You remember me complaining about "not being an artist" in the opinion of "real" (contemporary) artists? Because my art is too skilled to have meaning, and because my subject (Jayli) is too physically attractive to have depth. Therefore, my art, as "real art," is a failure.

What about take two of my rant? Where the complaint was I tried to force too much meaning into my work, making it daunting, aversive, and disinteresting? Because, of course, the meaning I am trying to convey just isn't as important or interesting as it is to me, so my art is a failure.

Nothing against you contemporary artists - I like some of your stuff. It's new and fresh and interesting to look at, definitely, and some of you have some really awesome ideas... but let me stress to you pseudo-intellectual art elitist wannabes that simply doing or thinking of something new or different does NOT automatically make you brilliant and an artistic genius. If I like a modern art piece, I like it for what it is - it has a neat idea, or I like its aesthetic feel, or it's got a fun and crazy attitude about it. Whatever. That doesn't automatically make you the bloody Einstein of the art world.

Some people expressed an interest in the outcomes of my tentative attempt at contemporary art. Let me make one final summary of this semester's work...


"Evolution"

Assignment: "Draw a series that introduces yourself, and/or described a transformative process."
My personal intent: "I wanted it to use a single figure, alone, to portray as much as I could both about myself and Jayli in a story-like and symbolic manner, starting from a timid unwillingness to face the world, to a rather apprehensive and hostile approach, to more proaction and energetic force, to a movement towards freedom and harnessing inner potential."
Critique... (paraphrased as accurately as possible)
"It's too perfect. It's impossible to see your artistic intent, and simply fails to interest me."
"You should have made her ugly. It would have given her depth."
"Fantasy is too generic, and she's far too sexy. All I see is a sexy fantasy woman looking attractive."
Teacher/Class Suggestions...
"If your art fails to communicate what you intended, it is a failure overall. If you don't think you're capable of communicating your idea to us, why don't you make that part of the intent?" (I did this with assignment 2)
"In order to improve, I think you need to let go of your concept of what you think art is, because it just isn't working. It'll probably require a lot of self-doubt on your part, but I think it's for the better."
What I think...
Saying that my technique/style could have been looser and more expressive would have been a fair critique, as the lines and shading themselves would then be more suggestive of emotion and expression - however, it was not worded as such, and instead condemned my technical skill to being meaningless. I concede that the poses are dramatic, but the intent of the body here from the beginning was to use it symbolically, like interpretive dance, almost, I guess, and I don't know how else I would have used a single figure with no clothing or props or background to express character development than to use expressive poses that change progressively. That being said, the poses perhaps do not convey progression that well, as while they go from curled up to getting up to sitting up to leaping up, they do not actually transist smoothly into each other - that is, she would have to continually switch positions between each pose; they don't naturally go into each other.

I think that their critique, while there may something valid behind their comments (which I've tried to express above in my thoughts), the actual comments themselves are not constructive, and were arbitrarily assigned to me as I was, at the beginning of semester, singled out as a "non art student/science student." It seemed like they had decided to not accept it on the basis of my being an outsider, rather than an actual inherent flaw in my work.


"Introducing Mr. C. S. Elliott"

Assignment: "Create a life-sized figure drawing however you want - it simply must be life-sized."
My personal intent: "I picked my boyfriend and decided to capitalize on the differing viewer experience, making the differences between what they may or may not see and what "actual meaning" there is a focal part of the artwork. I wanted to focus on the difference between someone's (my class) impression of someone and "who they really are" - that you can't know the person just by looking without further investigation, and hopefully something about whether or not people engage in that further investigation. That is, it was as much about the reactions of the viewers (specifically my class) as it is about the actual artwork and person." (I anticipated my class's unwillingness to engage the subject, or more generally speaking an individual's general disinterest in knowing more, and made it part of the artwork).
Critique... (paraphrased as accurately as possible)
"Just listening to you introduce what you really meant makes me disinterested. It's just too daunting."
"I know that all the little things you put into the image supposedly symbolising him may be meaningful and important to you, but you have to realise that they aren't."
"Once I tried to read the text, I realised it didn't matter if I did or not, so I couldn't be bothered"
"Knowing that there is an objective thing being portrayed behind the artwork ruins it completely."
"How are we ever supposed to get all your meaning?"
Teacher/Class Suggestions...
"I think part of our problem with your artwork is how you talk about it. It's daunting to listen to."
"Our reaction to your artwork is really a reaction to you. Maybe you just shouldn't say anything."
"I don't really care what you really mean. When I wonder, 'what does it mean?' I don't actually want to know! Stop trying to tell us."
"You need to let go of the idea that symbolism is important. It's not. It has no meaning whatsoever to us, and ruins your work."
"On the positive side, I think it's exciting to see you trying to let go of some of your old styles and concepts, and trying to work on a greater, more artistic scale. It's a huge improvement over your last piece."
What I think...
I think the work was a success. My intent was to show how people, when faced with either taking what they choose from something OR pursuing what is really there, on the most part they can't be bothered to do the latter. Even when I told them that was the point of the art, they not only were disinterested in the art, but disinterested in my explanation as well.

They have something resembling a point about my explanations being daunting. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a little anal retentive and obsessive-compulsive about trying to be as thorough as possible when trying to explain something. To some people, it comes off as trying too hard, or makes the work seem too contrived and systematic, and can ruin the subjective experience of the artwork - in my opinion, however, it shouldn't ruin the more objective judgement of an art piece's success or failure. Deciding you don't like the art ONLY because you don't like the artist is completely unfair, especially when I am getting graded on it. It struck me as highly unprofessional to suggest they'll only like my art if I shut up and draw what they tell me to how they tell me, but that's just my opinion :b

I found it curious that they accepted me more as I let my work get less technically strong and a lot sloppier. They interepretted it as a step in the right direction - is it possible that they only liked it more because it meant I was becoming one of "them?" I noticed there was a lot of "us" vs. "you" in their comments towards me. I didn't appreciate it. What made me even more suspicious of this is how their treatment of me changed depending on whether they were speaking as a group to me, or one-on-one outside of class structure. In the group, they tended to persecute my work and talk only about its weaknesses or shortcomings, or how it still wasn't real art. However, when they approached me one-on-one, they often praised me and told me what they liked about it. This strongly suggested to me that the class was more about "fitting into the norm" (being contemporary art) than about actually talking fairly about each other's works. By this point, I had lost most respect for the class, as a whole.

On the other hand, I understand that when I insert meaning into a piece, it is personal meaning that most others will not necessarily ever see or pick up on, and I shouldn't count on other people necessarily appreciating it. However, if the comments of viewers is anything to go off of, it seems that my personal passion and interest for the things I draw rub off, and lets other people enjoy them even if they don't particularly care or understand themselves. I know that is the case with me, when I see someone being enthusiastic about their work, and it's nice to know that other people are like that, too. In the end, I think art becomes hollow if the artist's heart isn't there, and that it can be actually seen/felt in the work - while they have a point about my meaning eventually becoming meaningless, my putting meaning (interest/passion/soul) into it is part of what makes it successful in the end (provided you aren't a pseudo-intellectual art elitist wannabe).



Assignment: "Execute a self-directed final project."
My personal intent: I wanted to accurately draw subjects exactly as they are, capitalizing on my illustrative skill, while simultaneously portraying them as something completely different. I hoped to challenge viewers into wondering what the images really were, and then delight/interest them upon their discovery of what they really are.
Medicine Man: [link]
The Lovers: [link]
Blossom in the Mist: [link]
Presentation: Hung on class wall, with small tag including title underneath. Behind the name tag was the source image, which people could flip to and look at if they wished.
Critique... (paraphrased as accurately as possible)
"I think the little tags beneath your work are a lot more interesting than the works themselves."
"The presentation of the tags and source images with the works detracts from the work. It's more science than art."
"Knowing that pictures actually are of something else ruins it - I stop caring at that point."
Teacher/Class Suggestions...
"You should have incorporated the source images into the artwork itself somehow. Like cut it out and made a collage from it, and then painted over it."
"You're still trying to treat art like science, but I think you've improved drastically in trying to creating more complex layers of meaning." (Didn't you criticize me earlier about being too complex, and trying to put too many layers of meaning in?)
What I think...
I definitely agree that my presentation could have been better, but I didn't know any other way. I wanted to have them there, somewhere, for people to look at and clearly see where the drawing is of, but to not have them openly apparent. I don't know how else I could have included them without being called "too much of a science student" - had anyone else in the class used the exact same presentation, you can bet they wouldn't be accused of being a science student, and especially not as if it were a bad thing.

In a way, the tags underneath really were more interesting than the art themselves - that was kind of the intention: I wanted the works to be interesting in that you didn't know what they really were, but maybe had some ideas, and were led to believe they might be what I included in the title, rather than inherently being interesting to look at in the first place. That is, the viewer needed to know there was more than just a drawing to look at, but something to interpret - I tried to do this by choosing abstract compositions and giving them concrete object names. I don't know how else I might have done it and achieved the intent.

I understand what they mean about my engaging/involving the viewer more in the art, and I agree that the latter two assignments accomplished this to some degree, while the first assignment did not at all. However, I consider these two different forms/executions of art, and to me one is not superior to the other. My class, though, saw me as moving away from some kind of flawed mentality to finally producing something that could maybe be considered art, as if my Assignments Two and Three were more "art" than Assignment One was. I believe this to be a flawed belief - one may prefer one kind of art over another, but one cannot say that THAT kind of art is NOT art, and THIS kind of art is, and especially not using arbitrary critiques. You cannot call my work "too technical and beautiful to have meaning" and not apply to it classical Renaissance painters that were all about technique and beauty.

Anyhow, there you have it: the class's opinion was that I'm still not REALLY an artist, but I'm "getting there" with work like Assignment Two and Three.

MY opinion is that they can suck it.














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