Serious business…
One of the hardest things about being an artist is taking it seriously. By this I don’t mean being a pompous ass. I mean taking the work seriously. Understanding that however you regard yourself, the work has something to say and the endeavour is important. You might not be able to convey meaning immediately. You may not fully understand your own meaning immediately. But that the making of things is a language for expressing. The making of things is a way of learning its own language. It is a serious undertaking to conceive an idea and try to express it in a way you haven’t before (sometimes you discover someone else has… how maddening is that?)
Sometimes there is a glimmer of success. Now this doesn’t necessarily include critical acclaim, although sometimes it does and that’s like the holy grail of an artist’s career, both at the same time!
No… success… for me… is hitting a sweet spot you didn’t know was there but had hope.
The work I’m in the middle of at the moment is looking for the sweet spot between reality and abstraction. This pivot point holds a meaning for me that I hope to convey to others. I get close and then I ruin it. I want to do a drawing that is neither or both observational and abstract. I’ve been doing one or the other, while believing I can find a place on one piece of paper where both exist. I’m looking for an uneasy balance. I’m not sure I’ll ever find it. It may not exist. But I have to remind myself that the looking and making is important in some way. And there it is. Pompous ass-ness. Tricky huh?
I don’t think that I’m important or clever. In fact I’m far from either of those things. But there is a sort of remove in play here. The pursuit of art in its truth is humanity at its best. Art is the very best thing we can do. Again, I’m not the best, but this line of enquiry, in a language I barely understand, is worth pursuing. By me, by anyone who is compelled to do it.
I truly believe art is the opposite of war. War is a complete and utter breakdown in any and every sort of useful communication. War has given up trying. Art is a permanent, lifelong, human effort to communicate something human, to other humans, where other sorts of language have proved insufficient.
Elena Thomas, Artist.
Merry Christmas
