sielwolf's Journal: Sketches

Some things are starting to come back to me.

I had a different Art AP teacher my Sophomore and Junior years in HS than I did my Senior. That first teacher, Mr B, retired and went off to his house near the lake with his daughter and daughter. Of course Mr B did come back once in a while. He was friends with the other art teachers.

Senior year I saw him. He smirked and said "You're an asshole. But you're a talented asshole- and I respect that."

What a dick.

Art teachers where a bit different than most teachers I had. Or maybe it was just me. Mr B. could be- was combative. In the fine art context there is a lot of conflict: art is often about choices. You do something because you have an idea or are good at it or are bad at it or want to get better. Those choices may be in direct conflict with the idea of "organized classroom".

But I probably didn't help things.

I am painting many small 1" rectangles, spaced by 1/2" in a space of 15" by 18". I drew the field first in pencil. I then began to paint the spaces between the 1" rectangles in acrylic. The assignment was supposedly more complex: add in repeating simple shapes for something akin to OpArt. But I stuck with just a fleet of squares.

Because I'm uninterested in shapes. I am interested in paint as a medium. I am interested in color theory and expressing it through paint. That's why the background space transitions from purple to red to orange. When I go back and paint the squares they will transition from red to orange to yellow. It's a hypothesis of color adjacents and near-complements. It's also a skill challenge: to get me familiar with blending tones and colors. The effects of washes and strokes.

Many lines drawn in pencil. A lot of primed material to cover. I start small but I become impatient. One line is overstepped, than another. The uniform grid begins to vibrate in a handcast uncertainty.

I thought of Mr B. Not the asshole thing. Assignments: we always butted heads on assignments. I generally hated his assignments. He'd pick out one piece of crap in his classroom and tell us "do that". A sketching exercise I'd finish quickly and then doodle on the edges.

"I like that."

What?

"That," and he'd point to what I had drawn in the corner. "That's interesting. The rest of it. Is just-," the word escaped him; still he was dismissing it. "Why can't you apply what you did there to the actual excercise?"

Exercise. Everything is an exercise. The big assignment was an exercise. The sketch in the corner was another excerise. Every class composed an exercise. My attention loosened, filling pages of college rule with faces is an exercise. Again. Again. Repeat again. Each face wasn't the last face. Each drawing wasn't the final drawing. None of it big, important. This wasn't going onto any wall. This wasn't going to be judge by any contest that mattered. Where was the test? The real one that would divide away the wheat from the chaff? Fuck this scholastic shit. All training. No battles.

What where the conditions of finally sitting down and creating A Piece of Work? Something final and complete? Something that would be worth the effort and patience of staying within the lines? Exercises lead to excuses. Excuses lead to compromised conditions. Compromised conditions lead to impressive but flawed products.

There is structure to a class but its conditions are a permanency of training wheels. Every piece of art is a warmup for the next piece. It goes no where.

I would never hang a piece of my art on my own wall. I'd never give one as a gift. Some one would ask? I'd let them take it. I'd never go to any celebration of any of my accomplishments. All my accomplishments are banal. A birthday, a graduation, a wedding, a funeral. If you did not know me you would not care. We do not notice those things: bodies far and alien to us. No different than darkness. They are not important. I am in more individuals' black inky nights than I am in flourescent awareness. I am not important. No star to navigate to. Only void of years of exercises, compositions of gas. Do particles wait to be fused? This is stupid. The gray stretch between two integers. Lives quite unremarkable. Still lived.

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[TechnoLust]

I thought his old teacher sounded like a dick also. It could have had something to do with "What a dick." :-)

seilwolf, I'd like to see the squares one, it sounds cool.

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[sielwolf]

I had a real problem with art teachers. A lot of it I think comes down to the split between critique and criticism. Generally synonymous, I view critique as being more constructive. The sort of advice someone in trust would give you. "So why did you do that? Oh. That's kind of cool. It reminds me of that." Criticism is the same but with a sort of leverage on it. A lot of directives and demanding choices to be made. Of course most art teachers thought it was for the best, that it would do me good a

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My favorite sketches

[GMontag]

Famous Dead Parrot Sketch [uibk.ac.at]

Lumberjack Song [uibk.ac.at]

Prejudice [ibras.dk] (finally the Belgians get a nickname)