You know I agree totally with the hands on concept. I went to the berkely site this morning and was amazed at how similar Hoffman is to the gang in my art classes. The color, the composition. WoW! And you can be sure they have never studied him or his concepts. It gave me the shivers. I think it boils down to experimentation and repetition, if that's the right word. also there may be a Jungian thing going on here. Maybe we have certain concepts templated in our genes that cause certain chemical and electrical reactions in the brain that materialize or realize themselves in art. Who knows? Somebody's probably writing their disertation it as we speak. I do think that instruction from an external source does stifle the creative learning process if it given too soon or taken too seriously. I remember 400 telling me not to take the watercolor class. I did take it, but I was lucky. It turned out to be a critique class and not instructional. I learned about watercolor and its magic just by doing the assignments every week. I think you learn more externally by what we're doing right now, exchanging ideas and thoughts.
outsider art
Yes, Kayla. What is there for a teacher to teach, really? Technical tricks, no doubt. But if art is personal expression; if it is the attempt to generate something aesthetically exciting to the artist--and this refers I guess to the process of painting (as the abstract expressionists argued) as well as the product--it must be the result of personal discovery.
About the Jungian speculation. I don't know and can't imagine how one could go about knowing. The notion of archetypes (primordial images) is v enchanting, but how do we demonstrate their existence, forget their historical and geographical universality. Maybe with MRIs we'll be able to study the brain while the subject is experiencing/reporting aesthetic excitement. I prefer not to know, frankly; the mystery of our nature is good enough for me.And of course concepts of "good" and "valid" art have varied considerably over the centuries. But it IS possible, I think, that aesthetic dynamics such as the effects of contrast, unity, harmony (with dissonance), etc. may be universally enjoyed even when not identified as expressions of "art." I just got in from a late orchestra rehearsal so I may not be making sense.
You are making sense to me JLN. Recently I received my stuff that was in storage in San Diego and as I pull out my beginning work I see more than I used to and it is a personal discovery to see where I was in 98-99 and where I am now. It is the same but different.
In regards to the term "Outsider" art, the name gives a superficial credibility to the art as does "abstract-expressionism" etc. People will ask "but what is it?" I'm not saying this is right. I'm just informing my powers that be that what the students are doing has merit. Other wise I get the stuff, "gee it would be nice if they could learn how to draw." No kidding that's exactly what I hear. It makes my blood boil. The general population relies on labels for information. If I just stated "it's what it is," they'd bring in someone to teach the students the rules. That would be a futile experience.
outsider art
I sympathize with your professional problem, Kayla. But I also sympathize with you as one of the many artists who have suffered the question, What is it? Would it help to report to the powers that be that it's not so much the end product that's important as the fact that your students are enjoying the process of singing with paint?
"What is it?"......That question is asked so often.It drives me insane.
"A carving,"I often reply.
"It´s finished."Is another of my favourites.
And Kayla,learning how to draw..Ha.Learning how to draw something that looks like something you´re drawing.It´s a skill but not necessarily "art".
I know I´m not amazing people with this idea but it´s SO true.
Hebba I love that "is it finished". People actually say that about your work. Good grief your sculpture is so beautiful, more than beautiful, I could eat it to experience it more.
Kayla and JLN when an if I ever figure out how to use the digital and you see my stuff you will see what this kid created because it is from my mind and I have refined my technique but it is the same stuff I drew as a child and all the years in between I just never painted it or called it art!
Kayla and JLN do you have any of your work on the web?
Y'all might like this little story, my first and only trip to the Principles office in school was in the first grade. My mother had to come with for the meeting. My teacher's complaint was that I did not know my colors and could not follow directions. My mother told them that I did know my colors and could follow instructions but was not used to having to have to color they way some one else wanted me to as I had my own ideas and that I had been choosing my own colors since I could hold a crayon. My first grade teacher left me alone after that but alas my coloring was never put up on the board for parent's night.
outsider art
bless your mother
My mother accompanied me the first day of kindergarten and firmly instructed my teacher to never make me ever color in coloring book. She insisted that I be given a blank piece of paper. I always loved my mother for that.
I think people who have little exposure to life have to have frames of reference otherwise they wouldn't come out of their houses.
Wow kayla that is exactly how I see my mom now for standing by me. Of course at the time I had not idea what the deal was. Was you mom an aritst too and did you draw from the beginning?
My mom was an actress, writer and artist. All of her friends were in the arts. When I was 2 or 3, I was taken to a theatre party(no sitters) and put in a bedroom. The story goes that somehow I got hold of a tube of lipstick and made the wall in the bedroom my canvas. For years the man who owned the house, a painter himself, would not let anyone touch the wall or paint over it. I don't know if it's true or not, being so young at the time, but it makes a great story. Even then I was into Outsider Art. I do remember a party at our house when I was about 7. Another artist decided to roll up the rug in the livingroom and paint a huge impressionistic tree on the wooden floor. That artist later moved to NY and did set design for the Met. I don't know what became of the painting. I've been very lucky to have such great bohemians in my life.
Sounds wonderful and free.
The artist's job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live....
outsider art
Yes you were fortunate. Lightwizard and I (according to my sense of his reported past) were very fortunate to have lived in the L.A. area during the 60s and 70s. Bohemiaville. And many of the Beats of the time are still among us (me for example), still holding to the old credo--in modified form, of course.
I hung out at the galleries on La Cienega and our Bohemia was rather spread out just like the city. I can't even remember what could be identified as an "art ghetto or colony." The only so-called "art colony" was in Laguna Beach but that was more a commercial melange of seascape and California plein air painters. Chouinard's was the Bohemian art school -- the art scene in LA was dominated by such academic figures as Loser Feitelson. It was pretty stuffy.
outsider art
I spent only a year at Choinard's but can't comment on its "stuffiness." I'm thinking more of the coffee house "intellectual" and zen buddhist scenes. Most of those people--or at least many of them--are still interested in similar issues and practices. My guess is that many did not have the internal cohesion to accomplish much with their talents, but they were talented.
Choinard's was decidedly not stuffy - very Bohemian, unlike the other schools. The LA art scene was trying to emulate NYC and was very stuffy. I frequented the coffee houses -- I can't remember the one that was the other side the freeway off Sunset Blvd. but it consistently had great abstracts on the wall and a great menu of coffees, teas and pastries. Outsider art was an undercurrent even back then (maybe we called it "student art") and there are still some galleries around that I'm sure show it (off the beaten track). Laguna Beach today has several serious galleries that simply weren't around back then and I have seen some Outsider art at the museum there. I must make a trip of to Bergamont center and the other Santa Monica areas gallery hoppping. Haven't done that for around six years.
outsider art
The only coffee houses that stand out in my memory are The Epicurian, on Hollywood Blvd. across the street from Hollywood High (owned by a man named Smitty) and a place with good poetry readings and progressive jazz on Melrose near Vermont Ave. Such a long time ago. A bunch of us art students used to inhabit an abandoned house (the basement, actually, with permission of the owner) in Laurel Canyon. Boy did the wine flow.
It was Cafe Fresco (my memory isn't all that bad after popping four Gingko Biloba!) I was trying to remember. I remember The Epicurean but we made the rounds of the coffee houses and jazz clubs every weekend and it's difficult to say which one I liked best.
When the Rennaisance Cafe was still on Forest Ave. in Laguna Beach, we used to congregate there -- they also had some Outsider art exhibits.
