Filed under: Fleeting thoughts..., printmaking | Tags: art, artist, chine colle, drypoint, printmaking, Visual Arts
There are lots of goals that one can have in life. One of mine is to pursue art. Lucky me…I’m getting to do that a bit! But, then what? Art is a field where there is no clear path. In some ways, being an architect is simpler…as once you get hired, someone is coming to you with their problems to solve: “We’re designing new student housing for this college”…or…”Find out what the zoning restrictions are for this site”…or…”Draw up some wall sections for this facade”…etc. Even when you own your own firm, and you’re “the decider” (silly word), the client comes to you with their problem to solve. In art, you’re coming up with the problems, and the answers.
Back to goals: there are so many different goals that one can have as an artist. Someone might dream of getting their work shown at the Whitney. Someone else might dream of just making a living off of one’s art. Another person might just want to feel happy with the work itself, regardless of any outside recognition. These are all reasonable, of course, but they require different strategies for working. In the first one…the cutting edge fine art world is your “client”. Are you innovative enough to be at the Whitney? In the second example, the art buying population is your client. Is your art buying population people who love landscapes…so, you’ll do landscapes? Or, is it people who love photographs of people? old buildings? puppies? In the third example, you are the client. Are you happy with your work? Do you feel satisfied/stimulated/excited by the work?
Ideally, I suppose, one would be able to satisfy all three of these goals at once: to be recognized by the fine art world as worthy…to be able to live off of that worthy art…and to feel a sense of satisfaction with the work. Not an easy thing to do! I have yet to decide where I’m putting my energies. For the moment, I seem to be focusing primarily on goal three: just being satisfied with the work.
If you are an artist, what have your experiences been in regards to these types of goals? What are your goals?
Food for thought that I have been gnawing on for some time now…
Here’s is what I printed last night in class:
On the day that I was making sketchy scribble doodles, I also made a drypoint plate. This is the print from the plate. I like it. I like the feel of it and the look of the lines. I may do more of these. I also added some chine colle to another printing of it:
Sort of interesting…the paper looks very dark in this photo. It’s actually a sort of dark, orangeish, sand color. I’m not sure about these pieces, as they are a bit of a distraction. I may try this again with a more neutral/lighter color of paper…but I didn’t have any at the time to try out. Here’s a close up:
I also made another print of a child, similar to the previous one. This one was printed with different ink and different paper, however. I think that I might prefer the other ink that I was using. Here it is:
This is based on an image of my friend’s daughter. I’ve also got a closeup, so you can see that the black area actually has some texture:
I think that on my next print in this series, I’m going to do more with that texture…play with it a bit more. Any comments?
It is very cool and mild today…we had lots of rain and thunderstorms yesterday. I love this kind of post-storm weather. I also like pre-storm weather as well.
OH…for those of you in the Boston area…you MUST go to Berryline for frozen yogurt. There is one near Harvard Square on Mass Ave. SO AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. I despise TCBY, which tastes like frozen plastic. Berryline, however, is so delicious. The yogurt actually has that tangy, yogurt taste…and it’s FABULOUS. You know it’s good when instead of getting M&Ms on my yogurt, I decided that fresh mango was better. It was. Go now and get some. I’m suffering from some serious Berryline withdrawl, I think…
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slightly wonky 