Great story. I particularly liked the move to the other side of the world part. If you guys want some time off from Australia come visit southwest China. Great community with lots of artists from around the world, recently described by one of the interviewees in the social documentary I am shooting as "like Paris in the 1920s".
How I became an artist
31–40 of 110 posts
Re: How I became an artist
#32And this, dear friends, is how Noah Bradley actually became a writer! What an excellent piece. I am reading this to my kids.
Great idea. Going to show it to my toddler. See if it inspires him to draw.
Re: How I became an artist
#33Wow, these are amazing and beautiful.
Re: How I became an artist
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The one objective measure of success in art is mastery of technique, which is something the kind of dedication and practice he has done can produced. A mature artist of any kind should be able to deliberately set out to create a particular effect or experience for their audience, and create a work that has that effect or produces that experience. This is a reasonable goal for artists to pursue, because it's one that…
I could not disagree more. What you are describing is craft and not art. Not to say that one is in any way better or more valuable, only that once something has a firm set of "particular effects or experiences" it have moved on from art and into the world of craft.
But if the object of art is to make people to feel/experience, how do you propose one does that if they can't control what they do?
Or do you think art is solely about self-expression? But then again, how can you express what you mean, if you don't control the output?
Re: How I became an artist
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
The one objective measure of success in art is mastery of technique, which is something the kind of dedication and practice he has done can produced. A mature artist of any kind should be able to deliberately set out to create a particular effect or experience for their audience, and create a work that has that effect or produces that experience. This is a reasonable goal for artists to pursue, because it's one that…
I could not disagree more. What you are describing is craft and not art. Not to say that one is in any way better or more valuable, only that once something has a firm set of "particular effects or experiences" it have moved on from art and into the world of craft.
if you never leave the world of the abstract- sure, i can see how you would disagree. but everyone i know who is a good artist knows that craft facilitates art, and they all bust their ass on craft.
Re: How I became an artist
#36This is great and you're of great inspiration to young artists or simply anybody that wants to pursue their dreams. I think that living a humble life doing simple things that don't necessarily lead to professional success, is still a very noble lifestyle. The pressure society has brought upon us to follow our dreams, simply because it's nice to follow your dreams, is a bit of a pipe dream. What I'm trying to say is t…
I'm not sure this is true. You can be happy with work that anyone skilled in the art thinks is terrible, i.e. maybe you're really proud of your $REGISTER_GLOBALS dependent, SQLi-vulnerable, spaghetti PHP app. Maybe you're really happy with your scientific paper that the peer review community has ripped to shreds as false. Or you really, really like the novel you wrote, despite well-articulated and uniformly scathing takedowns from editors, English professors, literary critics, etc.
Or, conversely, you're a perfectionist and kicking yourself over the single calculation mistake in an otherwise field-defining paper, masterful performance, etc.
When you participate in a craft, there are measures and standards of quality orthogonal to your emotions, and they matter a great deal in determining whether a work is successful.
Re: How I became an artist
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could not disagree more. What you are describing is craft and not art. Not to say that one is in any way better or more valuable, only that once something has a firm set of "particular effects or experiences" it have moved on from art and into the world of craft.
But if the object of art is to make people to feel/experience, how do you propose one does that if they can't control what they do? Or do you think art is solely about self-expression? But then again, how can you express what you mean, if you don't control the output?
Some amount of craft may be necessary to produce successful art, but the success/quality of art is not monotonic with the level of difficulty of the craft involved.
Very simple, low-skill artworks can be extremely powerful. Artworks that took 20,000 hours of practice can be dull.
Re: How I became an artist
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if the object of art is to make people to feel/experience, how do you propose one does that if they can't control what they do? Or do you think art is solely about self-expression? But then again, how can you express what you mean, if you don't control the output?
Some amount of craft may be necessary to produce successful art, but the success/quality of art is not monotonic with the level of difficulty of the craft involved. Very simple, low-skill artworks can be extremely powerful. Artworks that took 20,000 hours of practice can be dull.
It's not about difficulty, it's about mastery. It takes thousands of hours of practice to be able to draw the perfect line. Even if drawing said perfect line took seconds.
A large part of mastery also goes beyond the technicalities of expressing, it's also about having a good eye for what is worth expressing and what is mundane/boring/etc.
But it basically boils down to: art [of all kinds] is tricky and takes a lot of practice.
Re: How I became an artist
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The one objective measure of success in art is mastery of technique, which is something the kind of dedication and practice he has done can produced. A mature artist of any kind should be able to deliberately set out to create a particular effect or experience for their audience, and create a work that has that effect or produces that experience. This is a reasonable goal for artists to pursue, because it's one that…
I could not disagree more. What you are describing is craft and not art. Not to say that one is in any way better or more valuable, only that once something has a firm set of "particular effects or experiences" it have moved on from art and into the world of craft.
Some realms of art still entertain this definition for art, but you are correct in that the vast majority of modern art is exactly this distinct departure from the notion that one must have an audience. Modern art came about because of the rise of the bourgeoisie, meaning, people of different classes could commission works, artists had more freedom in what they chose to depict, sell, create, etc, instead of being limited to being commissioned by the church or by nobility.
But you are getting into a debate that hasn't really been resolved in modern art either, this has been a debate in the concept of kitsch and collage, dada, Greenberg, photography, etc.
If you want to dance around the question linguistically, that's all fine and good, but there are people in the world who believe that art must be sold and there are people in the world who find value in it other than the fact that it sells. You've got the past and the contemporary interpretations of art conflated with the trends of culture. Plus, these circles weave and web together, people derive influence and inspiration from all sorts of places, art comes to mean different things depending on who is listening, who is speaking/painting/etc.
I mean, there is obviously either a rigid definition for Art which has no form in language and is thus inexpressible for all eternity despite the various shapes it may manifest as, or art is something else. No, just kidding, I have no idea what I'm patring on about.
Re: How I became an artist
#40This is great and you're of great inspiration to young artists or simply anybody that wants to pursue their dreams. I think that living a humble life doing simple things that don't necessarily lead to professional success, is still a very noble lifestyle. The pressure society has brought upon us to follow our dreams, simply because it's nice to follow your dreams, is a bit of a pipe dream. What I'm trying to say is t…
I'm not sure this is true. You can be happy with work that anyone skilled in the art thinks is terrible, i.e. maybe you're really proud of your $REGISTER_GLOBALS dependent, SQLi-vulnerable, spaghetti PHP app. Maybe you're really happy with your scientific paper that the peer review community has ripped to shreds as false. Or you really, really like the novel you wrote, despite well-articulated and uniformly scathing…
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