Whim

I like the idea of a whim. How does it come to you? What piques someone to follow the whim further? I would guess instinct. Can instinct be wrong? Sometimes. I think, on a large enough scale, enough whims will have continuity.

I can say I experience "inspiration"--in that stereotypical lightning bolt kind of way. Chuck Close says, "Inspiration is for amateurs." I think a good result happens when you trust your instinct and follow the idea through to the end, which takes discipline. You've directed yourself, and maybe you've even obtained some mastery. For me, my doubts always come with the purpose, with why I have decided to do something. This is kind of absurd; if there is tons of art about [insert subject matter here--your brain knows where to go], surely it's fine to do what I do. I like absurdity but it's not terribly practical. Maybe that's ok. I think about balancing usefulness in my everyday life, relieving excess practicality in the world around me.

So-- trust, doubt, a path, many paths, obstruction, questions. I have heard, "paint what you want to paint and the rest will follow." I want to make that leap. An old professor of mine, Clifford Wun, said, "Painting* is an act of courage." I believe him.

There are a lot of ideas out there, things distract. How can I channel the rush from sudden inspiration and preserve it through the making of a work? I suspect the answer is to just make more.

Twombly, Coronation of Sesostris 7, 2000

Ingres, Paganini, 1819

Some food for thought:
The Science of Motivation - a video explanation of money and motivation
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
Art and Fear by Orland and Bales


*can be applied to any method of making art

universal truth, man

the bf:  Is art one size fit all? Is there a universal truth about what art should be?

me:  haha

well... I want to say yes, but if there is, it's so broad that it encompasses all of it, in fact, validating everything ever created.

me: I would also say "i would rename it 'human truth' because that is limited, we cannot know all space and time, so the 'universal truth' we can understand is very narrow in scope..." so... human subjective truth

me:  then i want to mention "non objective painting" (ie, jackson pollock drip paintings) though it isn't "supposed to be anything" i think it is impossible to be non-objective, it goes against human existence -- but in a universal sense maybe everything is non-objective so he really is telling the truth

me:  so.... among humans, is there an objective truth to be held on that level..... I want to say because our experience is so limited, a finite number of principles can in fact define our objective universal truth........ BUT, you could also say that BECAUSE our experiences are so limited, we cannot ever hope to have objective truth

me:  so in turn personal truths are created which are only fragments of fragments so we can all stay afloat even in our limited pool of existence

So long story short, it depends how you think about it... i think you can gather what I think of human existence.

me:  great question

the bf:  Did you get that from Wayne's World?