Pushing oneself forward or a swift boot to the keister

John Terwilliger, "Radiation", mixed media on hardboard, 14"x11", 2008

Recently I used the above picture to end a post in a forum discussion on internet trolls and rude posting.  The discussion was about critiques and the actual worth of any particular persons comments.  The individual the discussion was revolving around responded to my post by saying I should "push" myself and explore radiation instead of just using such an obvious symbol.  My response was to post four more radiation drawings from a series of Art Trading Cards I did.

John Terwilliger, "A Setting Hazard", colored pencil, 3.5"x2.5", 2009-06-16

For the individual responding this is a "safe" piece and the subject does not push boundaries.  This piece is from a series I was doing on standard safety/hazard symbols.  but the series is really about the material used in making the picture.  The picture above uses an industrial polymer, acrylic paint, as well as the charcoal and eraser debris from my studio floor adhered with spray adhesive.

The series also has experiments with sawdust, dirt, and other textured or colored stuff which could be attached.

John Terwilliger, "Handicap Accessible", mixed media on hardboard, 14"x11", 2009

I used a lot of sawdust in the series because it absorbs fluid pigment.  In "Handicap Accessible" the entire painting is textured with a sawdust and gesso mixture.  Gesso is a primer/base used by artists.  I have used it with sawdust on sculptural elements in the past mixed with sawdust as a filler to give it body and as an adhesive; here it is about the texture.

So when I receive unsolicited critique/advice on a picture should I concern myself?  I usually don't, especially when it seems very off base.  I stopped asking for critique of my work almost as soon as I left college.  I followed my own path while in college and found most critique unhelpful as most students didn't see where I was going.  I learned to listen intently to a few select individuals and my friends.

In college I found out while doing a research grant that the only people who respond to your work are ones with strong feelings towards it.  By respond I do not mean simply saying they like something.  People who really like something will talk about it, discuss what they like.

But more interesting are people who hate the work so much they feel they must rip you a new one.  What in the picture set them off?  This is of course assuming you actually have some talent/skill in your chosen medium.  In my research I used an anonymous questionnaire about the artwork I was presenting in a public space outside the large hall used for beginning psychology, a class of over 1000 students.  Most of the questionnaire responses fell into the I love it gushes or the I hate it I hate you category with a smattering in between.

So I say give me advice, tell me what you think.  I will be cordial.  But don't expect radical changes in my artwork or subject matter based on any one comment good or bad.  But feel free to try and make me explain myself.  Any conversation is better than silence.

Image size and the Internet

John Terwilliger, "In the Shadow of Man", Pastel, chalk, charcoal on paper", 80"x120", 1989

The New York School abstract expressionists new that size matters, and so did the Minimalists who followed them.   Standing in front of one of Jackson Pollacks paintings is an entirely different experience from seeing an illustration online.  If you don't believe me look at Chuck Close's painting Frank at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in gallery G373 online and in person (it is almost always on display).  

In my drawing above you can get a feel of the composition and the general idea of the artwork, but until you are standing next to it, the drawing towering over all except the tallest individuals, you do not get a feel for it.  It definitely does not have the impact or effect or quite possibly the meaning I meant it to have when drawing it.  It is in fact a completely different piece of artwork from the original, just as the the small engravings of paintings from the Renaissance are not the same as the painting depicted.

 In today's digital age an artist is in competition not just with contemporaries, but virtually every artists who ever lived who's art survived the ages.  Want to hang work by Vincent Van Gogh on your walls but don't have a hundred million dollars for an original?  Just by a print of one and frame it.  Whoever owns the rights to an artwork can photograph or scan it and produce for sale high quality (or low quality) prints of the original in almost any size imaginable. 

But most viewing today is online, on a computer monitor, or even a tiny little phone screen.  Most visual art is doomed when reduced to such a tiny and inadequate viewing device.  But the reverse can also be the same.  I have a lot of work drawn at Art Trading Card (ATC) size of 2.5"x3.5".  These works look great when holding them in your hand, but can look crude online when enlarged way beyond the original size.   The following drawing is uploaded at ATC size 72dpi for a total width of 252 pixels (or dots)

John Terwilliger, "Old Crow", Graphite pencil, 2.5"x3.5", 2010-01-30

I like to scan my drawings at 1200+ dpi because I have a printer that outputs well over that resolution.  for reference that ATC size drawing comes out to over 52" wide at the standard internet display resolution of 72 dpi.

The top picture forces you to stand in relation to it and absorb its presence while the lower one is intimate and can be held in the palm of your hand.  Yet here in this blog post they appear about the same size.  Very disquieting for me as an artist knowing this is how most will experience the artwork.  If fact, in both of the artworks shown this is the only way for you to view the actual artwork.  The top piece is rolled up in storage probably to never be displayed publicly in my lifetime, and the bottom one is sold out of state.

Do I miss the sold work?  No, I still have the actual crow skull in my studio; I can draw it again, though it will have less feathers left on it.

 

Significant Form or Imaginary Relevance

John Terwilliger, "Splayed Treetop", Pastel and Charcoal on paper, 22T"x30W", 2014/03/19

I had a second generation abstract expressionist professor in college named Herman Somberg who used to talk passionately about significant form as all you need in a painting.  I took color theory and beginning painting from him before he retired but never got an answer or even a concrete idea about what significant form in a work of art was.  Significant form was an idea used as the basis for the formalist art theory which was put forward in support of the abstract expressionists.  It was first put forward by Clive Bell  who was an art critic writing in support of abstract art and cubism in his book "Art" from 1914.  If interested his book is available for free from project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16917

The theory states simply that the interrelations of components within the artwork are what matters and it is art if they are "significant" in construction, and content, such as the tree in the picture above, are non-relevant overall as to determining is as art.  Art philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, have discounted this theory based on it's inability to count for bad art, as well as art that requires the content to even exist, such as conceptual art, where frequently there is only content, or thought, and no form.

But the art theories before formalism could not account for abstract art and discounted it is non-art.  It is easy to see why Clive Bell felt the need to put forward a new understanding of art if you have ever stood in front of an early cubist work from Braque and Picasso or paintings by Kandinsky.  These works were not really about the subject matter contained in the painting if you could even determine the subject.  So the critics put forward the new theory as to why what they were doing was not only Art but good and great Art.

If I say the above pictured painting I just finished is indeed not just Art, but Fine Art, what is the significant form?  Is it heavy black charcoal lines smeared around the surface with an eraser?  Is it the tree, the sky, the paper itself?  The theory, and all of the writing around it, offers no real answer.  Significant form could be any of what I listed or something else.  I lean to something else, something imaginary, which is why I could never get an answer, as an artist, to what it is.  In his art philosophy introductory book "Philosophy of Art" Noel Carroll lays out the basics of the formalist theory in a straightforward and positive manner and then refutes it with objections.  He proceeds with this format, posit and refute, with all the current/popular philosophical theories of art.

I imagine my artwork is good, therefore it is significant.  If I need significant form or forms I can always go to go to http://www.irs.gov/Forms-&-Pubs all they have are significant forms of the very real, non-imaginary kinds.

Thanks to Wikipedia for most links contained herein though they did not have a listing for Herman Somberg.  Herman passed away in 1991 with very little internet exposure.

So you say you are a Pastelist....

 "Crossing Grid Branches", Pastel and Charcoal on paper, 22T"x30W", 2014/02/14

The word pastel brings to mind light sun bleached colors.  Drawing pastel medium is anything but the light chalky colors you will find your kids classroom.  You can get the entire rainbow of colors including the deepest blacks and vivid colors. 

Soft pastels are, simply put, high test chalk.  But instead of using a white limestone as the primary pigment with tints to achieve color they are pure color pigment with a little binder and filler.  Some pastels use fillers to vary the hardness, tint, and cost of end product.

Traditional pastels use gum tragacanth as the binder but modern pastels use methyl cellulose.  Oil pastels, as the name suggests, use a non drying oil such as coconut oil and paraffin wax to alter the hardness of the pastel.  Crayons use wax as the binder.  And there are various other binder mixes to give a range of hardness and they all fall under the general category of Pastels as a dry drawing medium. 

I use soft pastels and a medium grade hardness pastel called Conte crayons.  I do not like oil pastels primarily because they use non drying oils, and I find the oil soaks into and discolors any exposed paper substrate and they cannot be erased.  I also am not a fan of regular wax crayons due to the workability of the medium and again the inability to erase.

The eraser is by far my favorite drawing tool.  While I do use paper stumps (tightly rolled paper in the shape of a pencil), dry brushes, and chamois for blending, in addition to my fingers, I by far prefer a medium soft eraser.  For me every mark needs to be modified, added to or erased.  The eraser not only removes material it also blends and drives the pigment down into the paper.  This gives an entire new type of making and toning that the pastel will not do on its own.  It can also add a lot of gestural energy to the original marking.

I have big fat erasers, soft erasers, hard erasers, and erasers which are only two millimeters wide in a mechanical pencil type holder.  If it can be drawn, it can be erased. 

End of the Race

I came upon this dead rat while walking the dog, laying in the middle of the sidewalk in the bright sunlight. It's race over but now captured in artwork prior to being consumed by crows.

Undulating Tree

John Terwilliger, "Undulating Tree", Pastel on Rives BFK White paper, 22T"x30W", 2008/02/17

For this drawing I asked a friend to pick out two pastels as the primary colors to use in the drawing. She picked the dark brown and the rust red and this is the result.