What is Art?

Is aesthetic pleasure taking over?

Someone said to me that they could not read the quotes I am preparing with the letters I have previously cut? They said they are just looking at the colours? WHAT?

As a result of this I made a quote which states, “This is not i-candy” just to make it clear, its not all about the way it looks!

This was one person; everybody is going to interact with my work differently. For some it will be aesthetical pleasure and some it will be intellectual pleasure, from reading it. This is ok as it is the viewer that makes the work, and my work is Art abut Art so if it did not reflect this subjects then it wouldn’t be reflecting the art world in a true light. That is why it is good that my work can adapt into many different ways for the audience to interact with. This may attract a wider audience with the versatility that I believe my work will contain.

I hope that the way it looks will draw in the viewers who only see it as shapes and colours. Then they hopefully find them self literally reading the work to find a deeper meaning.

For me as an “Artist,” my work only exists when the viewer reads the work. The question is, does it matter if the viewers have different interpretations of the work to the Artist? Personally, I do not think it does. The important thing is that the viewers interact with my work. The viewers make Art in general exist, the Artist is only the author. I do think my work represents these elements.

My views may change once my work is in place and finished so will see how things change. I do feel like I’m contradicting myself, however this word contradiction seems to be popping up a lot in my experience in “Art” maybe that is what Art is? After all my work is Art about Art so to reflect a contradiction Is a good thing.

I find it very hard to explain these things so I hope this makes sense.

20^{th May 2014}

There was a slight change today with arrangements regarding my wall. I have moved to the wall opposite my original wall space. This wall will have a better light and is about two meters shorter (approx.). This reduce in size should not sacrifice my final piece, because I will work with the space, not the space to my work.

Painting the wall

I painted the wall white and filled the holes in. the only problem is that the walls are not smooth and have a few cracks!! This is a inconvenience but the best I can do is sand the cracks down, however this only makes it look better and not disappear!

So how am I going to present my quotes on to the wall?

As it stands today, I am thinking to go through the center of the wall at average eye level. I do not want the quotes organized into a straight line, because this would be to organized and planed. In my mind, I am thinking to place the quotes randomly but maintained through the center of the wall.

This placement onto the wall, will also represent the way, portraits, and paintings ect are usually hanged, which is through the center of a wall. It is just “Art logic” to go through the Centre. Their would be no logic to it being everywhere all over the place. Logic? Yes may be a contradiction but I do need to have some boundaries! Secretly, so do not tell the viewer …

Because the wall is so big compared to what I was previously working on, if I put the quotes all over, top to bottom like before, the quotes will get lost. I believe It will just be too much for the viewer to take everything in. however going through the center I do believe It will encourage the viewer to read the work rather then look. After all if they don’t read it, my work wont exist.

I Will see how it goes, by the end of this week I want to start placing my quotes on the wall. Things may change, I wont know until I do it and ill go with the flow of what just feels right.

How am I going to make sure my quotes are straight?..

Does it even matter?

Do I want it to look hand made?

Monday morning, 19^th May 2014 I have Finished cutting!

I have finished all 950 letters!! The pain in my wrist is lingering.

By the end of this week, I want my wall painted white, with holes filled. I also want all of my quotes put into order, using the letters I have cut, adding question marks and explanation marks.

Sorting into quotes, Monday Afternoon,

After I have organized my letters into quotes, I have been putting them into sandwich bags and labeling them individually with the quotes that are inside the bag. This will help me organize myself, ready to place them on the wall.

When sorting my quotes, I have been taking pictures of them. However, I am considering, printing out the pictures and actually attaching the picture to the sandwich bags. This would give me an idea of what the quotes could look like on the wall, in the process of selecting my quotes to place onto the wall.

Sorting into quotes

When organizing my quotes I have been using letters next to each other that will clash and bounce of each other through each letters individual differences. That’s colour and typography. However This is working out to be harder then I thought!!! I’m trying not to think to much about the colours and shapes, but it’s been 20 mins and I’m still on “This is art because I said so”… The problem that I am having is, I’m looking at the colours and moving them around to much. I’m stuggling to find the line of, it’s finished move on to the next quote.

Please view “This is art because I said so” image.

I’m looking and I’m very conscious of the fact their is a red colour a green then another red, ( at the bottom the I and s). I feel like I need to change this because it’s to repetitive. So I have to ask myself, does it Really matter????

So I should leave it as it is, to prove a point. To show an essence of randomness.

Process

I thought I would tell you a little bit about the process I am using to produce my letters.

I am using Microsoft word, and I randomly pick different typography’s for different leters. Examples of the different fonts are : American typewriter, Andale mono, Apple chancery, Arial, Baoli sc regular, Gill sans ultra bold, Times, Comic san ms, Cooper black, Curlz mt, Edwardian Script, Wide latin

I then randomly pick the sizes of the letters ranging from about 5mm high, 10mm and 15mm high.

I print out the letters on normal A4 paper and cut the letters out with a thin knife, using them as templates. I am using the negative and positive piece’s, so the inside of the letter and the outer line of the letter. This will give a good contrast with the letters presented on the wall.

Slowly I’m working my way through the alphabet, using cups and sandwich bags to organize my letters in order.

When I have cut all my letters, I will then randomly pick out the letters needed to create a quote and use double-sided foam pads to place my quotes on to my wall.

I am using the word random a lot, because it is important for me “not to pay too much attention to presentation”. I do understand that in reality behind closed doors there is a lot of time spent on the presentation that is to represent my work. On the front, my work is not about appearance. However, through out my Art degree I have come to terms with the fact that appearance is an important element to physically exist in the Art world, so I’m using appearance to bring my viewers into an illusion so they automatically read my work and connect to it. My letters presented are only a representation of my “Real work”. Remember letters represent language and language does not exsist. The thoughts and conversations as a result of my work is the real Art.

13^th may 2014

So today I stand with 614 left to cut!! And the blisters are starting to show!! And to top it off I want my letters cut out by the end of this week, that’s by the 16^th! So I can then start placing my letters in order of quotes to start placing on my wall.

15^th May 14, 2014

Today my hand is hurting! I now currently sit at 47 letters left to do, out of 924!! I have been working non-stop, around the clock to get the letters cut. For some reason I did not ask for help, even though this could have been an easy option. I just wanted to do it all on my own, with my own “Artistic” hands, other wise the work wouldn’t be the same, would it?. Wow, starting to feel some self-recognition for hard work, as if I’m a real Artist and my work doesn’t even exists. How ironic.