It's been a very productive day for The Keep, my poetry project. I completed 2 new works and found 2 more scribbled down on notebook paper that had been shoved into the drawer with all of the other Keep poems that didn't meet my expectations. I think I've come up with a direction to take the series.
In other news,
In response to the redundant shit-storm raining down on us that somehow passes as art these days, I've decided to spark a new art movement. It's a daunting task but I really feel up to it. There has go to be a new direction to take art that doesn't involve manga or painting with blood, or (God forbid) using your own fecal matter as a medium (Yes, it HAS happened). I think that if people had something new to do, then they'd eagerly move away from the cliches that they've trapped themselves into. Okay, so maybe smearing shit on a canvas isn't exactly mainstream "art" but I don't think we're too far away from seeing that happening.
To take art to another level, I believe we should look to the past and examine the elements used by the masters. Picasso, Van Gogh, Warhol, De Vinci, etc. These artists were ahead of their time, yeah? So why not study them and integrate their techniques into your own?
Explore the process of making art.
Reflect societies views back on them.
Break expectations.
I know it isn't politically correct to say so, but a lot of the crap posted on DA really shouldn't be considered art. I hate censorship as much as every other passionate artist, but I don't believe that spraying blue silly string on your girlfriends vagina should be considered art. Using "You're just trying to censor me" as an excuse is just that, an excuse.
I'm not endorsing censorship but I do think that it should be placed where it really needs to be. That is to say, at the idiots that take pictures of vulgar materiel just for the sake of being vulgar, people who color other peoples work and give themselves props for doing so, and/or people who insist on using cliche subject matter.
Censorship isn't going away and there's really not a whole lot we can do about it. What we can do however is try to redirect it to where it really belongs.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Manga
I'm having writers block. Worse yet, I've written myself into a corner. I need to take the story in a new direction, but I'm not sure where to take it. I've already established my key characters and was in the middle of introducing a new one when I read over my work and saw a few cliches. When I saw these cliches, I was disgusted.
I highly value uniqueness and I am repulsed by the repetition of mainstream cliches so much that I work on my appearance to be unique, making a statement against mainstream cliches. To do something just because everyone else is doing so is, in my opinion, the epitome of non-creative thinking. Imitation has its place but not to the extent that its been taken by mainstream society. For example, there has been a dramatic surge of young artists that have taken up the eastern "manga" style of drawing. I do believe in diversity and expanding ones horizons, and this normally wouldn't really bother me but the sheer number of people that use this drawing style is mind-numbing. I've tried to find diversity in the drawings done in this manga style but there are an alarming amount of similarities to all of them; so much so that they all look alike. The people drawn in this style either have biologically impossible hairstyles, ridiculously disproportionate bodies (females with breasts larger than their hips and males with shoulders that extent past their hips), or both of these. They almost always carry some sort of bladed weapon with dragon or demon decorations. I wouldn't mind if there were just a few drawings like this but their are thousands. I don't intend to slander the artists too much. Indeed, there is a knack to this style and most of the drawings are very well done but there are just so many of them that they tend to lose their beauty and unique quality because the manga style is overused. It's a fairly easy style to work with and ranges in detail and quality as with every other style but the variations tend to be small.
The point I'm trying to make is that while all art is beautiful in its own way, it tends to lose its beauty when thousands of other artists do the same kind of work. What truly worries me is that even though there are thousands of these works, as I've stated before, thousands more are still being made. I can appreciate that it's hard to let a good thing go, especially when you've been doing it for a while, but I can't understand the appeal of doing the same thing that thousands, nay millions, of others are doing.
I can sort of agree with Andy Warhol and the statement he made with his work. Industrialization and streamlining designs and ideas has stabbed creativity and made it harder for artists to come up with new designs because they're being bombarded by the same thing over and over again. It's getting harder to come up with new ideas when certain ideas are being thrust upon you and you're told to accept them as "what you should do" or "how you should be". It's sad to see that this has influenced art and even sadder than I'm beginning to feel it's effect.
I highly value uniqueness and I am repulsed by the repetition of mainstream cliches so much that I work on my appearance to be unique, making a statement against mainstream cliches. To do something just because everyone else is doing so is, in my opinion, the epitome of non-creative thinking. Imitation has its place but not to the extent that its been taken by mainstream society. For example, there has been a dramatic surge of young artists that have taken up the eastern "manga" style of drawing. I do believe in diversity and expanding ones horizons, and this normally wouldn't really bother me but the sheer number of people that use this drawing style is mind-numbing. I've tried to find diversity in the drawings done in this manga style but there are an alarming amount of similarities to all of them; so much so that they all look alike. The people drawn in this style either have biologically impossible hairstyles, ridiculously disproportionate bodies (females with breasts larger than their hips and males with shoulders that extent past their hips), or both of these. They almost always carry some sort of bladed weapon with dragon or demon decorations. I wouldn't mind if there were just a few drawings like this but their are thousands. I don't intend to slander the artists too much. Indeed, there is a knack to this style and most of the drawings are very well done but there are just so many of them that they tend to lose their beauty and unique quality because the manga style is overused. It's a fairly easy style to work with and ranges in detail and quality as with every other style but the variations tend to be small.
The point I'm trying to make is that while all art is beautiful in its own way, it tends to lose its beauty when thousands of other artists do the same kind of work. What truly worries me is that even though there are thousands of these works, as I've stated before, thousands more are still being made. I can appreciate that it's hard to let a good thing go, especially when you've been doing it for a while, but I can't understand the appeal of doing the same thing that thousands, nay millions, of others are doing.
I can sort of agree with Andy Warhol and the statement he made with his work. Industrialization and streamlining designs and ideas has stabbed creativity and made it harder for artists to come up with new designs because they're being bombarded by the same thing over and over again. It's getting harder to come up with new ideas when certain ideas are being thrust upon you and you're told to accept them as "what you should do" or "how you should be". It's sad to see that this has influenced art and even sadder than I'm beginning to feel it's effect.
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