Bob Cornelis' Art Blog

I’m the Decider

bobcornelis — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:18:10 +0000

calla 2, photograph

“Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

- Howard Aiken

One of the most important phases in the process of making art is that of editing. By this I mean the decision what to do with a new work. I’m intentionally skipping past the prior step, which is the often paralyzing one where we have to decide if something is “done”.

Editing is commonplace in the photography world, where often hundreds or thousands of shots must be sifted through to isolate the few keepers. Often there is a hierarchical system used, perhaps a ranking of each image from 1 to 5. Many software programs used by photographers to catalogue their work have this capability built in. But such a simple ranking system doesn’t do justice to the complex analysis we all go through to sort this out.

All artists go through this discussion with themselves. They have to decide which pieces to keep, which to toss, which to put in their next show, which to invest in framing, which to keep as an example of something, which to put aside to come back to, which to paint over, etc., etc., etc. Rarely have I seen an explanation of how one should approach this imposing task, and it’s one we’re confronted with continually.

I suppose we each come up with our own system, though I suspect we all wonder if ours works to our benefit. Perhaps some of you keep everything – that’s one way to avoid making the harsh critical choice about our own efforts. Maybe you are more ruthless, quickly tearing up or painting over anything you know isn’t among your best work. You could let the public give you feedback – I’ve heard of comedians who take their material on the road in small clubs first to see what resonates.

I think knowing what to keep of your work implies a deep understanding of your own goals and standards. It implies a degree of objectivity, but also allows the freedom to be compassionate.

One of the wonderful things about art is that it affords us so many opportunities for self-inquiry beyond the “simple” making of the art itself.

Don’t Pass Up the Chance

bobcornelis — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:57:37 +0000

liquid gold, photograph

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and will be lost.”

- Martha Graham

I don’t think I’ve heard or read a better reason than this to pursue one’s art in the face of obstacle, doubt or lack of motivation. What Graham says is surely true.

Because we are all unique, each piece of art we create could not have come from anywhere or anyone else and any choice we make to not create it means it is lost forever.

I believe, in fact, that at any given moment, our choice to not express ourselves means that, even for us, that piece is lost forever. Tomorrow or the next day our attitude, our spirit, our intent will be different and what we create will also be different. Any opportunity to express ourselves by creating art is precious because it exists in a singular confluence of time, place and identity.

Just think what you might have made. Don’t hesitate – create!

Out with the Old and In with the New

bobcornelis — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:07:29 +0000

The Weary Traveller, photograph

“People are very open-minded about new things – as long as they’re exactly like the old ones.”

- Charles F. Kettering

There is a new wave of innovation going on in the photography world known as HDR – stands for High Dynamic Range. I won’t bore you with the technical details. The reason I bring it up is that the resulting photographs often have a “unusual” look to them. Sometimes they don’t look like traditional photographs. This has caused concern and even anger among many in the photography world. HDR images are decried as an abomination, an evil which undermines the world of photography.

I wonder at this – why do people hang on so desperately to how things have been done in the past when it comes to art. I would think that art by it’s very essence is all about new ways of seeing things. But history has shown that this “re-visioning” takes time and comes at a cost to those promoting it – consider the impressionist and cubist painters of the late 19th, early 20th century. The establishment didn’t welcome their innovations.

I am part of a photography “salon” (a group of serious photographers) which meets monthly – each month we decide on an assignment which we’ll all shoot and then share our results. This month the assignment is HDR. One of our members predicted that even though today these images can seem a little otherworldly, in 5-10 years most photography will look this way. We’ll retrain our visual systems to view this as normal. This has happened before in the history of painting and photography.

I think it’s an exciting process to be part of. Of course, one never knows which innovations will stick and which won’t. Only the timid wait to see who the winners are before trying them out for themselves.

Needless to say, the above image was shot using HDR. The lighting conditions were such that HDR was about the only way to get an image at all, much less one with the atmosphere seen here.

Choose Your Weapon

bobcornelis — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:51:12 +0000

Enflamed, photograph

“If Velasquez were born today, he would be a photographer and not a painter.”

- George Bernard Shaw

I wonder whether painters from long ago would have chosen different, not-then-available art mediums. It’s curious to contemplate what kind of photographs Rembrandt or Vermeer might have taken had the camera rather than the brush been their chosen instrument. Both were masters of light so I’m sure they would have created rich and compelling work.

It’s interesting to me why more painters do not become better photographers. It’s very common for painters over time to tackle different mediums – watercolor, oil, collage, pastel, etc. Few in my experience become equally interested in the camera. Of course, everyone takes pictures – but I’m talking about practicing fine art photography where the photograph is a work of art in itself. Equally puzzling is why more photographers don’t also take up painting at some point as a way to expand their expressive arsenal.

Perhaps the disciplines are too different. I suppose it’s equally true that not many painters (or photographers) become sculptors, writers, actors, dancers, musicians, etc. For some reason I have found painting and photography to share more in common with each other than with these other artistic mediums. But perhaps to others, picking up the camera feels as foreign to them as would sitting down at a piano or playing Hamlet.

What draws one to choose painting or photography to begin with? Both produce visual images depicting our world. Both allow for a wide range of creativity and expression. Both are considered valid art forms. Have you ever asked yourself this question? Have you ever contemplated getting serious about painting or photography, whichever you don’t do now? If so, why have you chosen to do so or not?

Visiting Old Friends

bobcornelis — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:49:53 +0000

Shadowed, photograph

“No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.”

- George Eliot

I’m very aware of this statement with regard to literature – books I found compelling, even life changing, 30 years ago when I first read them can seem curiously bland now.

The same is also true for all visual arts. Each time we see a piece of art, it is with new eyes since we are no longer the same person we were the last time we viewed it. If it’s a work hanging on your wall that you see everyday, you may not be aware of this changing perception as it occurs so incrementally. But going to a museum and seeing works that you haven’t seen for years can be a startling experience – it can be either disappointing (why did I think this work was so wonderful before?) or unexpectedly exciting (I don’t remember this work being so powerful!). Of course, the work hasn’t changed – it is we who have. Even the artists themselves will have different feelings about their own previous work – they’ve changed both as an artist and as an observer.

This ever-changing experience of art ensures a continued vitality in the dynamics between artist, artwork and audience. The art world would be rich enough based solely on the wealth of new work constantly being created by talented artists – the fact that each time we return to a piece it is a potentially new experience for us adds an opportunity to appreciate art that is almost inexhaustible.

The Broken Mirror

bobcornelis — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:22:50 +0000

Boxed In, photograph

“A photograph is only a fragment, and with the passing of time it’s moorings become unstuck.”

- Susan Sontag

More thoughts inspired by On Photography by Susan Sontag…

Sontag talks about the discreteness of a photograph and the effect of that on how we see things. Photographs become untethered from the stream of time they came from. No matter how we felt about the subject at the time we photographed it, over time, those sentiments change. The context is lost, or at least becomes diffuse. Sontag likens photographs to quotations, essential nuggets lifted form their original setting to take on a life of their own.

Of course, photographs always depict the past so are infused with an inherent pathos of nostalgia. This sentimental view of the world as seen through this universal and ubiquitous collection of photographs leads us to a feeling of mastery over it, in the same way that a collector of objects feels mastery over his stamps, coins or dolls.

I wonder how differently people 200 years ago experienced their reality. Was it more fluid and connected? Is the over-used modern term alienation partially caused by the fragmentation of our world into tiny moments of time captured in a photograph? Have we shattered the mirror forever, to find ourselves surrounded by an infinite number of minute shards of glass? Can we ever put it back together to see the whole picture again?

What’s New?

bobcornelis — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:18:32 +0000

Webbed, photograph

“We tend to think things are new because we’ve just discovered them.”

- Madeleine L’Engle

I wonder whether artists 100 years ago found it easier to believe they were being creative in a unique way? These days it is so easy to see the art of others.

Thousands of individual websites, blogs, online galleries, social networking art sites like Flickr overwhelm us with access to artists all over the world and their creations. It can be exciting, humbling and inspiring all at the same time.

Long ago artists could only see what other local artists were creating so uniqueness must have felt more attainable. Have you ever had an idea (all on your own) only to find another artist who had already done it (perhaps better than you could)? It can take the wind out of your sails.

Of course, you could avoid looking at the work of others – artificially recreate the limited access artists long ago had to other art. But maybe it’s better to know an idea you have has been exhaustively worked through by others so you can take it a step further. Or is it’s unique status in your own creative world reward and justification enough?

I suspect that the increased access to the work of others has accelerated the rate of creativity and uniqueness in the art world. Increased communication tends to spawn innovation in most fields and I don’t think art is any different in that regard. That increased pace comes at a cost, which is the pressure to take the status quo to the next level.

Some days I dream nostalgically of a time when I would have been the only photographer in town and everything I did was new to me and to all I knew.

Those days, my friend, are gone for good…

Do Not Disturb?

bobcornelis — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:27:00 +0000

Abandoned, photograph

“Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.”

- Georges Braque

It may sound contrary, odd and… disturbing to think that art is “meant to disturb”. Not the usual way to talk about our old revered friend. What’s going on here?

All visual art captures and extracts a moment in time from the incessant flow of our lives. It represents a break in the continuity of our experience. It remains frozen in perpetuity and serves as a gentle (or not) speed bump on our everyday road.

Art presents a veneer, a superficial view of the depth of reality. We look at the work of art and our mind and imagination adds the ingredients that supply the dimension to what we see. We provide the context, the story, the meaning, the narrative. The art is the trigger but we (the viewers) do the work.

Science, on the other hand, reassures us because it’s purpose is to explain everything. It tries to make sense of all things so that we do not have to figure out the story ourselves. We can sit back and be told, rather than assume the burden of providing the explanations.

Science seeks to preserve and enhance the continuity of our world, while art can’t help but intervene, stop us short and “disturb” our complacency. In the world of science, we rely on the scientists – we don’t have to go into the lab ourselves. In the world of art, we’re all lab assistants and it can be hard work.

Mental Pollution

bobcornelis — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:54:00 +0000

Backdoor, photograph

“Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.”

- Susan Sontag

I’m reading Sontag’s seminal work “On Photography” and finding it thought provoking.

She is making a point here that our photograph-dominated culture has created a view of social reality that is a series of unrelated anecdotes, undermining a sense of continuity. Each photograph is a discrete and arbitrary framing of reality which presents us with the opportunity to seek what is beyond it. The photograph hides more than it reveals – it can never reveal the underlying reality of what it depicts. Instead it presents a surface level view, which invites the “deduction, speculation, and fantasy” mentioned above.

Therein lies our fascination with the medium. I think there is a unique relationship between photography and the world that does not exist between painting and it’s subjects. There is a literal and obvious way in which the camera records reality – initially we are tempted to accept what the camera captures as reality. Yet a photogaph’s ability to explain reality is so compromised that it inevitably triggers our efforts to understand the underlying story in a way which is irresistible.

Sontag accuses industrial nations of turning their citizens into “image-junkies” which she terms the most irresistible form of “mental pollution”.

More on this to come… but I find her discussion of the way in which photography has changed how we see and actually experience the world around us fascinating. I hope I’m not contributing too much to the sea of mental pollution out there!

Man vs. Machine

bobcornelis — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:33:22 +0000

Abstract I, photograph

“Anyone who can be replaced by a machine deserves to be.”

- Dennis Gunton

A visitor to my studio last weekend made the observation that photography had become much easier and faster with the advent of the computer and digital imaging.

Needless to say, I didn’t let that one pass…

Technology is usually an enabler, rarely an expeditor. I can do so many things now with the camera that I could not before but I wouldn’t say I do any of it any more quickly. There is now endless experimentation with each image. That all takes time and generally I only consider something done when I grow tired of working on it. In the old days, pieces were finished because I ran out of things I could do to them rather than running out of interest.

I suspect that many oil paintings take longer to produce than watercolors merely because it is much easier to alter or correct an oil painting – if you make a serious mistake in a watercolor painting, you toss it and start over. I suppose in some sense you could argue that oil painting is easier than watercolor for that reason (I’ve heard this before) but I think it’s equally hard to paint either. Both require the same combination of artistic creativity, technique and intention.

As I’ve said before, it ain’t the tools, it’s the one who wields them.

I could not have made the photograph above 20 years ago. I won’t go into detail about how this was done, but there is a lot of technique involved which relies on equipment and tools which didn’t exist then. All of which enabled me to create an image which could not have existed otherwise.

How cool is that?