This is a great example of how I use bad photos. The sandal strap photos turned out
too purple, made the skin look deathly. But when you put them against the slate green
color of the Cezanne painting the purple becomes a perfect color IMHO.
This week I am going to show you an early series of mine, one of the first where I
collaged photos onto other material. I had been focusing on photographing physical
memories that showed up on one’s body and I had done a series on tanlines earlier.
Now I focused on body impressions. These were photos I took of parts of the body
having been pressed by something. Maybe a bracelet, or a bra strap or underwear
elastic. Something that left an impression. I then had the idea of collaging those
photos on top of Impressionist paintings. The play on the idea of impressions on
bodies vs. impressions of light in paint appealed to me.
I took it to the point of making the images a collaboration between the original
impressionist artist and myself, titling the works so they included part of the
original title with my new addition and dating the work from the inception of the
original back in the 1800’s to the time I added my photos on top in the 1980s and
90s. Some fellow artists and gallery directors etc. thought that was a bit
pretentious of me, assuming I was equal to the impressionists. But I know this
much….the impressionists themselves would have enjoyed both the fun play on art and
the resulting images.
Stop sign #10 – But…but…but…
Answer: no excuses, go be who you are suppose to be and create what you are suppose
to create. Don’t wimp out, don’t be a lazy baby about it. If you see something on
the side of the road that might make a good photo, STOP YOUR CAR and take it! And
no, I don’t mean you should do that on the way to your daughter’s wedding with a car
full of people. Be smart about it obviously.
Here is a good quote. “It is easier to act yourself into another way of feeling than
it is to feel yourself into another way of acting.” What that means in the context
of the stop signs is that if you wait until you feel creative to act on it, you might
wait a long time. But if you act creative, if you take the photo, walk around the
corner, look at a detail, pay attention to the light, even if you don’t feel
creative, guess what? You will have a VERY creative day!
So, go take the photo! Then take another and another and another until you can’t
stop smiling because you are so proud of yourself, just as we all will be.
Stop sign #9 – Everyone is so much better than I am.
Answer: True, they are. Get over it and take your photos. Pretty soon you will be
who the faint hearted ones look at and say ‘they are so much better than I’.
There are those who feel they know everything and as a result have nothing left to
learn. There are those who feel they know nothing and as a result are afraid to
learn. Both types miss out because they have wrong thinking about it. Their
thoughts in that case are all about ‘self’. The ‘know-it-all’ is wanting to show the
world how much he or she knows. The ‘know-nothing’ is consumed with what others will
think of them.
What both have in common is a lack of concern for others.
The know-it-all isn’t out to encourage and motivate and lift up those who aren’t as
educated and as a result more often than not diminishes and puts down those who know
less. People don’t like to follow ‘know-it-alls’ and so they eventually find
themselves alone and bitter.
The ‘know-nothings’ aren’t thinking about what gifts they do offer to others. They
are also not thinking how their need for education might be a gift a teacher needs to
get motivated themselves. They don’t realize that teachers need students, mentors
need mentees (mentoes, mentals?). All they are thinking about is how they will appear
to others and so they hide and bewail their shortcomings. They are tiresome.
What both types have in common is selfishness.
So, yes, there are people who know more than you. They are better at lighting,
cameras, painting, drawing, selling, marketing, planning, printing, talking, on and
on and on.
Will that fact (and it is a fact) make you hide, or will it inspire you to go find
those people and have their input and help in your art life?
Stop sign #8 – It costs too much.
Answer: What is it you can’t afford? A point and shoot camera? A computer?
Transportation? Membership fees? Be creative, find a camera at a pawn shop, or a
resale shop. If you can’t afford a new computer, once again, find a refurbished one.
Maybe trade services for what you need. You don’t have to go anywhere to create
interesting photos, you have yourself as a subject, and you don’t have to travel to
get there do you? You have your home, your yard, your sidewalk, your street signs.
I realized by having children that we are all capable of saying we don’t have the
time or the money to do something. But I found out that without exception my children
almost always found a way to do the things they REALLY wanted to do. That usually
did not include cleaning out the garage with dad, so in that case they had too much
homework. But a call from a friend to go to the movies, well, in that case, they
realized they could do their homework when they got home, or in the morning. In
other words, they WANTED to go to the movies, and found a way.
In other words, don’t say ‘I can’t afford it’. Say instead ‘HOW can I afford it?’
and go out and find the way.
Do you WANT to be a photographer, an artist, a creative person? Then you WILL find a
way and you will not use excuses.
Stop sign #7 – I don’t know what to photograph.
Answer: What are you passionate about? photograph that.
Even if it is your secret doll fetish or chronicling the cutting of your toenails.
Artists who continue to create art are the ones who have admitted to themselves and
the world what it is they love. They have courage.
There are two things you must love to be successful. One, you must love your
subject. You must feel passion and love and excitement about it. If it is old
couches, fine. If it is women, fine. If it is carpet samples, fine. If it is women
on old couches looking at carpet samples, fine. It doesn’t matter what you have a
passion about, what matters is you admit it.
Two, you have to love the process, not just the end result, of creating your art. If
you don’t then eventually you will find ways to not create it. So, if you don’t love
setting up lights and getting all your equipment in synch to create a great studio
image, chances are you won’t do that as often as you need to be successful at it. If
you don’t like climbing out in nature, getting dirty and sweaty and being at the
mercy of the elements, then chances are you will not be a great, or even mediocre,
wildlife photographer.
You get my point? What do you love? Subject, style, process? Admit that and do
that.
Couldn’t resist, a woman on a couch (but without carpet samples).
Stop sign #6 – What if people don’t like what I do?
Answer: Guess what? They WON’T like what you do! At least many won’t. Many might,
some will. But that is like saying what if someone doesn’t like my flower garden or
looks or gift, etc. So what? Are you not going to plant your garden or wash your
face and comb your hair or give any gifts because MAYBE someone won’t like your
choices? NO, of course not. You will go do those things. So, time to do a reality
check and realize that the normal state of the creative life is that someone won’t
like what you do. That isn’t bad, it’s to be expected. Embrace it, have it be an
acceptable part of your understanding about life.
The Denver Art Museum, by Daniel Libeskind – I have a funny feeling many Denverites
don’t like this building, though I am sure many do as well. What sort of building
would have been built if the goal was to have everyone like the building?
Inside the Museum – Molten Polyester, by Ed Ruscha – I am sure this isn’t universally
loved or understood by all that see it. What would this image look like if Mr.
Ruscha worried incessantly about whether people would like it?
#4 of 10 stop signs to creativity
Stop sign #4 – I am not educated in art and photography.
Answer: Praise the Lord God Almighty you aren’t! Get over it and take some photos.
There are many highly educated ‘artists’ who are picking their noses watching TV and
eating too much instead of using their talents. They aren’t worth doodoo compared to
one person with passion and vision even without a formal education. What matters is
the doing. If you do the work you will learn.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t things to learn in a formal setting, there are. I
have 2 degrees in art because I wanted to learn. I learned about printmaking,
drawing, art history, certain artmaking techniques, and a bit about the art world.
But I had no formal training as a photographer at all. My sole educational work in
photography was about 3-4 sessions in a dark room during grad school with another
student who taught me the basics in exchange for me teaching him the basics of
lithography. The truth is the vast majority of my creativity and my end results as an
artist are not a function of my formal education, they are a function of my desire
and my passion.
There is a woman on Flickr, Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, probably the most visited of all
the millions on flickr. She was doing pencil portraits when she found flickr and
decided to try photography. Within 2 years she had 3 million views and a contract
with Toyota to photograph their cars. She is a single mother of 2 sons. She lives
in….ICELAND! She is as far from the center of the photography and art world as you
can imagine. But she didn’t use that as an excuse. She didn’t use her children as an
excuse. She didn’t use her lack of photography education as an excuse. What she did
was go out into the middle of the dark Icelandic winter and take photos of 100-200
second exposures in FREEZING cold. She is now getting an art education, but the
point is she didn’t wait. She went and ACTED.
“A Genius is someone who simply has fewer stop signs in their head.” part 1
This week and next I am dedicating to those things that keep YOU from doing art. I
have 10 ‘Stop Signs’ that can stop you in your creative tracks faster than a head-on
with a semi. They may seem harsh, but that is because they are. Just imagine Simon
Cowell talking to an artist instead of a singer and you will get the attitude I am
trying to put forth here.
Stop sign #1 – it’s boring. Answer: No, YOU are boring. Not the place, person or
event. If you can’t take interesting photos wherever you are, then YOU aren’t
interesting and you aren’t interesting because you aren’t INTERESTED in the world
around you. Look at details, look from the floor, look straight down, look in a corner.
I saw this as we were walking into Eskimo Joe’s in Stillwater, Oklahoma. It was the
hostess leaning up against the glass brick seen from outside and it was as boring a
scene as you can imagine. I bet thousand of people have gone by that glass brick
when someone was leaning up against it and not one noticed or took a photo. Why not?
Because they didn’t expect to see anything worth noticing and weren’t paying
attention. Pay attention to unexpected angles and views.
This is the second in a week long posting of a series I did from about 1986-1993. This
is one of my favorite of the series because I love the transition of the ocean and the
clouds into her body and the dimension brought in by the hedge/sidewalk image on the
right side.
I love the simplicity of the statement as well. ‘Know you know’.
