So I've been thinking about the project and myself and about what Greg talked about the other day and so this may be kind of word vomitous but what else is new.
So from where I was with text and font I couldn't get anywhere. I think there's something there but I can't find the right things that will really raise the questions I'm looking for.
While that was hitting its stand still I was starting to worry about the end of semester stuff, not the least of which was this project that I've done barely anything but think about and these blog posts that I haven't done and the fact that the ideas I had for blog posts are now somewhat useless with the haulting set backs of the last idea - [Insert Panic Button Here].
When I hit these walls planning goes out the window. It's like my plans and the project are two different things and very rarely similar. So we make a U Turn at the wall and just drive....like I said word vomit... Pretty much I just needed to start doing or making something on this project that was actually productive. So I turned to the things I bought on our trip to Goodwill - two coverless old law books and a typewriter- and I went back to my first blog post about book art or art books or books as art or whatever it is and I started drawing and painting in one of the books.
At the same time as I'm trying to just make stuff that looks cool to quench my self indulgent I need to do something mood I was thinking about how I could turn this into an installation and what it could possibly have to do with translations when I remembered Greg's blog post about translators and the idea that in order to translate we need to have a full understanding of two languages or two ideas etc... and what I decided was that the only thing I could really be a master of and really make a statement on was what I thought was beautiful or even just interesting to look at.
I've never really given myself any credit or legitimately thought of myself as an artist because I've felt I lacked a personal vision or specific hand. But I think what I never realize is that how I literally see the world is not how everyone else sees the world and I've never provided an outlet for that.
So now I present my world, the way I see it. My translation of beauty.
Here's a taste --
Bear with me, as I think I'm going somewhere with this: I have always lived, or so it seemed to me, "away" from the "avant-garde." Also, it seemed that the more I looked into art history, the more it seemed that it "had all been done before" (or at least sufficiently so as to play to my insecurities). As a student, I sometimes felt "too late to the party," so to speak.
ReplyDeletehowever, I came to realize that the one thing I could know for certain was that this time, on this piece of the planet, that my particular bits of DNA / RNA had never before combined. In short, my aesthetic and personal refuge: idiosyncrasy!
Sure I love art history, other artists, etc., and aside from my obligations to them as an artist/educator, I decided that I would let them influence me only as much i found they helped to keep me moving: making art.
I guess what I'm reacting to is your last paragraph, wherein you seem to give yourself permission to have a voice and to use it. I say: WONDERFUL!
To me, more than half the struggle to be an artist is to be a better self to/for one's self.
You should read Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones [ISBN-13: 978-0877733751].
Oh, and it also makes me think of Jorge Lous Borges's short story, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote." A short but brilliant read that has influenced much of Post-Modern thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Quixote.
There I respond to the idea that one is an inevitable outgrowth of one's own particular time and space.