Wednesday, April 13, 2016

More Grids and Digital Manipulations

untitled uncertainty  pencil on paper 2010-2016

"uncertain certainty"  digital photograph- mixed media- macpaint, pushpins-soundboard 2016

So much of my education was directed at the the development of a style or personal language though lots of hard work. This work ethic is the by-product of the industrial Revolution and the assembly line. Modern education has modeled itself on these practices with the goal of mass producing a product. Modern art and art in general also favors this mode  of production. People are not comfortable with change. An appreciation of the history and study of the contemporary. This brainwashed my ability to think for myself. In this world were pop-ups are always blocking your vision literally and people are invading your space pushing you out the idea of making a physical object is daunting. Especially when you have finished it unless you are a brand name, most likely you will be responsible for it till you destroy it. As I have reviewed what has been coming up on 40 years of art-making mostly in the form of small works on paper for having living most of that time in NYC and moving the first 10 of those years so often that this was the best medium. At first all the influences appeared trendy as a am child of post modernism. But now those influences are seeming gracious. The arrogance to think that any of us really came up with anything for everything comes from somewhere. Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Sol le Witt, Jackson Pollack, Pablo Picasso, you drop the name. All these people are microscopes, scale shifters, medium lifters taking the tools of their time,
and adapting the fashions.  For them it was what was in the wind. They read the science, philosophy
of there time.  Now deciding what to do with all the choices and technologies at our fingertips makes the creative act more and less impactful. Instagram- with its square format and filters ease of use and really lack of commitment makes it popular and at the same time very transient. Facebook even more so as posts flicker momentarily unless they are liked or shared. They quickly are scrolled down to some hidden recess of some distant  servers hard drive until they are erased to make room for the ever accelerating new. So I come back to the Blog for here the post while like on the studio wall it may not be seen by anyone has it's place. Until the next post comes and pushes it down, everything we make pushes everything else further into the past. But in creating we invest in the hope of a future even just a virtual one.






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