The Occasional Daily Art Log for 08-31-15

I've been doing a lot of soul searching the past few days. In fact I wasn't even going to do this log tonight because in a way I feel like a fraud for having some of the thoughts I've been having recently. But then I got to thinking that this is what this is meant to be. In simpler words its about the challenges, tribulations and soul searching that artists go through. If I don't express it in the written form, then it remains nothing but a series of thoughts in my own mind. So here it goes.




I always counsel my students to NEVER think they are creating something new. That everything has been done before. Done worse and done better than you. If you can come to face this early, then there is not disappointment later. It frees the mind to stop contemplating how to wow the universe and just lets you be who you are and create what you will in your own unique fashion.

This is why I love experimental art. It frees me to work with blending lots of old ideas together and mixing in some oddities that most conventional artists probably wouldn't bother with.

But here's the thing. If you've been following my logs you know I've been struggling and working around defining this art form I am calling Assimilation Art. I've never claimed its anything new. Merely a redefining of something that I think has existed for awhile.

But now I'm starting to change my mind and with that mind change I am breaking cardinal rule #1 of NEVER thinking your creating something new.

Its not even in the art itself that anything is new, but in the conceptualizing of a new form for that art. I guess I look at it the same way I suspect the artists at the beginning of Dadaism or Expressionism must have felt. Almost like your looking through a doorway at something new. Its the same house, but you never realized that room over there existed before. And maybe it didn't, until you created the room. Does that make sense?

I keep sensing that room is there. Its like I glimpse it out of the corner of my eye but when I turn my head fully to look through the door, its shut. Then other times its open just a crack.

So ever since this thing started a few weeks ago where I really began to translate the concept stuck in my head into a formal set of terms, I keep glimpsing that door. Its almost like each time I talk about it either verbally or in written form like this, the door opens a little more for me.

But I can't quite manage to step into the new room yet! Its frustrating. But at the same time intriguing a bit exhilarating.

Its also lonely because my immediate intimate circle does not grasp it and my students are not yet at a level where they can even begin to see this for what it is.

But is it anything? Again here is my dilemma and much of my soul searching? Am I dealing with a new concept here or am I just plain nuts? My money would be on nuts.

I can't help but wonder if the early artists who worked with Dadaism or Abstraction or a number of other artistic forms, found themselves wondering if it was just their imagination that there was something new to be found in what they did? I also find myself wondering if there are other artists out there right now that are wandering around the fundamental nature of Assimilation and aren't really sure what they are seeing either.

I'd like to find them, but as of yet I'm not exactly sure what to look for. I am hoping it will come to me.

That is all for tonight. Tomorrow will be a challenging day with the third of the body sculpture sessions going on through most of the night. But you can better believe I will be keeping my eyes open for the keys to all of this.

Creatively,
~Grey~