I feel sorry for anyone reading this blog for the first time today. Because (picking up where we left off on Monday) this is one of my periodic flash-backs to Bad Art of the Past (see also: Ugly Baby Steps post of Jan. 13) , where I show off my lack of talent and maudlin tendencies for the betterment of art jouranlists everywhere. As promised, here are some examples of what not to do in an art journal:
This was my shot at making a Tralfamadoran series of messages that, when seen together, would produce an image of the world that was (to use Kurt Vonnegut’s mission statement) beautiful, surprising, and deep.
I was working strictly with my inner sense of the world when I made these postcard collages. There was nothing that I wanted to convey here except my own inner dramas and, yes, melancholies. I spent the entire Winter of my 40th year making collages –I made about two dozen of these postcards (it got so that I was going through my own Baroque Period when the postcards became three dimensional, mounted in shadow boxes with words — captions incantations — painted on the outside frames). It was very theraputic, I won’t deny that.
(These two areTriscuits…sorry; for my UK readers, these are the tea bag-sized collages.)
But when Spring came, I looked at all this work and had to be honest: it was neither beautiful or surprizing, and it certainly wasn’t deep.
I needed to get outside myself — literally.
So that’s when I started walking. I started taking long walks, up and down every street of my village, and I started to pay great attention to the outside world, started taking notes about the details of every season, every road, every day. Everything that wasn’t about my sorry self. The outside world is a happier place, more beautiful, surprising, and deep, than my inside world, any day.
And that’s the moral of my story. Get Out Of Yourself. Before it’s too late.
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A Bit of Shameless Self Promotion: An article I wrote about myself will be published this Friday, Febraury 12, on a nifty English blog called How Publishing Really Works. HPRW is written by “Jane Smith”, a highly respected and widely-read presence in the world-wide publishing biz and I was big-headed enough to contribute my story to her collection of first-person stories “How I Got Published”. I hope I don’t come off as too dopey.
Vivian, you may ask, do you have the link? So’s I can read it for myself and let you know if you come off too dopey?
Well, yes, I do:http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/
Drop by if you have a moment. It’s all the way in ENGLAND!!!
My Book
THIS IS GREAT. Now England will know how good this book is! I CAN’T WAIT TO ACCESS THE LINK, AND FIND OUT MYSELF HOW GOOD YOU ARE.
Vivian, you are self-aware all the time. We benefit every Monday Wednesday and Friday when you point out to us what we can do ( like you did) to improve our own art goals. To have the whole ball of wax , i.e. painting, needlework, journals, writing, observations around us, AND you love cats.
Icing for the cake would be to have Oprah discover you, or someone read the book and want to let the rest of the World see it….
a dream of every published author/artist.
WE’RE WITH YOU, VIVIAN.
How Publishing Really Works… sounds interesting. Friday, you say? We have to wait 2 days?
Vivian, how do you store all these images and keep track of them? I find it daunting trying to create meaningful files for storing digital photography.
And these postcards! They are wanting for an image of a person in a dunce hat. And the word CHERISH stamped somewhere.
These are truly terrible! So maybe there is some hope for the rest of us.
Oh, major MAJOR disagreement abounding over here. First of all, I wonder if because you have a different standard? expectation? vision? desire? for yourself you can’t see these collages with anything but derision. The top two speak volumes to me, especially the second one. And, as you already know, there ain’t nothin’ shallow, dunce hat-esque or ‘cherish’-ridden about me. I don’t like the bottom ones but not because they suck, just because I don’t respond. Response being subjective and all. Sometimes this is the kind of exercise (or ‘practice’, like scales on a piano) that prepares me for what’s really trying to be born. Could be that’s not a necessary aspect to YOUR process, huh?
Meanwhile, thanks for the link – definitely will peruse.
Now I’m intrigued. I read your stuff, but never comment. NOW I want to see how you do in the UK.
Friday; right?