Thoughts On Art - Tumblr Posts

be snobbish and thoughtful about all art indiscriminately

Honestly I wholeheartedly believe in this. It’s a really insightful and important quote about art. And the way I see it, it means if you are truly not thinking about the ideas behind your art (which doesn’t have to be done during the creation of a piece, you can be thinking about it at other times) then you’re just riffing on other people’s ideas that you’ve come across. Or riffing on the same idea you’ve already used.

What I will add is, this is fine! When you’re just doodling or messing around or trying to perfect something you’ve already come up with or just generally practicing. But I don’t think you’ll ever really come up with anything original, anything new, without having to think about your ideas first.

The idea - that is the cornerstone of great art. It always comes first.

Pedro Costa

- Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?

2001

This is so true. And for a long time I don’t think I fully realised that this literally applies to EVERY hobby and field of study.

Like this is my bf recently after he started learning to crochet and its very cute.

This is me with drawing and with diving down the rabbit hole of art history - something I never knew I would become so interested in, but now I find it fascinating. Any research into a subject and any attempt at doing something (anything!) always makes you appreciate the craft, skill and dedication behind those things like 100x more.

And I know they’re not really hobbies but this is definitely true for people studying any academic field too (well I suppose it could be a hobby if someone researches it just in their free time). Like for me learning physics absolutely changes the way I see the whole world around me. Whenever I think about the complexity of what’s happening, even in simple everyday phenomena, it’s astounding. If you haven’t seen it, the quote from Feynman really explains this better than I ever could. But I’ll summarise:

Understanding the flower, what every part of it does, why it looks the way it does and how it functions, doesn’t diminish its natural beauty. It always, always enhances your appreciation of its beauty. And this goes for just about everything in life.

Getting a weird little hobby is actually so important bc it opens your eyes up to the world. You start crocheting or knitting, and now you see scarves and sweaters differently. You try identifying plants, now you’re seeing opposite and alternate leaf pattern. Bird watching? Every chirp draws attention and interest.

Get into weird little hobbies.

I might be going crazy but this painting reminds me of characters in a videogame. Like NPCs or the sims or something? That’s just the vibe that I got off this for some reason. Just stay with me on this one:

I’m thinking it might be the way they’re all milling about doing their daily tasks, paying no mind to each other or the viewer.

And we see them only from a distance at this kind of raised-up angle above, looking down on them — they seem so tiny here — it’s that feeling you get when you look out of a high-up window and watch people going about their lives, like a city full of ants. In that same way, we’re just a spectator here, watching these nuns. Intimate yet distant.

Dominican nuns in a monastery chapel (c.1820) Oil on canvas ― Franz Ludwig Catel (German, 1778-1856)

reblog if you unironically love art that makes you feel weird, confuses the mind, wises to destroy the canon, mocks the concept of values, spits on beauty and celebrates ugliness

making art is just like showering………can’t get up and do it, can’t stop when you’ve started. you want to crawl out of your skin if you don’t do it often enough. everything in the world is the exact same

Me with literally all my hobbies. I sometimes beat myself up over it, thinking like “ugh why can’t I finish any of these drawings instead of starting more new ones”.

But this post reminds me that the joy in these things is in the process of making them - I do them to have fun. Not to say that finally seeing a finished product can’t be satisfying or fulfilling - it usually is - but I don’t think that’s worth beating myself up for all the ones I haven’t finished.

At the end of the day it’s far, far better to start 100 projects you actually like and enjoy doing, than to never start any at all because you can’t motivate yourself to finish the first one you started. It’s exactly as they say: perfect is the enemy of good. So next time, I’ll tell myself: It doesn’t have to be perfect, just “good”. Whatever that is to you. Because a perfect life is lived striving, not for perfection, but to do good things.

Draw badly. Write nonsensically. Embroider messily. Burn what you bake and cook. Get paint everywhere. Read half a book. Lose your mind for a bit. Plant things. Have faith in the process. Abandon 70 wood-carving projects. Get a kit and do some of it and never return to it. Get comfortable with sucking and losing motivation. Continue to create with reckless abandon.

Oakoak

“the arts and sciences are completely separate fields that should be pitted against each other” the overlap of the arts and sciences make up our entire perceivable reality they r fucking on the couch

“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed, as William Blake said. The same thing can happen when we’re around young children or adults who have unlearned those habits of shutting the world out.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin 

saw someone on instagram say “you shouldn’t post your art until it’s good” and that comment filled me with rage so i want to say to every beginner artist or artist who feels their art is not improving no matter how long they’ve been at it. i love you and i love your art and everything you post bears part of you and that is so beautiful. block everyone who says otherwise they are not entitled to freely consume what they rag on.

Two things I hold close to my heart as simultaneous truths:

To create art is a beautiful, holy act that connects us across time, space, and experience. To make art is human. To make art is divine. Art is as vital to humanity as breathing, eating, and clean water.

You don't have to know a single goddamn thing about art in order to make it, society should stop being weird and pretentious about it, artists are not a special secret class of people who know secret forbidden wisdom, materials for art can come from anywhere, literally anything can be art if you put intent into it, and dear lord the art world is full of people who need to sit down and rediscover the simple joy of a toddler with fingerpaints for the first time.

if ur poetry isnt cringe that means you didnt put enough effort in

I feel like ai art would be fun if we were all still just typing random prompts into it like mushroom giving a ted talk and going lol this looks stupid wasn’t that fun but instead people are like trying to replace jobs with it

I'm thinking about making a huge post on what artistic concept is and how to develop it once I am done grading finals. I'm getting a bit (read: massively) tired of it being treated like a nebulous and mysteriously mystic thing, by students especially.

Something on my mind for all my students who follow my blog, and to anyone else who finds it meaningful:

Don’t let anyone else tell you what you have to like or care about. Don’t let other people determine your tastes for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s other artists or teachers or parents or people in places of authority. Your interests are your own. As a younger person, you’re often going to go up again the tastes, tendencies, cultural biases, and indoctrination of people, particularly older people, who believe that your youth means that you don’t know what “good taste” is. 

Your tastes develop over time, yes, as you deepen your interests and delve more thoroughly into the stuff that interests you. That’s the keyword there: YOU care about it. You are the up and coming taste-maker. It’s not your job to make art history categories for what you make; art historians went to school for a long time for that privilege. 

If you’re in a class or a program and you’re butting heads with teachers telling you that your interests are worthless, that’s hard. You have my sympathy. I’ve been there. You’re not getting the direction you need to really find your own footing. I promise you that it will get better if you don’t let yourself get discouraged and you make time to pursue your own interests away from the piercing eyes of insecure instructors. 

Your choices do not need to validate their choices. If you don’t want to go to grad school right out of college, don’t go to grad school. If you don’t want to be a portrait artist, don’t be a portrait artist. Make work in class to get by and in your own time, try to take what you’ve learned and apply it to what actually gets you excited. If you’re in a fine arts program and it feels like everyone around you hates illustration and comic books, but those are your lifeline to feeling a sense of joy, don’t let those people trample all over that. Make your own work and treat it like a quiet rebellion. 

Teachers are people too, and sometimes, they can be petty, judgemental, or closed-minded. Their authority doesn’t make them right.