Green Gecko wrote:Regarding your work. I think you are a real artist. By and large based on how you write and how you produce work. But I don't think you should seek legitimacy. Nobody can ever give you legitimacy. It either happens based on your criteria of success and what you're doing, or its fake, as in market forces. Then you become a commodity. Which is rarely good art. think you should just do your thing.
It's just lonely. I want to connect. I want people to like my stuff not because i lack self esteem or need validation, like in terms of status. I mean in terms of the tone and style of what I'm doing. It's extremely consistently clear and I always meet a refusal to acknowledge the type of stuff it is, and each time it's so disappointing it kills me. It goes beyond differences in taste. I show people who don't know anything about art at all. They don't not get it, there's just no desire for it at all. Which is fine, i guess. It just can't be everyone. I want people to share the same desires, to feel it like I do. My attitude is that my favourite music was made by people who lived and breathed their music, they felt it all because it's all they had. When there's nothing else and you need to make something to satisfy you without fail that's a unique place to be. That music filled a void, if i wanted music that pushed in those areas then it went there. I want my images to fill a void like that. That's what art is to me. This is how full of it I am: i want there to be some pieces that will jolt people, unnerve them, surprise them. I don't that to not be possible.
One of my fears is taking my last breath with the same frustration as I have now. An example of the refusal can be only acknowledging it at a surface level, so all black and white photos are alike. I get a kick out of the reduction of things into shapes, it's fundamental to every photo, the jarring contrast and movement.
Green Gecko wrote:There is only one way to fail at art, and that is not doing it.
I agree. I think desire is the most important thing. It's very easy to not do it, weeks and months go by, you procrastinate, get distracted, find easier ways to relax and play that don't require your mind to be as much there. If you
do do it you gain a satisfaction from it that nothing else can provide. Writers are probably better at describing this process. You have to get through all the crap to get to the good stuff. It's not perseverance so much, or work, or finding inspiration, or waiting for it, it's narrowing in and understanding what you want, and chasing it. Maybe others are different, but experimenting, playing, getting a kick out of it, accepting what you do, finding new ways to do the same things. As I've got older I've become more envious of people who can just draw and enjoy it. I think there's something special about just doing it, being at peace.
As a society we're obsessed with work anyway, using that kind of language, work=graft=self worth=earning your wage. And that's pressed into school kids. Someone like Van Gogh wrote a lot of letters and in many what comes across is his sheer enthusiasm and commitment to progressing. He started painting when he was 28. He caught the bug. 'Genius' is applied to the greatest artists but doesn't work so much if they pick it up late and aren't prodigies. Genius implies it was inevitable. Each one who struggled might dislike their effort to be detached from them. Van Gogh was extremely prolific, 2000 artworks in a decade is insane. I like to remember the volume at which he produced as no one recalls the job he did to get by, if there was one.
Vermilion wrote:My family saw my yearbooks as i've always had a physical copy produced for me to keep. On one occasion however, i made a small photobook of my town and that ended up being sold in the local bookshop which was incredibly neat. I still remember seeing it in the window and having that feeling of sheer pride, the title sold out too which was even more special
That's awesome.
Cuttooth wrote:
So crisp and ace. The people pop out.