other architecture related news, Architecture + Morality posted an interesting article on how the profession deals with economic downturns. An excerpt from the piece (which I haven’t finished reading yet):

For many architects this quantitative view pales to their concern for quality. Success is seen differently by many of us, who would rather be proud of a beautiful project done during a time of scarcity than collecting year-end bonuses for voluminous yet mediocre work delivered during times of plenty.

Staying true to one’s convictions in the face of financial hardship is a perennial romantic ideal among ‘serious’ architects, even as it is a major cause of why the practice of architecture is comparitively unprofitable (Rand’s The Fountainhead, anyone?).

This could be the start of the kid’s career as an artist. What better marketing than to have one of the biggest names in the art world say anything about your own work.

The Independent points out the irony in the entire fiasco. Three weeks after Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull was revealed to the public, sculptor John Lekay claimed that he’s worked on bejeweled skulls since the early 90s. Lekay and Hirst were friends, reportedly, from 1992-94.

Perhaps Hirst is making a distinction between inspiration (what he presumably took away from his friendship with Lekay) and photographic reproduction? I can’t really think that it’s anything but a double standard, unless Lekay is lying — which is possible. There isn’t really any way to prove that debate though, while the evidence of the 16 year old’s commentary, or incorporation of images, whatever you want to call it, is obvious.

The aim of an artist as a creative individual, Jasper Johns suggested recently, 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.

The quote was taken from a Richard Shiff essay for the Gray Exhibit catalog. Fujimura correctly notes how this humble (and, I would add, charitable) approach to art-making flies in the face of the egotism found in today’s art world. He then goes on to laud humility as a way to open up new vistas of creativity for an artist.

Image from Wikipedia.