Art: Whither or Wither. Can't you see it? A special topics course at some small tony liberal arts college? Perhaps my alma mater Kalamazoo College? Or Oberlin? Perchance a philosophy seminar with my late, great uncle Dr. Calvin Schrag at Purdue? It sounds like something I would have signed up for. But I now realize it would be a topic one would have to approach with a bit of caution, especially now during the first quarter of the 21st century.
The "wither" part wouldn't create much of a problem. No one can seriously argue that art is in any danger of "withering away." Not when everyone carries around an art/photography/video/audio studio with them on their smartphone. And even when they shouldn't, they feel free to compose and share. No "withering" will occur when one of the major concerns in the art world is an existential one: will AI begin to do it all for us?
Rather, it is that whole "whither" question, just what does the future hold for "art," and what all do we include under that ever-expanding umbrella - "art;" that might make you want to slip on the old tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches, fire up that briar pipe and wax eloquent as clouds of Flying Dutchman float about. But, I'm retired. I don't have to do that anymore.
What I am interested in is why creating images has become so important to me. And, interestingly, part of the answer came from here on the Schrag Wall. The Wall is an interesting place. I should explain that assertion especially since there are some new folks on board. (Again,welcome!) Back in the late 90s I had just finished The God Chord: Physics in the Landscape of the Heart, and realized, while shopping that manuscript around, that I still had ideas that I wanted to share. However, I wasn't going to go back and address them in the "finished" manuscript. So I began to print them out and tape them to the wall (see what's coming?) above my computer for inclusion in some future writing or lectures. When the World Wide Web morphed into the Internet, I just transitioned the pieces of paper into digital ramblings and posted them to y'all - friends, family, etc., here on The Schrag Wall.
Anyhow, you are a fascinating group. Because The Schrag Wall is delivered via blind copies, I never know who is looking at the posts and reading them, or who may just delete them. I only know that you're there when you choose to respond to some post or another. And you sometimes do, providing responses that can grow into more unique interactions.
So, there is this novelist, cum former student, who touches base every, oh, three or four years. I hadn't seen anything about any new books in a few years so inquired about the lull. She responded that her writing these days was mostly restricted to "self-care."
I hadn't heard the phrase before, but a little messing around online revealed that the concept is quite common, and, not surprisingly, refers to a wide variety of activities that one pursues in order to take care of yourself. You'd think I could have figured that out myself. But I didn't.
Rather, I have been thinking about what I find so attractive about creating these images that, like Grand Canal (which I shared a few posts ago) can be incredibly detailed and time consuming? There are, I have decided, a number of variables in play.
First, everything about the process is in my hands. There are no surprises, no intervening issues. None of the details of life, shopping, cleaning, cooking, appointments with a surfeit of others, intrude when I am working on an image. It is a self-created world unfolding on the paper on my drawing table. I have either drawn or photographed every element of the images myself. There are, however, a couple of exceptions to that rule, a couple of homage pieces. One done several years ago, a cutting from Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling:
And the more recent steal I shared here of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring:
So there is, most often, this fact that everything is under my control, divorced from the stresses, vagaries, and demands of the "real world" outside that is important. Obviously this is quite different from those who choose to use their art to foreground and confront contemporary social, environmental, or political problems. Those issues certainly define legitimate artistic callings. Just not mine.
Second, and this is a direct steal from Bob Ross: "We don't have mistakes here. We have happy accidents." Yes. But Ross has to finish the painting he is working on during that particular episode of his program. I get to take it step further. If I have an "accident" that is not so happy, I can just trash the image and start over. (I wonder how many paintings Ross backed out of? I mean, really, he too could just start over again. It wasn't live TV.)
I also love the fact that I can turn old images into new ones. For example one I am working on now. (Those of you who were at the recent Schrag reunion saw some early stages of this one.) The finished version will get a name later, but I was asked, "Is that the Schrag women?" Could be. Those genes run strong. I have a picture of Andrea, my older daughter, when she was about two. I also have a picture of my sister Margaret when she was about the same age. I had to write their names on the back of the pix because the pictures look like two pictures of the very same person!
But back to the current, as yet nameless, image. The "grandmother" of the image seems to be this piece from quite a number of years ago that I simply called Muse.
She later apparently gave birth to this image, which I called, admittedly prosaically, Muses and Bricks. I have done several versions of that image, when I chose to exercise my "beyond Bob Ross option." I didn't really care for them and so haven't done any "finish work" on them. Just that little bit on the bricks.
The current image - based on the basic form of those early rejections - is still "in development" but I thought I would give you a look at the process. This first image is of two of the faces, in which portions of the hair have been removed to make way for further designs [some developing designs appear along the top of the image]:
This image shows the other two muse's faces where I have filled the former blank spaces with designs. They await the addition of color. And that is an interesting process wherein my ridiculously large selection of markers and I mutually decide which colors, shades, and hues go where.
Some of those choices were obviously influenced by this image from a couple of years ago called Masque. I do go back and browse through stuff from years gone by for pleasure and inspiration. Fun.
So, that's my current answer to the old Larry Norman song, "Why do you do things you do? Why do you do these things?"
I encourage you to find some personal pastime that you can make all your own, one that gives happiness and comfort to your life and which you can - if you choose - share with others.
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PS. This post "went to press" before today's story about US bombing raids in Iran broke. That obviously bruised my "nothing gets in while I'm drawing" tenet. Like many of you I wonder what those actions portend. My current thinking is that the only thing that was conclusively "busted" was the president's campaign promise to never again involve us in "forever wars" far from these shores.
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