I hate talking about my art. I absolutely despise it. I never feel that I am very good being verbal. That's why I make art, so I don't have to be verbal. If I wanted to talk or write about my feelings and perceptions I would have been a poet. Visual art is my escape from words. At least I thought it would be. People (my colleagues included) always seem to be offended and feel so cheated when I choose not to talk about my art. But my work isn't about talking to me, it about you talking to others. I just make my work for catharsis and put it out there. I don't want to talk about it, if I do it puts your imagination in a box. Anyone who knows my work knows that isn't at all what I want to do. Quite the contrary. Using verbal language to describe visual language doesn't make sense to me. I'm not trying to be difficult, I just feel that talking about my work defeats the purpose of me making art.
This is all.
this is a hump we all fight (and still continue to fight even after we're past it) at some point in the creative process. yes, we're visual people or we wouldn't be trying to create visual things.
ReplyDeletebut you are STILL attempting to communicate SOMETHING and a lot of the time just staring at the things you create without working over what it's about or what you're trying to communicate in words you won't be able to build upon it or grow in a fast or constructive way.
you're not putting my imagination into a box, you're giving me a guideline as to what YOU are trying to say. and maybe what i initially thought is different, which is fine and can remain different, but i'm looking at YOUR art to see what YOU have to say. you don't have to do ALL of the talking, that's why you made the art, but you should know what brought you there and why it is important.
being able speak about your work isn't an easy thing because it's all of these soft, squishy parts of yourself you put on the wall for everyone to look at and even when you reach a point where you feel like you've got everything figured out, you don't. but the feeling of confidence that comes with knowing how it all fits together, why you did what and a word for each of these things, is unimaginable.
any conversation i got into about my thesis body i CONTROLLED. i didn't divert or argue or beat around the bush, i had been forced to plot out what it was about to such an extent that it grew into something much larger than it was originally and i had tested and proved every word that came out of my mouth.
this isn't to say you need to have an arsenal of flowery "art" words, just that being able to write/speak thoroughly about your work is truly KNOWING your work. (plus, in a larger sense, truly knowing yourself.) and that is why you pay $30k a year to go to the school you do and not just "make pretty pictures."
i believe in you, travis, and that you can do this because i know you think about it already. just don't pussyfoot around saying it because you're afraid of people not getting it. if they don't agree or get it, give them your sound reasoning as to why it makes sense. and if you can't, well then it's better to find holes sooner rather than later. but having the sack to say it initially is what's important.
if you ever want to mull over your work or a direction you're thinking about going you've got a huge network of people to rely on, including myself. i'd love to hear about it.
I generally agree with mr. slewis here.
ReplyDeleteTalking about your work is never easy, or necessarily all the enjoyable (depending on how personal it is). {Back to the squishy parts on the wall bit}
I will say that I, like Steve here, have great faith in your abilities. Every person is already in some sort of self-constructed box when they go into looking at a piece of art. You talking about your work becomes just more information to fuel the conversation, which, is what I think art is all about: conversing (on a variety of levels [giggle]).
Also we all feel like we are not good at something, but that doesn't mean we should just give up on bettering ourselves in whichever area that happens to land on.
and Al Gore.