I'm an artist. That doesn't mean very much. A lot of people are and a lot of people are better at it than I am
I wanted to say I don't look for Kodak moments. I don't like smiling pictures. Part of that is because I have formal training and no one smiled for pictures until recently. It's just what I'm used to. Having a picture made wasn't fucking fun for about the length of civilization. But I do look for insightful pictures
This is a picture I like because it shows a very sad person.
I thought it revealing
And I turned it into this
Same picture. Maybe not as sad.
I tell people I'm a camera sometimes because I'm not an illustrator. I can look and copy. I can't draw whatever is in my imagination. But I'm not really a camera. I can think and make decisions. I can take sadness and make it pretty because it is.
We have these inner atmospheres that color our world, but we do not often discuss how to reflect them, or what it means to reflect them. These differences we have in common evade easy communication by their very nature. You can sketch sadness, but how do you sketch your vision of that sadness? Why do we know when you've done it?
I think you just know when somebody is being genuine in their art. So a piece might not depict sadness how you would but you can pick up on the genuine vulnerability and understand what they're expressing even if sadness doesn't look the same too you. Why do we know when you've done it?
It is interesting, because you can sit in a room with somebody and know when they aren't being vulnerable or emotionally open to you. A friend of mine was telling me once about a program he was doing for work, it was a few weeks long and he spent it with the same people who were all new to each other. At the start everybody was getting along and he thought it was going really well socially. Then one day he realized that everybody else was really progressing beyond that as in socializing outside of this program while he was just kind of stuck or left behind. I think a lot of people can relate to that, the feeling like you're on the outside when you suddenly realize that all your coworkers hang out outside of work and you aren't as close with them as you thought you were. Just sitting there and feeling the distance grow. Even with my friend, it had nothing to do with his personality, he got along with everybody there during the day in a natural non-forced way but the connection just wasn't there to push things farther. I struggle with long term emotional connection as well and I'm realizing lately I'm not going to find some simple quick fixes or checklist of things to do for connecting with people. Our eyes and facial expression give us away, how we carry ourselves, our tone of voice and how it all flows together. We all see a difference when people look at us versus when they look beyond us or beyond whatever it is they are seeing. We can see that in photography and we can also draw it. It's like they may not be telling us what they are thinking or where they are but they are letting us see that they are going to this place. They are comfortable going to this place while we are there and that's vulnerability. I think with writing we can feel the vulnerability because we can feel the flow as we read. If you're having a natural conversation with somebody it will flow well unless they are over analyzing every little thing. I think it's similar for writing. I don't know though, I'm no authority on the subject, I just watch people eat but it's honestly very interesting. I know how to connect with somebody while I'm serving them. I've got a water colour painting of Lake Louise that somebody gave to me after they finished eating. I was working on a patio literally in front of the lake and she felt bad that she had been short with me when she first arrived so she asked her father who was with her to paint it while they finished up. It's only really meaningful when you know the story though. I think some people can look at art like that without seeing anything deeper and some other people want to know the story.
I wish that were true. My high school art teacher revelled in SHITTING all over most of my projects. I would slave over a piece, and get it exactly as I wanted it. And she would just destroy it. I'm convinced she genuinely hated me. (and I'm not claiming to be a "good" artist... but I can pinpoint three specific pieces I did that felt so right and so good to me... and she lit me up. ahhhhh life.I think you just know when somebody is being genuine in their art.
Back when my friend was in high school they had an assignment to write about a day in the life for a given career and she got miner. She ended up writing about how he was thinking of his daughter while he went into the mine, it caved in and in typical high school fashion ended it with something like and he's still thinking about his daughter. She was supposed to write about what miners actually do like in their job and instead she wrote a depressing story about dying. She probably wouldn't draw happy people either. You do you, you don't have to justify that shit to anybody. It's your art.
Neato. Facial features are still something I struggle with a lot - I think it's a combination of proportion and the subtle weirdness of organic shapes. I'm getting a lot better at figures (mannequinization is a fantastic tool), but faces remain a problem. And I think what you're talking about there at the end is the whole point. A photocopier or an actual camera can reproduce things more accurately than we ever could, but that's not the point of art.