Gazing out the window

I was learning about mental illness, being bipolar in particular, and creativity.  It was interesting to note that some of the renowned artists were afflicted with varying degrees of mental illness.  When I read about song writers, singers, entertainers dying from drug overdose or getting into trouble for dabbling with illicit drugs, my first reaction is the "chicken and egg" debate.  Which one comes first.  Is there any possibility that drugs actually free a person's constraint and enhance creativity?  Perhaps altered perceptions lead us to fresh plots?  Or are drugs just a way of life because it is fashionable. The state I am residing in has legitimized and legalized psilocybin, for medical use of course; as they put it.  Can "visions" be a valuable adjunct to creativity too?  Where is the line between a freak and a genius.  I know, these are harsh terms. 

In a way I believe those of us who paint are inherently dissatisfied with reality.  I mean why else would we paint a version that is different from the true, real object.  And then there are those of us who do abstract work.  Are we under the influence of colors and forms and lines and patterns, and not necessarily an identifiable and addressable object?  How do elephant trunk and chimpanzee hands produce works of art?  How does our gestalt work?  Can drugs or our mental state make a difference?

Before I get myself into too much trouble, I do want to stress that I am not suggesting mental illness is the same as drug use.  The only overlap perhaps is that somehow brain chemicals are involved, be it endogenous or exogenous.  It is a delicate task, just like mixing and obtaining a perfect color or hue, we need to find an auspicious balance of norepi, dopamine and serotonin.  There are so many feedback loops involved when it concerns our body and mind and we are understanding just a little more each day, certainly more than the days of lobotomy and electric shock therapy.  When your car engine is not getting the correct inputs, it can surge, sputter or simply quit on you.  And just like the internal combustion engine, some aren't happy unless they are run at 9,000 rpm, and some hum along merrily at just 100.  We are all different.

The names like Robert Schumann and Vincent van Gogh often come up as artists who have endured mental health problems.  I am not a great fan of Schumann's music but because of what I've learned about the person I have decided to look at his works with less myopia.  Ultimately I am still not quite a fan, but I do find his Piano Quartet very endearing, specially the Andante movement.

If we don't know about the lives of these great artists, we might think that everything is roses with them.  One might even say "I would do anything to be just like them," if one is an aspiring artist.  Atlas, only if we knew.  Are we really willing to pay that price knowing what they had endured?

I've heard a saying which basically states "We might find a Shangri-la when we look across a window, but once we stand right next to the window, what we see is life itself, with all its musings." 

     隔窗而望是世間桃源   臨窗而立是歲月人生 

Not everything is as what it seems, and the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

I have found the inspiration for my next painting.  A person standing by a window, gazing out.

I have in mind a high contrast, black and white brush painting.  I believe a stark black and white painting allows for more freedom of participation from the audience and evokes more empathy.  I also want to position my window strategically such that the proportion or the geometry will be pleasing to look at and helps to frame the protagonist.  I want my actor to ponder and see what is outside the window.

Life!

Just like paring food with wine, I am pairing my painting with the third movement ( Andante ) from Schumann's Piano Quartet, my newfound love.  I just love those long phrasings and conversations between the instruments, even from the viola, I might add.  I love it more than his Piano Quintet; such intimacy.  Listening to that music helps to give me context when I am doing this painting.

I am going to set the tone of the painting by writing the words of the above mentioned saying on the walls in the painting.  These words would be graffiti-like if you will, crass and territorial, but they serve as a dogma for my thought process.  I have a mental image of these writings obscured by the darkness inside the room eventually, either completely or partially, but metaphorically at least.  I haven't decided yet.  Just as they defaced the wall, they are in turn consumed by darkness. They shall resurface when light returns.  It is a cycle, as in life.  I'll cross the bridge when I get there.  For now they shall help to keep the mood playful.  This could be a dark painting, literally and figuratively.  I don't want to be too depressed; but pensive, for sure.  

Next comes my protagonist.

Years ago I did a painting "Going Home" and in that painting I tried to describe backlit tablecloth and sunlight filtering through drinking glasses.  I am trying to study my "light" again with this painting. Also, I am going to be using a female figure as my person of interest.

I am making corrections to the contrast to make her features more vivid.  More enigmatic perhaps. 

I am also dolling up the graffiti a bit by giving the words a shadow.  In the end these words might not be visible anymore but for now it is fun to play with the effects.  As graffiti should.

I am now beginning the process of placing her in this dark room by painting in the wall that she is standing against.  In the process, the negative space of the bridge of her nose and lips are defined by the dark wall.  Her hair too is now nicely fashioned.

The wet ink causes rippling in the fibrous Xuan, and the undulating paper actually adds another dimension to the painting.  Almost like a starburst coming in from outside the window.  Is this a sign?  I just wished that I could keep that effect in place after the paper is dried.

If I stop now and crop my paper properly, I might have a painting on my hands already? High contrast, interesting layout, half white, half black, framing my pensive actor.  Lots of blank spaces for the audience to fill in.  

Should I stop?

Are we narcissists

As the alder leaves turned fiery red and eventually vanished from the branches, and the silvery frost on my lawn each morning beckoned, the Earth Dog is ready to say Zaijian.  See you in twelve!

I could hear the oink oink from the Earth Pig in the distance, if I try hard enough.  Again I am faced with the proverbial question, what is this pig going to look like.

Artists in general are some of the most dichotomous beings on earth, I think.  We have to be sufficiently opinionated in order to put forth our ideas, yet vulnerable enough to reveal our innermost secrets.  We can't wait to make a statement and yet are ambivalent about the reception.  Of course there is this camp that insists we should have the fortitude to paint whatever we want and in whatever manner, and it is up to the viewer to understand and appreciate our works.  I am sure we can scream and demand and insist, but deep down inside we muse and second guess and long for acceptance. Rejection is a bitter pill to swallow.   Perhaps discontent, and the appetite for vindication, more than anything else, are the real fabric for creativity.   This might sound like an oxymoron but Johnny Carson once said that he is ill at ease at parties.  He would hide behind a curtain if he could.  I believe artists, and people who claim to be artists, are good at fulfilling a role; as Johnny did.  Within the confines of the prescribed role we find courage and confidence.  Outside of the pan, all bets are off.

I believe it is this insecurity that drives us to be control freaks.... sort of; and it is this fear of rejection that plants a deep seed in us, driving us to constantly compose and morph and reveal, always searching.

It is my assertion that creative people are people who can't stand status quo.   Creative people are not satisfied with the real world.   There is the omnipresent urge to alter the perception of what is real.

Why is there a need to paint a sunset ?  Isn't the sunset one of those perfect moments that the Creator forged?  To pose a gliding pelican against the setting yolk, to add a smidgen of crimson to the horizon, or to garnish the sky with lenticular clouds?  Creating "new real" from reality, the painter is not satisfied with the real sunset and creates his/her own.  The artists are suggesting that we look at matters from their point of view, despite the fact that whatever we perceive is still our own, and not that of the artists' myopia.  Yet we artists persevere, trying to change reality as we see it.  Molding our own world, our own reality.

Oh to jog our memory, one might say.  A photo or a painting or a movie clip is nothing more than a suggestion, a stimulus.  Art works are just tools, conduits to call up our own experiences.  We still have to form the image from our head, even while we are looking at a physical object.  Memory is a state of mind.

What are memories?  What are feelings?  Chemicals and electrical impulses in our brains.  When we look at the brain outside of our bodies, it is all but a blob of cold, damp, soft mass and yet we love, hate, empathize, think, create and invent with it.  Yet the topography of our receptor sites and movements of salt ions governed our psyche.  With the advence in AI and VR, could we be far from the future when our brains could be mapped and we could customize our experience?  We could have a virtual rent a movie or go to th  virtual Metropolitan Museum Of Art by tapping our skull with our cell phones!

Of course, when all else fails, there's always the route of chemical augmentation, since the chemical pathway in the brain is well documented.  Either the artist, or the audience may partake in this ritual.  This is the ultimate alteration!  Let's have a rave party.  Drug taking behavior seem prevalent for both performing and visual artists (emphasis on the word seem).  I wonder if there's an association between using chemicals and creativity.  Could this be the magic potion that sublimates what is real, albeit mundane, to something ethereal of our own imagination?  Is this how abstracts work?  Is this how minimalism works?   Berlioz composed the wildly successful Symphonie Fantastique while taking opium drops, albiet for medicinal purpose.  Could that have contributed to the genius of the piece, or was it a product of his manic depressive episodes?

A boutique ice cream business here concocted a turkey ice cream by mixing turkey with ice cream.  Wow that is going outside of the box.  It is now the love of the media and foodies pile on heaps of praises.  Can eccentricity and irrationality become celebrated traits given the right spin? I can only imagine the moment when the first person ever decided to see what fermented milk curd tasted like.   Because this person dared to go where no one has gone before, we are now blessed with Gorgonzola and Roquefort. How desperate must a person be to drink kopi luwak, a coffee brewed from partially digested coffee beans pooped out by felines.  Does exclusivity and being expensive lend credibility?

We are advancing into the field of Artificial Intelligence at a fierce pace.  We make robots that can think and feel and emote; just like ourselves.  Is this the final frontier for our creative minds?  We want to create a copy of ourselves and we want the credit for coding our creations.  Recently an AI generated piece of art was auctioned off at Christie for over $400,000.  Is that a validation of the image, the programmer, or the person who shelled out that huge sum of money.  How about paintings done by animals?  Paintings done by elephants and monkeys have been tauted as artworks.  If we put aside the fact that these are animal productions, do these "art works" harbor any intrinsic values?

Frankly I believe artists are narcissists, to a more or lesser degree.  We go to great lengths to make our views known, no matter how trite or infantile or meaningless. We paint, we perform, we take pictures, sculpt, weave, fire, and in my case, blog. Thank heavens for my soap box.

Please excuse my ranting with my sometimes sacrilegious, often mis-guided, but never nefarious statements.  These are actually questions that I ask of myself, and of others and the answers are as many and as varied as grains of sand at the Sahara Desert.   And just like the dunes in Sahara, they shift with the winds.  I could never get a straight answer.

Such behaviors beg the question, is this narcissism?  Are artists narcissists?

Artists are rewarded by putting their names on a piece of work, having their brand appear in trade magazines, gallery catalogues and museum brochures.  After all this is what the society deem as a proof of success, affirming the talents and efforts of said artists and bestow upon them a decorum of  validations, sometimes tethered to a ridiculously huge sum of moola.  Often times when these "proper" channels are not available, the creative mind still seek identity and glory by graffiti.  This is perhaps the most spontaneous, self-gratifying kind of self-expression.

I chanced upon a synagogue which walls are tagged with graffiti. No I am not talking about railroad cars or grain silos.

 What is unusual about this place is that the synagogue even erected a plywood faux wall and labelled it "Open Wall" to allow ( and perhaps promote? ) this form of expression.  It could be that the establishment saw the need for dialogue and promote its own relevancy by providing such a forum for expression.  Or it could be that by providing a legitimate venue for such behavior of expression that the synagogue would be less of a victim of defaced walls.  If you can't beat them, join them.  Regardless, people still deface the walls.

Is this a creative mind?  Narcissistic behavior?  Or plain insolence?  Is this art?  What is art?  What if these were done by Salvador Dali, would his fame change the perception of graffiti?


Time to step down from my rostrum and get on with my pigs.

First I must study them...... get the nuance of the animal....I can't remember ever painting a pig!

Sketch away!

oink  oink  oink