“Create what you want art to be, not what you have been told art is.”
These images are some of my earliest attempts to create the art that I wanted to put out there.
It happens at a young age. Our earliest memories begin the foundation of what we think of as “art”. Our first teachers, our surroundings, our experiences; they all go in to forming our opinion of what art is. School starts and we take art classes. We learn to color inside the lines, we learn to use colors, we learn to draw, sculpt, mold, and sometimes, if we’re lucky, how to use Popsicle sticks to make miniature buildings. Whatever we learn in art school, we are fundamentally being taught what art is. Yet if you were asked to answer that question – “What is art?” – would you be able to?
I think the better question is should you be able to. I think the answer is yes, but not in the way that our teachers taught us. When I think back on art projects I did in school there are certain lessons that have always stuck with me. Coloring inside the lines is applauded. Following the rules was always a sure-fire way to get a good grade. Perfecting the “art” of shading while doing a still-life drawing always got the teacher’s attention. While all of these things are good to know how to do in the art world, is any of it art?
They are the building blocks that we use to create art, but the rules are not art. I have never been in an art class, in fact, where someone has allowed me to create art. Instead, we learn the rules that go in to creating traditional pieces, but very little about how to create something original. I think the problem lies in the #1 rule we are taught: color inside the lines. Why, I have to wonder, does every teacher seem to hammer that point home? Aside from practicing motor skills as a child, it teaches children at a very young age what is “right” and what is “wrong” in the art world. I fully believe it is one of the reasons why people grow up to be closed-minded about art. We are taught what art is, instead of being allowed to explore what art could be.
Imagine the creativity that would flow from children if coloring books did not exist. The book does all the work for the child: it has the subject and the outlines of where to color, and in some cases even specifies what colors to use where. The art of it is lost; it is a mindless activity of moving your hand back and forth. It becomes, quite literally, practicing your motor skills. To further this teaching method, we are taught in schools to follow rules for homework assignments, going so far as to systematically complete art assignments for a grade. I see the benefit in all of this; there has to be structure in order to manage so many children. But in doing so, has the art been lost?
At some point along my artistic journey I had to redefine what art is to me. Until I started photography I was very much trapped in the confines of school and the ideas of what I was told art is. I had ideas but never executed them. I only created what was needed for school. I was locked into the idea that anything too weird or “out there” would be excluded from popular art conversations. And then one day I had a realization: Who cares?
Who cares if my ideas, thoughts, creations…my art…is not accepted by anyone? The models I was always shown in school were famous paintings, like “Starry Night”, and things like it. They were popular. They were examples of traditional art. Yet what I was never told was that the people who created that art were groundbreaking at the time. Now it remains an example of what art should be, but at the time it represented what art could be.
With that realization in mind, I have been creating ever since. I never once, after picking up my camera, stopped to question what I was doing. I never question my imagination, I simply let it rule my life. I never bother myself with the question of what art is or what it should be, or who will like it or even buy it. I create what I love, what comes naturally to me, what I find most fascinating. I create art, plain and simple, and anyone else creating from their heart is doing the same. I want to look forward to a new art movement, something that is yet undefined yet may someday define a generation. I want to be a part of that, and so I only ask the question of what art could be.
