Kansas

Recently I took the camera for a stroll, and came back with some nice imagery of the Kansas landscape. I have been doing a lot of reading of late, and viewing photographs from the masters of still photography. Specifically Edward Weston, and Bill Brandt. I have been a big fan of Edward's work for many years, dating back to when I first learned of Ansel Adams. Ansel and Edward were probably the most influential photographers of their time. Ansel's work was much more in the main stream, however Edward's work excited me even more. Adams and Weston were the two A list names of the f/64 group. Bill Brandt is a name I have only recently become aware of. I purchased John Zarkowski's book entitled, "The Photographer's Eye," and noticed some of Bill's work there.

I started looking on the Internet for more about Bill, and came across the following quote, which I very much relate to in my work -

"I am not interested in rules and conventions ... photography is not a sport. If I think a picture will look better brilliantly lit, I use lights, or even flash. It is the result that counts, no matter how it was achieved. I find the darkroom work most important, as I can finish the composition of a picture only under the enlarger. I do not understand why this is supposed to interfere with the truth. Photographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others."

One thing I have noticed about these masters, is the fact that they are able to cover multiple genres. Edward Weston went from landscapes, to still life, to nudes, without skipping a beat. Bill Brandt also mentions this in his interviews. I do like the idea of dabbling in a wider array of subjects. These Kansas images are a pretty stark contrast to the twisted turbines of the past few years.

Wendy

I am doing a little mental gymnastics this morning. Yesterday afternoon, I attended the opening reception of the 13th National Juried Art Exhibition at Baker Arts Center, here in Liberal, Kansas. I had submitted two of my Digital Art images for consideration, and one of them was accepted. Windmill Monster.

After attending the reception, I wanted to take stock in a few of the things I have learned from this experience. As I was preparing some thoughts for this blog post, I was thinking that being accepted into a national juried show is a sort of milestone for me. But I was forgetting that I had previously had a couple photographs accepted into the 5 State Juried show a few years ago. The 5 State show is hosted by the Hays Arts Council in Hays, Kansas. I have always been a little innocent and naive about the whole process of entering art works into shows like this. So many things to learn. For me, at the end of the day, it has always been, it is now, and I think it will always be about my passion for creating interesting works, and presenting them in a way that allows other people to view them, and critique them. It has never been, it isn't now, and I don't think it will ever be about competing and/or making money, though at times the framework of these shows appear to cater to those visions. I think most of the artists who participate in these shows understand that selling your work in this venue is not the goal. At first, I thought I had under-priced my print. When I filled out the form, and listed the price, I wanted to price it low enough so that it was not presumptuous, but high enough to at least make back the money I spent on the print, frame, and commission to the art center. The price that I settled on was $200. It wasn't until a week or so after, that I did the math again, and concluded that if I sell this piece, I will actually lose a little money on the deal. But as I viewed the other pieces in the show, I noticed that many of the other artists had their works priced very similarly, and some were even a little lower, considering the size of their work, and my guess at how much they had invested in it. I'm actually hoping the piece does not sell, because I want to keep it for my own wall.

I was doing some thinking about how this image came to be. Mental gymnastics. Any artist needs to be able to communicate their vision when asked. Thus the reason for my mental gymnastics. I have shared this image with my friends on Facebook, and received a few comments comparing it to the work of Salvador Dali. It's not the level of art they were pointing out, but rather, I think, the style or genre, that this piece would fit into.

Salvador is the top of the mountain in the Surrealism genre, and so I started reading a little about this movement.

The first thing I took note of as I was reading about Surrealism, is that it was spawned from the Dada movement. Dada was a sort of protest of the societal norms of the day. Anti-art is another way of describing Dada. I'm not sure I agree with that. The point I think is important is the fact that it was born of rebelliousness. I feel a bit of that rebelliousness in my art expressions.

One of the most important aspects of the art I create is the response I get from the viewer. Additionally in the response I DON'T get. The response I want is, "Wow, that is cool. What I see is...." The response I don't want is, "Wow, that looks so real." Or , "Wow, that looks EXACTLY like the scene you were attempting to depict."

I learned a few things about Surrealism in my reading this morning. I found a dictionary definition of the word. It reads, "Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation."

Automatism is the idea that you put your pencil to the paper, and just start drawing. Sort of a visual form of stream of conscious. I can see how this image would fit with this definition. When I think about the day that I created Wendy, the process went something like this.

I started with a digital photograph of a windmill. I opened the image up in Photoshop. Not having any formal training in Photoshop, I set out to teach myself. So I just started turning and twisting the knobs with this image. In the process of twisting the knobs, I serendipitously stumbled upon Wendy. I twisted it with the "Twirl" filter, and then I flipped the image, creating a second layer. When the two layers were stitched together, Wendy was created. Actually I'm not sure if Wendy was created or discovered. Probably a little of both. But I guess the point is, I think this is similar to what they talk about in the use of the word "Automatism." 

Update - About 5 hours after this was first posted. I got to thinking about this definition of Surrealism, and I'm beginning to have a problem with it. This definition attempts to describe the process of an artistic expression. This process could be employed in the creation of expressions in many different genres. Also, after thinking about it a bit longer, I don't really think that Wendy was really a result of "Automatism" or "Stream of Conscious." As I described the process, there is an element of that, but there was also an element of purpose as well. Mental gymnastics, schmental schmempackschticks. I think at the end of the day, an artist creates what he or she creates. I think I need to leave the defining to someone else. The way I define surrealism is something that is outside of what you would find in conscious reality. This is what I try to do.