[pure-silver] Re: Self Critiism (WAS Is anyone out there???)
- From: mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 21:01:25 -0700
To me the issue is uncomplicated: Good art can only spring from
internal integrity. How the art get used, sold, or displayed is not
the point. The point is whether the piece is utterly consistent
with the artist's vision. That means that if I do a piece *I* love
and sell it peddle Chevys, it is still great art. A work commissioned
by a buyer that doesn't meet my internal integrity test is not great
art, no matter who else says so.
BTW, there is a huge difference between "quality" and "what I like".
"Good" art is art of high quality, whether or not I like it. As an
example, most people would agree that Stravinski's "Rite Of Spring"
is a brilliant piece of music. I agree. I also happen to not much
care for it. This does not change its standing as fine art.
Well to me its a bit simpler and more complicated all at once. To me
that internal integrity is something different than what I am
photographing. To me a sell out is one that does not do the very best
they can with what they have to work with. Its the easy way out. Now I
agree 100% that just because a particular work or art no matter the
medium is something that I happen to not like, doesn't mean it isn't
art. It means my taste are different. I have performed in an orchestra
that did Rite of Spring. As a lowly French Horn player what is selected
was well above my pay grade. Id have much preferred Mahler, Brahms, or
many other options, but you show up and do your job to the best of your
ability. To me mailing it in is a sell out. But that's just one old
mans opinion.
>
> Tim like you I NEVER throw away the source. With digital I delete only
> the absolute worst technical flaws, and memory is cheap enough now that
> I rarely even do that. Mainly because I find it quicker to just look
> past them than to delete them. Unlike you I keep the prints that make
> it past test stage. I am amazed at what I can learn from them later and
> often can use them in other ways. Sometimes its is a sense of pride to
> go back through some every now and then an see how far I have progress
> in many ways. Yet I would consider that more of a difference in
> technique. If one day something like what happened to that press photog
> happened to you, the image isn't gone. Even though it likely won't see
> the light of day again, you still have the option.
It's funny this came up today. In the past month, I just finished
cataloging
and contact printing my very earliest negatives shot beginning at age 14
on.
I am now on a part time project to review every single negative in my
possession and reprint some of them selectively to do what you say:
Revisit
my ideas for (some of) the ones I've already printed or print some I
never
saw much potential for in the past (but have changed my mind). Over time
I will end up with a personal portfolio sort of along the lines of
"My Life In Pictures". It's great fun.
>
> It is an interesting comparison to music. Handel's Messiah was written
> in only 28 days. Writing it had nothing to do with his personal vision
> and its hours and hours long. But is it a work of art?? Congrats if
> you know why he had to write it so fast, and it was a pretty good reason
> grin.
IIRC, he needed the money. (As it happens, I sang in a touring chorale
in college and we did Messiah every year.) But commercial motivation
does not vacate the possibility of art. As I keep saying, to me, great
art is defined when it is consistent with the internal vision of the
artist *no matter what their reason for doing it*.
Actually it was a little more important than money and a lot more
scandalous. You see Handel got caught with a lady. That lady just
happened to be the king's daughter. His job was to complete a piece of
music that pleased the king in a given time frame. IIRC he had 30 days.
Please the king, and he could keep breathing. If he failed, he was to
be beheaded. Somehow I bet internal integrity was not real high on his
priority list at the time. The tradition of standing during the
Hallelujah Chorus came for the fact that the King on that initial
performance stood and cheered. Wonder if the choir was the only one
shouting Hallelujah.
I suspect it is like most things in life and that's balance. I never
worry too much about what others think unless it is something that
someone is paying me to do a specific job for a specific look. I am not
in total control at these times. Now at that point my job is to please
the person that is going to write the check. How do I balance that?
Well I try to create exactly what is asked, but I also create more using
my own judgments and sense of what works. Sometimes when they see what
I have done, it is preferred to what they ask for. Other times not, but
I sleep well knowing I didn't mail it in.
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