A quarrel between artist and public- Mental struggles in my studio

I spend a lot of time in my studio, as most artist do. Usually collecting about 10 hours in a day. Making making and thinking.. I feel it would be interesting and a learning experience for myself to write about these studio events in this blog.

Here I go:

John Van Dyke author of Art for Arts sake, has been in my mind for a while. Especially during my studio practice.  The quarrel between artist and public. In his book he speak a bit intensively about it, but what captivated me the most was the simple idea or understanding that an artist is not a philosopher, scientist or novelist.  An artist in his opinion is a person with the vision to identify beauty found in the world.

"The sense is that of sight, and the training of it has enabled him/her to see more beauty and deeper meanings in nature than the great majority of mankind"

Keeping in mind this book was published in 1898. But I like knowing the frame of thought during this period. AND! Van Dyke, explains things really well and even predicts the type of work that will continue to be seen throughout the years. The book "What is painting" by Julian Bell is actually very similar to this book, and art for art sake was written 100 years before.. So that puts its in perspective..I think.

Anyways!!

So this way of thinking is nice because it's a very micro way to think. It isolates everything else, especially for me. I love making and being inventive with materials, pushing their boundaries, learning about them as if they were a lover. breaking, tearing, caressing, gluing, denting, etc.. In this way of making art, it is not always about having a narrative. OR trying to tell a story..

It seems like everyone now a days wants a story.. Beauty seems to fall short.

I like to work with content.. each material I have contains content.. I, as a human being contain content because of my personal history. You add my personal content to the content of my material choices, and sprinkle the content of my process in making.. and BANG! instant story.. Or rather a snapshot or glimpse of a story.


So the quarrel continues. at the end who is the audience? Who really becomes the public, is it other artist? Is it your community, is it an online community? Making these decisions are difficult, and maybe they are not necessary to make. As an artist for now, I will continue to make and make and think.. some questions can answer themselves in the future.