- What is art?
- Is it the result of some definable process?
- Does everyone have the capacity to create art?
- Is art created with a computer less than "analog" art or is it "cheating" somehow?
I think that art is a subjective judgment that describes a sense experience created by a person. (I think of art as created and experienced by humans, as that is all I know about.) Art and beauty are not the same, so sense experiences of phenomenon that are not created by humans may be as beautiful or profound as art, but are not "art" in my opinion. A lot of people in our class discussed the process of art as altering or adding some kind of value to the materials used in creation of the artwork, the process as producing an art object.
This consideration of the process as an essential component of whether something is "art" was interesting, especially to me as a visual artist. As a maker of art, the process is just as valuable as the product. A lot of the art I do is made purely for the process, sort of like art exercise - figure drawing is done quickly and with perishable materials: charcoal and newsprint, plein air painting is done in a limited time period with the intent of capturing a specific time and place without the luxury of study and repeated revisions. The idea, from my point of view, is to practice being in my art making state of mind, to use my materials and build a familiarity with how to use them, to incorporate my sense experiences with art making.
Oh, and there is the enjoyment of being very fully in the moment, sometimes with other artists, sometimes just the enjoyment of really looking and taking the time to really work at SEEING. There is a thrill in pushing the charcoal into the paper to really make a shadow sink in and frosting a white conte crayon along the highlight of a curve of a body. I love picking out a blue to describe the shadow side of a snowy mountain and the palest yellow-white to mark the sunlit edge of peak. To step back from a work in progress to see and feel the dimension of a scene.
That led me to consider whether the product or final manifestation of the process is even needed. Certainly a viewer other than the creator is not necessary, art need not be public. Andy Goldsworthy demonstrates that art need not be very permanent either. (Treat yourself to a viewing of the video "Rivers and Tides" - available at Blockbuster video downtown or download from the link.)
On to the talent issue! I really don't consider myself to be particularly talented, but I do consider myself to have become a good artist because I WANT to make art, and I have put in a lot of hours learning skills and thinking about art. I bowed out of the art game in high school because I thought I wasn't one of the talented ones, there were others who seemed compelled to make art, but I didn't really know what to do. If it wasn't easy for me, then I shouldn't bother, I should go for something I was "good" at. So off to college, and nary an art class for me till I was in my mid 40s.
Fortunately I was woken up by Jakki Kouffman, who presented a lecture on "composition" at the Juneau City Museum in 2000. She was an articulate and exciting speaker as well as an artist I really enjoyed. She taught art classes in 6 week sessions, and I took every one I knew about. I credit her with giving me the fundamentals of how to make art and for infecting me with an intense desire of becoming an artist and taking my art seriously. I have come to agree with John's comment that "talent" is a term most often used by people as an excuse as to why they themselves "can't" make art. No artist I know depends on talent, they all depend on flailing around, trying to pull things off, risking failure constantly, and being thrilled when something appears to hang together on a second or third viewing.
So I'd have to say that anyone who can learn to read and write can learn how to make art. If anyone took 1/10th of the time they currently spend watching TV to make art, that person would find some amazing things out about "talent" and how much they might actually have! Of course, you'd have to want to try, and its much safer to not try and risk the inevitable rocky start. That's why I think desire is the most important and vital part of making art. Wanting to experience the process, wanting to risk screwing up, wanting to experience the trill of creating something that you weren't sure you could accomplish, wanting to see what would happen "if".
I also think that the worst thing you can do in art is to make something that you think somebody else will like. You can only make truly authentic art for yourself. There has to be some desire in you that you are satisfying. Some seed that comes from you, and that must satisfy you alone. Art that seeks to satisfy someone else, but does not satisfy something essential to the artist herself, is not good art, or at least not the best or most authentic kind of art. Commissions are kind of difficult in that way, as you are being asked to make art about something you might not ordinarily choose. So I think that I have to find my own voice, and my own desire in a piece or it won't be my art.
So I guess I've talked myself into seeing digital art as just another medium through which the artistic process may be accomplished. Some parts of making digital art may be "easier" than analog art (your clothes probably stay cleaner!!!) but other parts certainly are hard (just try selecting some large complicated shape in PhotoShop) and if the process and the artist's mental involvement and concept are the primary value of art (which I think I believe), then the means are irrelevant. No one seems to feel that buying paint tubes of oil and acrylic paint is cheating, but that invention certainly simplified the process of painting - and was probably perceived as cheating by artists who couldn't get paint tubes!
Well its midnight, so I'll leave this for now. But I will have to revisit some of these ideas, I wonder how they will change as I learn more about this medium.
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