Gude Writings

 Value One:  "Engaging mess over keeping things neat"
Gude has a point here.  I agree that mess, or playful attempts, are important.  In my studio I always feel restricted near the end of a painting.  Any slip of the brush could be a terrible mistake.  I enjoy playing at the beginning of a painting.  No stroke can't be fixed, or even be wrong.  I have made some messes in my time, but I learn from them.  Isn't that the point of playful art making?  I am terribly obsessive at the end of paintings.  Everything has to be perfect and neat.  Why can't I finish an entire painting that is a mess?  I have never been able to come up with any that didn't fail miserably.
Messes are definitely necessary when first learning to create art.  I wish I had started out with making messes.  I think I would be a better artist now if I wasn't initially such a perfectionist.  I'm still a perfectionist when it comes to artmaking.  I think that inhibits my growth and evolution as an artist.

Value Two:  "Authentic artistic processes, over mimicking styles"
We are humans.  We learn by modeling or mimicking others.  What's wrong with initially mimicking a style in order to learn.  It isn't asking students to "feel fraud", but rather to attempt to create something that may help them learn to create their own.  There is an extent to how far a student should go with that.  They shouldn't playact "meaning making for the sake of the teacher".  But what if that is the only way to please the teacher.  Then there is a problem.  Teachers may expect meaning to come from a student that is not capable.  Or maybe they are capable, but the meaning isn't acceptable to the teacher.  What is the student to do then?  I am writing from experience here.  Teachers can be full of shit.  High school and college level.

Hetland Chapters 8 & 11

I find all the writings this week to be too idealized.  Not everything can have meaning.  Maybe it should, but it doesn't.  Sometimes exercises are necessary to teach the students certain techniques.  "Cool looking" art is sometimes a good thing.  A student that was never interested in art may see something she thinks is cool and want to make something like it.  That may be the beginning of a career.  All meaning isn't necessarily apparent to everyone.  Different compositional decisions may be made to give meaning, but what if a student doesn't understand or care to understand that art should be looked at beyond face value.  When a student moves past 12th grade and decides to become a fashion designer she can't be worried about meaning in everything she makes.  What art career out there really requires meaning in the end product?  Few if any.
Young artists should look at art as a way to express themselves, but not be entirely strapped to that belief.  Some art is just meant to be pretty.  And if you try to sell your work you will come under that realization.  I sell my work at a store and I know that what I sell is meant to decorate.  To be cheery, bright, aesthetically appealing, and void of meaning.
Is there something wrong with that?  Certainly not if you try to sell and certainly not if you're prepared to be a professional artist.  Should we allow our students to figure that out?

Orchid Painting

Second and Third of Proposed Group of Paintings

Developing Craft Assignment Proposal

I am proposing to work on something I have never done before, that being non-representational or abstract paintings.  The painting I did for the uni-task assignment is the first of many paintings.  I want to work on paintings in a new way, a previously unexplored way.  This body of work is a long time coming.  I will follow where the brush takes me, curvilinear most likely, with organic, uncontemplated compositions.  I will attempt anything and everything all at once.  Nothing is off limits.  I have already started another painting for this body of work, and the action of painting seems to be compulsive.  I start painting and stop only when I need to let a layer dry.  This compulsion to paint is new to me even though I have painted for over a decade.  Stay tuned, this is going to be interesting.

Uni-Task Painting

I attempted uni-tasking the other day.  I painted and did nothing else for an entire hour.  I found it not too different than when I usually paint.  But when I usually paint it is one of many tasks being done at the same time.  It seems that my painting ability isn't at all affected by the number of tasks I am completing simultaneously.  Normally paintings take as many as 20-50 hours to complete when painting something representational, so I decided to paint something non-representational.  Here it is after approximately 3 hours of work.  I don't think the fact that I uni-tasked made any difference in the outcome.  I don't think I will resort to uni-tasking in the future when painting because I don't think it made any difference at all.

Artmaking Personal Preferences

When I start working on something it is unlikely that I know where it is going.  I generally have a vague idea where the work is headed, but I don't always get there.  That is why I no longer plan what I am doing, but rather I just start at some random place in the painting and work out from there.  I have a very messy workspace that tends to spark my creativity in the strangest of ways.  I don't mind a messy workspace because I tend to be more efficient with it the way it is rather that keeping it spotless.  When it comes to the task itself I am definitely a multi-tasker.  I have difficulty focusing on painting when there is no "white noise" to drown out my thoughts.  You would think that thoughts are good, but they are a distraction for sure.  If I am thinking about a book I might stop to read it.  If I am thinking about a photo I am working on I will stop and attend to that.  Of course that is only when I am stuck at a point in a painting and I am having difficulty working through it.  I perpetually have the television or radio on in the background and I always have something beside me to drink, most often coffee or tea.  The time of day I work depends on my mood, but only time I am still working in the morning is when I have not stopped working from the night before.  I live by myself so there is no one to walk in and bother me.  I do enjoy distractions even though I do work late at night.  I like to check my email or facebook for messages from my sisters and maybe stop for a snack.  I attempted working for 30 minutes straight without anything else on.  Only the lights illuminating the canvas, oil paint and odorless mineral spirits beside me, and not a thing to listen to.  I did enjoy it for the limited amount of time I spent, but I don't think I could work for 5 hours straight without anything to listen to.  And when I do work, it is for 5 to 10 hours straight so I don't think the uni-tasking will work for me one bit.  Next time I try uni-tasking it will be for an entire hour to see if I am more efficient at completing an artwork.  I am sure I will have more of an insight when it comes to uni-tasking after spending an hour with a painting.