Artistic State of Mind
I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. I want happiness but I also want to get payed generously. Lately, I've contemplated being an artist; this hobby could bring a comfortable pay if I continued to improve my skills, which would require learning about art, most likely from some sort of teacher. This is where the dilemma lies. I have taken two art classes in my lifetime, and although I did learn a few great things from them, I always seem to get into petty arguments which continue until and after mutual burning enmities are formed. I cannot stand art teachers and their egotistical and pretentious personalities. Just because they wasted several years of their life and a fortune in tuition to process art in a way they deem sophisticated, does not mean this process is superior to that of the untamed eye. Art teachers contradict art itself. Art, defined as "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power (New Oxford American Dictionary)", is not something that can be taught, and especially not by someone who has wrung every last drop of originality from their mind by taking countless classes from other egotistical and pretentious individuals. I would love to get better at art but the teachers and the fear of washing away my self-created methods and tastes are not worth it. I will probably never be an artist. Above is my latest creation, and after a brief, yet rigorous session of thought I have decided to call it "Eye".
Wow Aleks. You really weren't lying. You just really hate art teachers. Very well written post to explain that, too.
ReplyDeleteI saw you working on this drawing in class! You are a very talented artist and I hope that your dislike of art teachers, or everyone in the art department for that matter, does not hold you back from following your dream and showing everyone some of the incredible talent you have. Even the tone your blog is written in is artsy in itself! Can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteKate you give me wings.
ReplyDeleteRemember the lecture in our class about "here are the rules of sentence structure -- active vs passive voice", then "here's why you might want to break these rules?" That's the nature of education in ANY art form - visual, performing, written, or musical.
ReplyDeleteI ask you to consider the evidence that your art teachers are "stifling" you. Are they merely trying to familiarize you with conventions that you can later apply? Check out the poetry of e.e. cummings; I would argue that he probably ACED grammar in school because his poems draw their power from his ability to *strategically* screw with grammar.
I love our art teachers. I think we have some incredible ones. I wouldn't dismiss their lessons out of hand, if I were you.