What is an Artist's Statement

Artist's Statements are, in short, the what and the why that drives an artist to make what the artist makes. I don't have one. Mostly artist statements are bullshit. Sometimes they are not. I don't have one because I don't have the "big idea" yet. If I wrote one now, it would be bullshit. The idea for this article came from an art call from Rhode Island. It sounds like the panel couldn't agree on what they wanted so they included everything, which creates contradictions, so the person who wins that job, will have to bullshit his or her way around the contradictions. Or have connections, or both; bullshit and connections. And talent, yes.

Let me show you the contradictions in the art call, in italics and bold, their own words: 
The work should help deepen student thinking, perhaps with a concept that addresses the overlap of the sciences, and their relationship to the human.  My thoughts, in red: Which human? Just thought it funny the experts can't write a correct sentence.

“Chemistry is the central science", and by extension, all of the subjects studied within the North Science District are derivative. This inter-disciplinary aspect should be considered in artists' proposals.  Remember the overlapping of the sciences, but put chemistry first. And they are repeating themselves with "overlap of sciences" and "inter-disciplinary aspect."

The panel is seeking an aesthetic and intellectual work of art that is not simply decorative or figurative. Ok . . ., deepen student thinking, overlapping of science and relationship to some non-specific human, chemistry is first, and don't make it too decorative or figurative.

The work should reflect and enhance a sense of place. It should “make mimetic reference to the activity that’s occurring in this zone”, as one panelist said. Mimic activity without much figurative work, and reflect place. So should it take up much space? The winning applicant will have to bullshit for this one panelist, he or she got his own quote, which doesn't help convey what the hell they want.

  

And here it is, the importance of an artist statement: 

The artist statement will be considered an important part of the application and should reflect serious thinking.   Don't worry, they obviously don't know what serious thinking is. But I bet if you have lots of bullshit, it will fool them.

They are willing to spend $458,000 and can't even decide what the hell they want. 

Anyway a few movies come to mind about artist statements; I've mentioned before The Artist and the Model, in which the artist tries to find the "idea." Another movie that is just plain fun is Cashback, the artist in that one can stop time by just thinking about it, and there's a love story. On the art side, he's gifted, and he draws and paints the human form. Specifically he finds the female form out-of-this-world-beautiful. So does the artist in The Artist and the Model. That artist explains that the female form is so beautiful that woman must have been created first and couldn't have come from man. Ok, he creates some big theological problems with that idea, and has nothing to back it up, but it makes for a funny story, and it's his artist statement. In the movie The Next Big Thing, the artist deliberately does not have an artist statement and says art speaks for itself. He creates abstracts, which say nothing, so it's appropriate. 

Why would my artist statement have to reflect deep thinking to win the job? Here's my deep thinking on the subject and I guarantee you it wouldn't get me the job, plus my work is completely figurative. Would it help if the artist blathers on about art history and where his or hers fits in, or how other art has influenced his or her work? People are going to look at it and no one, ever, anywhere, will ever read anything about it once it goes up. Visual art speaks for itself, that's why it's not a book. 

Maybe my artist statement should go like this, which is inspired by Mark Twain who wrote something similar about his own work, here goes: If anyone ever tries to moralize, or read into, or imagine what I was trying to say in a work of art, he should be beat with a stout tree limb. My art is to look at. And that's probably more deep thinking than those panel of experts are used to.

Marlbe sculpture progress

Here's what I'm working on now, and here's my website if you want to see other stone sculpture, and better, more detailed photos of this sculpture: http://clay-tablet.wix.com/clayworkman   I plan on posting progress on here to motivate myself to hurry up and get this done. Sculpting stone is slow, at least for me, and it's easy for me to procrastinate chiseling on stone.

Here is the clay model sculpted in an oil based clay. This is not detailed because this clay is kinda soft and I don't really need details in the model. I'm more concerned with where body parts actually are instead of where my brain thinks, or forgets where they are while I'm sculpting the marble.

On this side her leg is off the elevated block and so is her hand. The other side they are on the block.

Here she is as a block of marble. You can see the pencil outline of her on the side of the marble. The block is 21 inches long. Since her left hand and leg are off the small elevated block in the sculpture, I'm also going to sculpt her forward in the block of marble leaving blank space past her knees, but her hair will be on the forward edge of the sculpture, probably hanging over the front edge of the sculpture.

I spent my weekend getting the bottom flat, and sanding it, still some to go, and sculpting the model. Done for today, more sanding tomorrow. Maybe make the first cuts into the stone?

Day 3: bottom is sanded to 60 grit, will make if finer when I get closer to finishing. No reason to sand too fine just to find out I scratched it up while sculpting on it. The block is also squared up. Tomorrow April 15, I have to do my state taxes. Told ya I could procrastinate. So probably won't do any work on the stone.

Day 4: Taxes done. State website sucks.

Day 5: Six hours of chipping away stone. Most of the waste around her knees and right side is done. This marble is a bit harder than other marble I've sculpted, my diamond cutting blade takes forever, I might as well just chip away rather than listen to the noise of that. The marble is not so hard that it dulls my steel bits.
            I can't help but think of the lyrics to the song; I fought the law and the law won. "A'breakin rocks in the hot sun . . ."  Breakin' rocks is a punishment, here I am doing it for fun. That's me, if there's a hard way to do something, I'll find it. I come from a  working family. My Dad has worked full time since he was 12, in fields,  and cutting logs with cross-cut saws, etc. He's in his 80's and still cuts his own firewood. My uncle (at least one of them) used  to go cut oaks with a cross-cut saw, split them, and then hue them square and sell them to the railroad for railroad ties. My last name means builder. I think fitness clubs are ridiculous. And they are a placebo to some. I know several people who think they are in shape because the work out a few hours a week. Try sawing and lifting a sledge-hammer eight hours or more a day. It may not bulk you up, but you will be strong. Anyway, here I am procrastinating breakin' rock. Bye for now.  

Day 6: After plenty of procrastination and other obligations; one hour of chipping and cutting around her left arm and left side.

Day 7: One and a half hours of chipping around her head, left and right arm.

Day 8: Two hours sculpting, form is beginning to show, a little.

Day 9: About two hours sculpting. I got an email reminding me to deliver my juried art piece to the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell, except I never got notified that I was accepted. I went to their website and found my ballerina foot sculpture titled "On Pointe" was there. So that was good news. This sculpture is not part of their collection, it is for a benefit art auction. If you want to see that sculpture hit the link at the top of this article.

Day 10: Fixed a scratch on the foot sculpture.

Day 11:  After two hours sleep drove 120 miles to Kalispell. Had a large Red Bull drink on the way up and a small one on the way back.  Tiny museum, tiny collection, or maybe they have more in storage and rotate pieces for display. I don't know. Probably. Now I just want to sit around and relax after that drive. Have to get my mind back into wanting to chisel rock.

Day 12:  Five hours of chiseling. Frustrating trying to get things in proportion, I only get one shot at that. I'm working on the chest, head, and left arm in relation to each other. Here's a pic.

This is about 23 hours total. I've noticed the same thing about stone sculpting as clay, different people sculpt at different rates. I have used very little in the way of power tools. I cut a few cuts with a diamond saw blade. The rest has been chipped off. What you don't see is all the missing stone. I suppose as I get more used to this, and trusting my judgment, I'll get faster.

Day 13: Fast is not important to me right now. That's a lot of stone and I'm not going to screw it up. Spent one hour.

Day 14:  No work, giving my feet a break, I'm on them all the time.

Day 15, and 16: One hour a day.

Day 17: 3 hours, which is way under what I wanted to accomplish. On the upside, nothing is wrong and I can keep going. I did watch a lot of Netflix. Watched:  El artista y la modelo, or in English that's the Sculptor and the Model. An 80 year old sculptor starts sculpting this model that his wife finds living on the street during WWII in France. It's filmed in black and white and is pretty much pointless but while watching it you will think there must be some point, so you keep watching, but no, no point reveals itself. I won't spoil the ending, and if you watch it and find a point to this movie let me know. I understand his drive to create a masterpiece, but that isn't the point of the movie, not if you know how it ends. I would post a pic of my progress but there is hardly any since the last one. The breast, left and right arm, and head are more defined, that's it, oh and a little more around the ribs and belly.

Day 18: Two and a half hours, but lots of use of the diamond cutting blade, so that made up for some time.

Day 19: Nope.

Day 20: Two and half hours. I have found that when parts are roughed out and bulky I have a hard time seeing the sculpture beneath the stone. Right now her legs look too short because they are bulky, but they aren't too short. Looking at the drawing on the side, and even measuring confirms they are not too short, but they do look short. Optical illusion.

Day 21: Zero

Day 22: Four and a half hours.

Day 23 One hour. Picture at day 23. Thirty-nine hours of work.

Day 24: Four hours and Forty-five minutes.

Day 25: Two hours and 40 minutes.

Day 26: One hour and 45 minutes. 

Day 27: One of those days back up there I didn't do anything on it, instead I made a 20 sided die out of soapstone for a guy I work with. What a pain that was. The die was a couple of inches across, my hands cramped up holding that little stone and tools to grind, sand, and polish with. 

Day 28: Two hours, so not motivated. On the other hand nothing gets screwed up when not working on it. 

Day 29: Four and a half hours. Her legs are mostly defined.  

MY GOAL: To finish in less than two weeks from now. Completely finished to a polish.

With two weeks to go I'm going to put the last two week's days in parenthesis to keep track of those two weeks.

Day 30 (1): Two and a half hours.

Day 31 (2) Two hours.

Day 32 (3): One and a half hours.

Day 33 (4): Today sucks, all the time. One hour. SIXTY ONE HOURS (ABOUT) TOTAL. I think I can get done on time. Next two days will be finishing up the rough sculpting; down to her form. After that it's just prettying up and squaring up, and sanding. A lot of work.

Her legs look a little short in this photo, it's the camera, and the bulkiness that remains. The lower part of her leg looks short too I just noticed. Her heel is not that low, her toes are about even with her hip, doesn't look like that in the photo. My camera distorts too much.

Day 34 (5) Had other things to do.

Day 35 (6) Four and a half hours

Day 36 (7) Two hours. I'm not going to make it in seven more days. Too much rock to remove that is in difficult places, plus I still have to do her face. Right now she's just a block-head.

Day 37 (8): Feet were killing me, did nothing.

Day 38 (9) Four and a half hours.

Day 39 (10)  Two hours.

Day 40 (11) Nothing

Day 41 (12) One hour chopping the waste in front of her knees; 32 cubic inches of stone in an hour turned to little chips. I did use a diamond blade to make a few cuts and knock off  a few hunks, still took an hour.

Day 42 (13) One hour chipping away under her knees. Kinda boring.

Day 43 (14) I don't know I lost track. I know I didn't make my self-appointed deadline, by a long way.

Day 44, 45, 46, 47, 48. Nothing, took a break. I'm actually itching to get back to it. I take a few whacks at it once in awhile just walking by.

Day 49: One and a half hours.

Day 50: Four and a half hours. I mentioned the movie The Scuptor and the Model and said it was kinda pointless. I read an NPR review of the film, they also thought it was kinda pointless. It keeps popping into my thoughts. I guess I can relate it to it more than I thought at first. I can relate to the frustration of trying to find "the idea" to sculpt. And how others perceive me, the model didn't quite get what was going on. He shows her a sketch by Rembrandt as the finest picture ever drawn and they talk about it and she sees what Rembrandt was trying to convey. I think Bernini was the greatest sculptor that ever lived. Not the greatest man, but greatest sculptor. He could convey an idea, beautifully.

Day 51: One hour

Still along way to go. Her legs are still a little bulky, making them look a little short. I hope that's all it is.

I have not given up on this but I did take a 15 minute break to sculpt in clay and this is what I ended up with:

Alison Krauss portrait sculpture

Alison Krauss sculpture

This definitely did not take 15 minutes, it took a lot longer. I initially did take a 15 minute break to see if I could sculpt a complete face in 15 minutes. I came close, but since I had this almost finished face I thought, why not try to sculpt someone specifically. I started with a fist sized ball of clay, the final product is probably slightly larger than life. And before I got this done I got a commission to do this:

alabaster rose sculpture

Stone sculpture carved in alabaster and soapstone (green).

And just as I was starting to sculpt on my reclining nude marble sculpture again, I got another commission for a marble rose. 

Here is where I am now on the marble nude:

If I were dishonest I would say I changed my mind and want her arm down by her side, but I broke it off while chiseling between her body and arm. I am amazed how much this does not piss me off. Part of the reason, I think, is there is no warning; it doesn't start teetering, nor does a crack appear like in a cartoon and you panic as it spreads. No, it just plops off. Also, I'm not done anyway so it's not a total loss, I just have to sculpt another arm. You can see where the new arm will be in the blue lines, her hand will be down by her foot. I think it looks better, or will look better, now her arm will not be in front of her face. The fun of sculpting stone.

January 10, 2015. I'm still going to get back to this sculpture. Right now I have three commissions to do and a day job and general life to interfere. Hopefully this will be the year I go to sculpture full time.

September 22, 2015  Keeping track of time was demoralizing, so I gave up on it and just worked on it when I could.  Done. 150 hours total, I'm guessing. So a month's work, if I worked about 40 hours a week.

What a difference huh? I intentionally picked a difficult pose to sculpt. Since this is one rock, except for the flower which is alabaster and soapstone (leaves), there were some difficult places to reach. Under her back obviously. Between her foot and leg, and under her legs. I figured if I could do this, I could do anything in stone. Now sculpting lace has my curiosity, might work that in sometime, on something.

Success in Life

If success is defined by how much money you have, I don't know much about success. If you define it more as substance of character, I'm doing alright. One might think the latter would lead to the former; good character will lead to financial success. The book of Job in the Bible debunks that myth. Job had it all. One day Satan came to God and God said, so what do you think of my servant Job? Satan said, he's a great guy, but you've protected him and given him a life of ease, take that away and he will curse you to your face. God said, ok, go for it, but don't harm him physically.

I'm sure Satan smiled and went on his way, ready to wreak havoc and have fun doing it. You know the type. So Satan puts some things in motion and everything Job owns is stolen and his grown children are killed. Job mourns. His friends come along and tell him to repent from whatever it is that he's done wrong and God will restore his fortune.

Ok, right here is where many people make the mistake of listening to the "experts." Go look up traits or habits of successful people and you will find plenty of advice.

Job says to them, I've done nothing wrong, God can do with me as he wants, who am I to say what God can do. God gives and God takes away, in both I will honor God.

This made his friends angry. How dare this guy who is obviously being punished by God talk back to them, the favored of God. They tell him so and still Job sticks to what he said. Even Jobs wife (notice Satan never threatens to take the wife) says, "Curse God and die."

Satan checks in with God. God says, so what do you think now? Ok, take away his health and he will curse you to your face. Go for it, God says.

Boils break out on Jobs skin. His friends, the "experts" come along and now feel vindicated. Didn't they say he should repent? Obviously this is God's punishment for not listening to them and not repenting from the evil he has done, whatever it was.

Jobs says the same thing. I've done nothing wrong. God gives and God takes away, I'll honor him in both. Oh the self-righteous indignation, they cover their ears and howl to drown out Jobs pitiful excuses.

Satan checks in with God. God says, satisfied now? Satan leaves in a huff. Now God says to Job, tell your friends to quit giving you advice or I'll do to them what I've done to you, and you are right, I can do what I want with my creation. God never tells Job why. The one thing Job did was ask why, he was never told. So his friends saw the error of their way and God restored Jobs wealth to even greater wealth and he had seven sons, and three daughters, which were known as the most beautiful women in the land. I don't remember if the story relates anything about Job's wife after all this. I wonder if she died and he remarried, since he had grown children, wouldn't his wife have been beyond child bearing years to produce seven sons and three daughters after all this? I don't know.

How this relates to success nowadays. The "experts" aren't always right and can be dead wrong. I've learned not to listen to advice. I'm the one with the ideas, not them. I know what I can do, not them. I'm the creative one, not them.

Ignore the people that tell you that you can't do it. There are some people that just can't stand the thought of you being successful, they aren't, so you shouldn't be either. Are you the type of person that makes decisions regardless of the outcome? Job could have went along with his friends advice to get back in their good grace and may have profited from it. He wouldn't.

If success is merely money, criminals that don't get caught are successful. That's not my idea of success. I would call that a dismal failure of a person. If they could actually get away with stealing a fortune, they are smart enough to have earned one.

Good character is not always recognized for what it is. Job's was not, not for awhile anyway, and we don't know how long he suffered under false accusations. Imagine the rumors and the derision he must have put up with. The book of Micah sums up success; To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.  Money is not success. Job was successful while broke and sick.

If you want to be successful at what you do; work at it. I have put years into sculpture and having nothing to show for it except a bunch of nice sculptures sitting on shelves. But the work has led to me to being a better sculptor. Regardless of the outcome, I keep working at it. You have to produce. My work has led me to sculpting marble. Now I have to work at producing marble sculpture, which has led me to find a marble deposit while looking for marble suppliers. Now I may become a supplier myself. You never know where knowledge will take you, learn everything that interests you or is related to what you do, however remotely related, you never know where it will lead. 

Looking back on my life, little successes have taught me what I can do. That's why I don't listen to people that tell me I can't. I know better, I've done it before. But if you never try, if you never take an idea that people may, and probably will ridicule, you'll never know, and you'll never know what you're made of. I've had people ridicule ideas while they worked. Don't listen to people that tell you that you can't. They will even tell you that you can't while you are successfully doing it. 

Hopefully some things to think on. 

Being Positive

Katy Perry is having a contest to win a private concert by her. A high school on Abilene, Texas has made a two minute video using "Roar" as inspiration. The video is inspiring. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqdDNKRfVtI 

 I came across it while trying to watch a video about a local one-legged foot ball player. (American football) That video wouldn't play so I played the contest video because the caption was about being positive and that is a subject that usually pisses me off. I will relate this to art, just wait.

This video is actually positive, I love it. It shows a problem and how to fix it. That's positive. My problem with "positive" people is they usually aren't positive, they just say they are, they act positive, but they are hard to be around. Real positive people do stuff. They work out the problems, or see the problems and forge ahead anyway. Fake positive people complain about people that see problems. Fake positive people will keep happily doing the same wrong thing over and over because they are happy and positive. You know the type?

In the video the popular, look-down-on-everybody-else-people, are the fake positive people, always happy, always happily, continually doing the wrong thing. (not all popular people are like that) Some people make such a habit of being popular that all they know is; put on a happy face and be positive!  Their lives are very narrow; who can I impress and where do I have to be next? They live by their schedule and question nothing. Socrates complained about these people also. Thinking takes effort, and thinking that only being "positive" is the answer is a narrow minded view.

You can come to a problem and be happy about it, and solve it happily. That's great. But you have to recognize it first, and "positive" people have taught themselves that recognizing problems is negative. When I hit a problem, and that's what it feels like to me, I slam into it and it surprises me and I let out a cuss word, or a few, or even a string of them. Now I'm all worked up and my brain is burning to solve the problem, and I do. That's positive too.

The art part, I told ya, here it is: Unless you're one of those super talented people who just whips out fantastic art, you're going to have problems with your art. I had one today. I wanted to remove a lot of stone quickly because this sculpture is taking too long. I thought about driving to town to look for some carbide or diamond tools. Part of the problem is when I get on an idea I stick with it till it works or I prove it won't. So going to town could be a waste of time, but I don't know, but I figure any time I save with better tools will be offset by the time spent running around. I decide to stay and work with what I've got.

I've had bigger problems, like the first sculpture I did was terrible, but I figured I could do better, and I have. However I didn't just get better by being happy. Plenty of times I was pissed. The ideal picture of an artist calmly working . . . that's not me. Maybe most of the time, but not all the time. I had to do research on different types of clay, tools, how they are used. This isn't the type of thing a fake positive person will do.

Managers are often promoted because they are fake positive. They are always happy, but they can't even recognize a problem, they are just yes men. This is a big problem where I work. I come to managers with problems and solutions and I always hear; You're right, but there's nothing we can do about it. These people are so bad at solving problems they can't even implement a solution when its given to them. That is not positive.

Facebook is a very depressing place, some study shows, I read somewhere. The reason is people post positive things making it look like their lives are perfect and it depresses people who don't have "perfect" lives. That's fake positive. Everyone has problems. Positive people just solve them, whether they are happy while doing it or not. So next time you're articulating a problem to work out the solution and someone says you're being negative, solve the problem and tell them; "that's being positive." And then ask them, "How is telling me I'm negative a positive thing?" They will shut up, they don't know how to figure out answers.

"Be positive" is such a common phrase. What needs to be common is "Work out the problem." That's much harder and will never be popular. But it's what gets things done.

Bernini - The Movie

Why hasn't anyone done a movie on Bernini? Or have they? Let me know if there's something besides a documentary. He was a rock star in Italy in the 1600's. Child prodigy artist. Sculptor. Carved masterpieces in marble as a teenager. He was good, and he knew it. He was charming, and he knew it, knew how to use it. Became a close friend of the Pope. Also did architecture. A bit of a narcissist. Fame went to his head.

He fell in love . . . with a married woman. She cheated on him with his brother. He found out and almost killed his own brother, breaking a couple of his brother's ribs. He sent his servant to his lover's house, to slash her face and disfigure her, which he did.

Constanza, or Constance, Bernini's lover.

His brother went to jail for fighting, his lover went to jail for adultery, his servant went to jail. Bernini got a warning. Things never change. Celebrities get away with everything. And he was made to marry a beautiful woman in hopes of keeping him in line. I bet she loved that arrangement. I wonder what she did to deserve Bernini.

Along comes a rival, somewhere in this timeline, I'm not sure exactly when, but a reserved and talented architect arises, Borromini. He is building buildings in ways no one had thought of before, beautiful buildings. Buildings Bernini could only dream of building.

That's ok, Bernini is friends with the Pope. The Pope assigns Bernini to build onto the Church Michelangelo designed. Here's Bernini's chance to outdo Michelangelo. Over the top, so to speak, by building towers higher than Michelangelo's original dome. Bernini has already pissed off Borromini by consulting him on other jobs and then not giving him any credit. A habit he has with his assistants too. He does not consult Borromini on this one, to his detriment.

Bernini, outdoing Michelangelo with his own version of David.

His high and heavy towers begin to crack, and not just crack ,but crack down into the rest of the church. The foundation cannot hold the weight. The church consults Borromini, he tells them the problem and the Pope orders the towers torn down. Bernini also, finally is torn down, well maybe not torn down, just feeling sorry for himself. He becomes depressed and becomes sick from lying around not eating. He recovers, he still gets commissions. And finally he gets commissioned by the church to build a chapel, or shrine, whatever they call it, to Saint Teresa. He borrows design ideas from Borromini and uses his own flare for the theatrical and of course his world class sculpting skills to produce this:

This is only part of it, look it up, the Ecstasy of St. Teresa. 

The story has everything, and it's true. Why hasn't anyone made a movie of this?  It can even be twisted to be anti-Christian, which Hollywood loves to do. One more pic:

See those leaves. Those were sculpted by an assistant, Giuliano Finelli. Hats off to you Giuliano!

Russian Sculpture Artist and Russia and Stuff

I got bored with seeing the same ol' photos on Google every time I searched for photos of marble sculpture. I get quite a few readers from Russia so I thought I would see what's going on over there. I found this guy:
http://www.sculptureinrussia.com/en/painters/13.htm
He did this sculpture and relates to my last post on modern art. (this photo is also on the page linked above)

Here's a good example of a simple form done right. It's supposed to look primitive. The lines all go where they should. This does not look like somebody was trying to do a realistic torso and failed. No part jumps out at me screaming "I'm in the wrong place!" or "I shouldn't even be here!" This is one of those simple forms you can look at and feel all is well.

Hats off to all you Russian artists. Always wanted to go there, even during the 80's when we were supposed to hate each other. I remember high school classmates whose number one fear was that the USSR was going to nuke us. I was like, "No way, people over there don't want to nuke us anymore than we want to nuke them." I was right. Ha. And Russian women are the most beautiful in the world, except for maybe Montana.

I met a Russian in the late 80's in Reno, Nevada at a live show. He was sitting next to me at anther table. He introduced himself and asked what we did for a living. I told him we worked in a lumber mill. He asked what we did there and something about a high position because I said, "No, we're just workers, lowly workers." He said no one would believe him that a couple of mill workers could afford to go to a such an opulent place to see a show. I said I'd have to come over and see him then. Still haven't gotten over there.  Now meeting Russians is common. There are quite a few here in Missoula. Russian immigrants here have a bad reputation. Every one of them I have met and have been very nice. I think the bad reputation is a hold over from when we were supposed to hate Russians, so now people still make up reasons why they were supposed to hate. As far as I'm concerned you're welcome here, and I still hope to get over there someday.

Modern Art Bullshit

I can't stand it anymore. I gotta say it. Most modern art, or a lot of it, is crap. There. Yeah, yeah, yeah, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But grammar is grammar, and logic is logic. And what those soulless, talentless hacks write about their work makes no sense. Oh, your sculpture looks like a rock you picked up out of a river so it must mean you have deep thoughts that are impossible to put into words? Bullshit. Or it looks like some caveman drawing (which were better than modern art) or because it's a simple form with no features, it says something a real piece of art wouldn't have? Bullshit.

I won't be surprised by insulting, angry comments on this article or of my own work, but believe me, I'm a much worse critic of my own work than anyone else. I like some abstract or simple forms. Some of them mesmerize me and I can't help but stare at them. Some of them, on the other hand, make me want to say what I said above. This just may be a "beauty in the eye of the beholder" thing and nothing more. Maybe other people, maybe even most people (and not surprising that I'm not like most people) like the art that doesn't look like art. But if you told me you would rather have a sculpture of a rock that looks like it was just found that way over a Michelangelo or a Bernini, I would say, "Bullshit."

Getting back to the bullshit they say about their own work or their experience; I don't care. You shouldn't have to explain your work. I don't even like giving a title to mine. But sometimes a title brings it all together, and I like that. What inspired this article (or venting) was an artist who sculpts stone, but you can hardly tell they are sculpted, or they look like beginner stuff. He studied in Italy. And he creates crap. I guess people are fooled by, "I studied in Italy under a master." I don't get it. If you study under a master, it better damn well look like it. You shouldn't have to tell me.

I love writing, I hate writing about art. Art should speak for itself. I remember writing a paper in college on the Laocoon. I had to just fill it with filler. Just look at the sculpture.

Or go look for a better picture of it and look at it. That is an awesome sculpture. You can see the snakes winning. You can see them constricting and the struggle of the man and his boys, and the look on his face, knowing he's in trouble and he would do anything to save his sons. But you want a sculpture of a rock that looks like you just found it? Bullshit. I guarantee you the unknown sculptor of this didn't write a page of bullshit explaining his sculpture.

I know people make the illogical jump to thinking I must think my art work is the best out there. No, I don't. But it looks like something and it takes some skill to do it. It takes very little skill to take a rock and make a smaller rock. I think those people should talk more about marketing, because that's what they are really good at. They are the type of people that could sell a snowball to an Eskimo.

I'll end with this: Arggghh. Be a pirate.