Coloured Mud

For your lighter appetite, I present this week a number of art myths and stereotypes that are propagated throughout popular culture and also the art world as almost gospel truths. Like many stereotypes, some are grounded in a tiny basis of reality and many aren’t true at all. If we acknowledge stereotypes with too much belief then we run the risk of too easily dismissing someone or something in our world view of artists. Part serious, more fun; I hope you find some light humor as we digest the Art Myths.

Art Myth: If you choose the arts as a profession you will become the starving artist!

Reality: If my recent weight gain and thus necessary weight loss is any indication then I don’t think this myth applies. This myth is rooted in the financial difficulty that an art career might present but with creativity and reasonable sacrifice there are multiple ways to foster and prosper in an art career. Does financial difficulty mean you won’t buy food…? I think people use this myth as a buffer against their own uncertainty as to what the heck an artist does. Most people can’t imagine life without a steady paycheck so an art career seems alien for that reason. Is self employment or a small business any different?

Conclusion: Imagine walking into a room full of people in all different walks of life and in meeting each person, one of the first things you said to each of them was a dismissive “so you’re a starving….(fill in career here.)” That its so easily bandied about when I meet someone new and tell them I am an artist is often quite grating. I’m not starving and actually doing just fine. Let’s ask better questions and leave this assumption and art myth behind.

SPACE

Art Myth: Don’t use a ruler. Don’t paint with black.

Reality: There are lots of “rules” like these that we are taught as young image makers that have more to do with creating less reliance on seductive tools than anything else. A ruler and black paint are powerful tools for making straight lines and dark colors but they can be extreme in their intensity if we don’t recognize that intensity. A ruler line will have a visual quality different than marks we make with just our hand and we want to be aware of the difference. Black can overwhelm a painting in its darkness and lack of color flavor and we need to also be aware of this.

Conclusion: Use these tools but be mindful of their intensity.

SPACE

Art Myth: Keep your art pure, don’t think about selling it

Reality: I touched on this in a previous essay (the conundrum of making and selling art) and I believe it’s great to be a purist if you don’t want to make a living. If you want to make a living then you better think about sales or you won’t have any! The tougher aspect is convincing people to think about BUYING art!

Conclusion: This great myth stems directly from the legend that is Van Gogh who didn’t sell much in his short life despite the fact that he wanted to!

SPACE

Art Myth: Artist always love doing art

Reality: You sit down with your home town newspaper and open the lifestyle section and out springs a large photo of a smiling face with a caption and article full of the joy and rapture that is artist X and their love of making art. Is this how we want to be portrayed? Are we either super controversial or in this case super happy and nothing else in between? I know that I struggle, my artist friends struggle and in fact all humans do struggle. To foster an image that making art is simply joyous is simply false! I consider myself an art professional and I want people to think of me such. The analogy that if I make art and the public perceives making art as something akin to eating ice cream and thus my life must be like eating ice cream is a nauseating conception. I want my life to be like eating vegetables!

Conclusion: Artists are human and we live our lives like humans and we aren’t happy all the time just as we aren’t miserable all the time.

SPACE

Art Myth: Don’t work from photographs

Reality: We use a lot of tools when we make art and the photograph is one of them. The difficulty is that it is a super powerful and seductive tool and it becomes the singular force that might drive an image. Imagine if a carpenter only used a hammer for every problem or if a doctor only used a scalpel as her only tool. The photograph is a limited, already filtered (mechanically) version of our experience and when we as the artistic filter, filter that image again in our quest to make a piece of art can we expect a greater result from a limited resource? If you filter something twice without adding something do you get more in the end?

Conclusion: Use photographs but recognize their limitations.

SPACE

Art Myth: Artists always wear black

Reality: I have my own suspicions about this. In general, artists aren’t the most athletic of sorts and as such the nature of our physiques are often… less than perfect? Black hides unwanted curves and bulges better than any other color…

Conclusion: Maybe thinking about color all the time in their art leaves no room for potential color choices made in the wardrobe.

SPACE

Art Myth: Artists are egotistical, selfish and snobbish

Reality: Actually, this one is totally true and if you are reading this sentence then my ego is puffed up even larger in imagining the occurrence of your reading! Thank you very much!

Conclusion: If you read some of the pretentious art magazines you would probably think artists live on a higher plane of existence but most of that pretension comes from fear. The world doesn’t really care about art in general so in fear of being irrelevant the art world seems to proliferate the notion that you better pay attention because this is extremely important! In my experience, once someone shouts that what they do is super important it almost guarantees that is really isn’t…

SPACE

Art Myth: I could make that (insert non-objective and controversial art piece here)

Reality: How often have you sat in front of a sporting event and yelled at the TV (and your athlete) to run faster, jump higher or something like that because deep in the well of your mind you have an inkling that you wouldn’t fade like athlete x did. Or perhaps you’re in the museum and you think or overhear someone say “I could make that” or “my kid could make that” in reference to some non-objective (abstract painting perhaps?) work of art. Could you? Can you run faster than the athlete who has trained all their lives? Can you really (or could your kid) splash paint around with more dedication and subtlety than Jackson Pollock? Probably not yet it’s an easy way to dismiss something you don’t understand or want to understand.

Conclusion: If you can do it, why don’t you?

SPACE

Art Myth: My cousin is a wicked good aahtist (artist) – or – Hands are wicked haahd (hard) to draw but my cousin draws ‘em freakin awesome

Reality: These phrases are purely a New England thing in the pronunciation of artist and hand (you don’t hear the R) and the use of wicked. These utterances usually happen when you are drawing or painting in public or over conversation at a backyard barbeque at your friend’s house. Can that cousin really be so good?

Conclusion: I’ve never met the cousin in question so I don’t know if this myth is true or not.

SPACE