G. Steve Journal

Art Is Art

I came across this tidbit from Groucho Marx that sounded suspiciously like someone vainly trying to compose an erudite artist's statement....

"Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... now you tell me what you know." 

Thanks, Groucho!

No Words For

We've written previously about the notion of art's immediate effect on the viewer (or listener) as one that precedes intellectual apprehension -- we "feel" it before we can describe it.

Now there is a growing scientific consensus that this precognitive response is a real one, triggered by the release of so-called "feel-good" chemicals in the brain like dopamine – not unlike the feelings one has towards a loved one.

That's not to say that Art as a category of human endeavor is not able to accommodate other ways of apprehending, for example the more intellectual understanding required of a conceptual artwork.  But it's probably not a stretch to suggest that the genesis of art was the desire to express oneself in a different way.

I found I could say things with color and shape that I couldn't say any other way – things I had no words for.
                                                                                                                             Georgia O'Keefe

Being There

We're replacing the large four-panel presentation (called a polyptych) on the back wall of the gallery and, when completed, it will present a scene at a scale - about 10' x 7' - that will give the appearance to the viewer of actually standing at the base of the falls.

Years ago, in the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, we saw a giant wall display of a Clyde Butcher scene from the Everglades so large and captivating that it transcended the notion of a "documentary photograph" and, for a moment, it was almost like being there.

So, although normally we'd be less inclined to highlight this type of image - an apparent documentation of a natural scene - there is something about the very tactile qualities found in the elements of this scene - delicate ferns, textured rock, flow of water - and the sheer size of the presentation that warranted the decision and, we hope, will evoke in viewers a response similar to the one Butcher's image had on me years ago.

 

 

 

Keep It Simple

I'm always interested in learning about how artists of all stripes approach the creative process.

There was a very well done piece about the singer-songwriter Paul Simon in the recent issue of ROLLING STONE (May 12, 2011) where he spoke about how he composes his songs, and it struck me that his very cogent and insightful comments could be applied to many creative endeavors:

Make it as simple as you can.  Take a complex thing and make it as simple as you possibly can.  You're lucky if you ever attain it.  What I'm interested in within art is beauty.... If it's beautiful, that produces an openness of feeling and generosity.

 

Worth The Journey

Henry David Thoreau's observations about the singular beauty of an ice-covered and sunlit tree might well be applied to any number of natural phenomena, like the delicate and transitory tree blossoms I encountered along the banks of Lake Mohonk.  Thoreau writes:

Many times I thought that if the particular tree... were the only one like it in the country, it would be worth the journey across the continent to see it.... But instead of being confined to a single tree, this wonder was as cheap and common as the air itself.

 

What The Road Passes By

Years ago, while traveling through the southwest US,  I met the very talented and personable photographer DeWitt Jones who was shooting for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC at the time.  I was just starting to take photography more seriously and was impressed by Jones' friendliness and professionalism. 

In the course of the day spent shooting, he showed me a book he had published a few years prior entitled: "What The Road Passes By" -- a photo essay on the hidden beauty lurking just off the beaten path.

I thought of Jones and that book last night when I stopped along the side of the road in a suburban neighborhood to capture some spring images of a flooded woodland scene.  I remarked to the homeowner who came out to see what I was up to that, without knowing the story behind it, most people looking at the images would assume they were made in a remote location far from civilization.

It's what the road passes by....

Spring

"One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in."                                

                            -  Henry David Thoreau

The Act of Creation

Marcelo Gleiser, writing on an NPR blog about laughter and health, observes that:

Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation, develops the argument that humor and creativity have a lot in common: in a good joke, there is a rupture of the logic, a point where the narrative departs from its natural flow and takes a sharp turn to the unexpected. That's when we laugh. You can't control it, it just happens. If you retrace your steps and explain the joke to someone who didn't get it, it isn't funny anymore.

I think that may be the reason many of us find contemporary works of art less than satisfying: we feel intuitively that if the work needs to be explained, the essence is lost -- perhaps it was never there to begin with.