Monthly Archives: July 2012

The Treachery of Images ( Ceci n’est pas une blog post)

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Image

Perhaps I was mistaken.

Perhaps an Art History class on a Monday at 8 am in the morning in a dark auditorium with an instructor whose voice most often flat lines wasn’t such a bad idea.  I mean after all, I’m the only one of my friends in my immediate circle who can pick out Rococo from Baroque (very useful skill in the workplace mind you), label a Greek column as Doric, Ionic or Corinthian (as every art student worth their salt should be able to), recognize that the Tower of Babel was most likely a structure called a Ziggurat, tell an Indian Buddha from a Chinese Buddha just by looking at its earlobes (confucious say I’m right on the money) advise you to take a closer look at some of that Greek Pottery before you buy it (.so you can avoid hearing ” Mommy what are those two men doing to each other?”) not confuse Manet with Monet… actually that last bit isn’t true but I figured, hey, you don’t know either so I’m pretty sure I can get away with it and a plethora of other artsy fartsy things you left brained folks probably don’t give a frog’s fat patootie about.

I’m not sure I was a very good art student. At least when it came to those things which required much abstract thought.  I didn’t always try to read seven layers deep into something.  I’m not particulary impressed with the Mona Lisa as I think I probably should have an obligation to be and outside of a passing interest I wasn’t impressed with this painting either. I thought it was stupid. ”The Treachery of Images” painted in 1929 by Belgian artist Rene Magritte often commonly referred to as ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe” which is French for “This is not a pipe”.  So now you’re scrolling back up to look at the picture because clearly…it’s a pipe. But no, Ceci n’est pas une pipe….it is a painting of a pipe.  And now you’re rolling your eyes (like I did once) and affirming that artsy people are nuts and most certainly smoking that stuff and solidifying your belief that your decision to study Quantum Physics was the correct one because you…artsy chick…are wasting my time.  However, here Magritte is correct of course. If this were an actual pipe you would be able to stuff it with tobacco and smoke it. Would you not? This is only a painting of a pipe, which only serves as a representation of the real thing.  The words below it contradicts and causes tension and you friend,have to decide which to believe.  I mean, it most certainly looks like a pipe. But which one of these is the real authority? What you see or the explanation below it. Which is stronger for you?

I can’t do any justice here, nor will I try, to the Philosophical applications of this question, or the exploration of words and images in art, media, culture, community etc. etc. etc (though I wouldn’t mind…call me, let’s do lunch and discuss). I came across this painting today and it simply was a reminder to me, and perhaps now to you that you can’t always believe what you see with your eyes and that there are plenty of things in life that are counterfeit and poor substitutions for the real deal. Me…I want the real thing.

Fear Not The Blank Page

“It’s been a long time I shouldn’t have left you Without a dope beat to step to Step to, step to, step to Step to, step to….”  ~ Timbaland

Alright I give.

For the past month and some change I’ve been trying to come up with a snazzy name for a shiny new blog to go along with the shiny new writing habits I’m trying to cultivate. Fail. On both counts. While I was not coming up with said blog name I was also not writing. But I can’t just have any old name, I reasoned.  It’s gotta be catchy! It’s gotta roll off the tongue! It’s gotta tell the readers up front what I’m all about. It’s gotta be able to transition well into a website domain name once I have loyal followers and start making money even! I’ll definately need something interesting to put in the title banner space up top that really represents ME! *hand flourish*  I mean it IS my name and reputation attached to this thing! And then the lightbulb moment when I realized that subconsciously I was using these diversions to postpone the actual writing. Not so much an avoidance to writing, per se, but to that great, great evil that mercilessly stalks Creatives in their art studios and apparently also unbeknownst to me before, their writing desks . If you write, paint, draw, compose music, you know of what I speak. It is the one ring that binds them all…..

The Blank Page.

Fear of a blank page. Blank Page syndrome.  Fear of a white canvas. Google any variation of those words and you’ll find pages of artists referencing the paralyzing phenomena that awaits them at the beginning of every artistic endeavor and taunts them with threats of impending failure.  Far as I can tell there is no official name for it (though I did find an interesting attempt here ) but it is the same no matter what you call it.  I first “caught” it when I was in college. Picture it Sicily, 1935…er, rather Richmond, 19blah-blah on the second floor of the Art Foundations building.  My drawing professor was somewhat of a character.  He was a thin, older white gentleman with short white hair, white beard and mustache and a reddish nose.  He wore the same thing to class every single day; a long sleeve light blue denim button down shirt with pockets, white tee underneath, black denim pants and black non descript shoes. On his face, shiny glasses. In his shirt pocket a backup pair with black rims that occassionally sported duct tape at one arm joint to keep it together.  This particular instructor was fond of making us draw composition upon composition (upon composition)  of the same darn two shoe boxes in different arrangements with an occassional empty stool thrown in for variety, supposedly to help hone our skills with line, perspective and foreshortening which I still hate (curse those boxes!).  One day in class, when we weren’t peforming particularly well by his standards in getting basic shapes down quickly onto our papers he told us to partner up with a buddy. Then he instructed us to take our buddy’s drawing paper and put it on our own easels and make some marks on it. Heads snapped around and eyeballs locked on each other throughout the studio.  Partly as if to say “why is he telling us to do that?” and “Whoa,whoa…that one piece of Arches White 140lb hotpress set me back $3.00…don’t go crazy!” We made a few light hesitant marks with our charcoal sticks and #4B pencils well aware that not being successful with your own drawing is one thing but mucking up someone else’s is an entirely different beast.  “Fold the paper a couple of times…put some creases in it.” We folded. We creased.  “Drop it on the floor…walk over it a few times. Jump up and down on it even. Get it a little scuffy” We jumped. We Scuffed.  “Now pick it up and give it back to your partner so that you have your original piece of paper back now.” With our own drawing papers back in our possessions we stood a little dumb wondering what came next. Back at the front of the studio now and poised as if he were imparting  little known wisdom from one of The Master’s themselves he told us ”Now that your paper has unplanned marks, its dirty from the floor and its got shoe  and boot prints and scuffs and all that… you don’t have to be afraid of messing up a “perfectly good pristine” piece of paper.  You can just draw”.

So that is what I’m doing. Instead of being drawn in  but paralyzed by the slick white emptiness of a brand new blog, I’m picking up this old scuffy, marked on, filled with bad grammer, run on sentences many starting with “And” (Sinful!) wrinkly blog and I’m going to just…..write.