Great article Cecil. Reminds me of our late friend, Ed Benson, who deliberately destroyed his paintings-perhaps as a sign of his art's impermanence. He always seemed to be thinking 3 steps ahead of everyone else. This also reminds me of those Buddhist priests who create elaborate sand art over several days, and then destroy the work immediately afterwards. Also a sign of change and that nothing lasts forever. Only perhaps your memory of the event. Certainly food for thought.
of course this has to be balanced with making a living in a capitalist environment. So artists, if they need to make a living from art making - in other words be self sustaining from that activity. For me personally that is important since I have thrown all in on just being an artist. There is an article scheduled for Monday the 17th where I talk about the idea of working my '40 acres and a mule' as an artist that I think you will appreciate.
and let's face it, almost everybody wastes almost all of their time already, mostly on stupid shit. So if a person is more purposeful and holds themselves to a higher standard of maintaining a 'healthy diet' of spending most of their time doing what they truly love even if it is a lot of work and discipline to do it at the sacrifice of activities that are basically, 'junk time' 'killing time', 'wasting time' that leads to a more fulfilling life even if you are just making a sand painting that you will later sweep up. What was the quality and purposefulness that you got out of it? That's the question.
I don't know if you know it, but Ed Benson, according to Patrick O Kelly was the guy who originally came up with the the name Ontological Museum. According to Patrick he was pissed that we used that name for the Post Dogmatist Group's archive idea since he was the resident anti-post-dogmatist you may recall. Which actually made him the perfect post dogmatist. haha. So, whether he likes it or not from the other side of the grave, we secretly honor him by using the name. He was such a grouchy curmudgeon. I guess he was the first loss in our troop from UTA.
I think it is enough for me now though long ago, my appreciation for this was nonexistent. In art school, I wanted to be known and 'successful'. Even recently, I have had anxiety over 'archivalness'. (Is that a word?) Currently, gratitude of another day to create and enjoy takes precidence. My goal is to stay true to myself. Thanks for your article.
yes archivalness is a word even if it is not in the spell checker. I once had an English teacher in college who was a poet and he taught me that language is fluid and you can bend and shape it any way you want to.
I live both in the here and now as well as looking into the future but I don't spend much time planning or seeing what will be or even having much of an idea of what will be there. Just like the items I find to use in my assemblages (old, forgotten, used, rusty, tarnished, unusable as once was etc), the new life I give these things in my art may someday be reused once again in someone else's art or whatever. It's why I love junk and thrifting and picking up cast off stuff I find along my daily comings & goings. Hell, I'll be dead and gone and no way of caring what happens to my art. I suppose my kids will do what they want with it, give it away, find a place to sell it.........whatever. I don't and won't dwell on what will happen to it all as I won't be around to give a damn. There'll be no pyramids built to house my body along with all my stuff. I won't even leave a body as I'll be turned to ashes and dumped somewhere. In the here and now is what I'm concerned with and being in that Zone when I create that's benefiting me NOW. Having been given the gift of life 68+ years ago is a privilege, an honor, and greatly appreciated and I want to do/give/make what I can while I can still breathe and move. Another great article, Cecil. Thankyou.
Great article Cecil. Reminds me of our late friend, Ed Benson, who deliberately destroyed his paintings-perhaps as a sign of his art's impermanence. He always seemed to be thinking 3 steps ahead of everyone else. This also reminds me of those Buddhist priests who create elaborate sand art over several days, and then destroy the work immediately afterwards. Also a sign of change and that nothing lasts forever. Only perhaps your memory of the event. Certainly food for thought.
of course this has to be balanced with making a living in a capitalist environment. So artists, if they need to make a living from art making - in other words be self sustaining from that activity. For me personally that is important since I have thrown all in on just being an artist. There is an article scheduled for Monday the 17th where I talk about the idea of working my '40 acres and a mule' as an artist that I think you will appreciate.
and let's face it, almost everybody wastes almost all of their time already, mostly on stupid shit. So if a person is more purposeful and holds themselves to a higher standard of maintaining a 'healthy diet' of spending most of their time doing what they truly love even if it is a lot of work and discipline to do it at the sacrifice of activities that are basically, 'junk time' 'killing time', 'wasting time' that leads to a more fulfilling life even if you are just making a sand painting that you will later sweep up. What was the quality and purposefulness that you got out of it? That's the question.
I don't know if you know it, but Ed Benson, according to Patrick O Kelly was the guy who originally came up with the the name Ontological Museum. According to Patrick he was pissed that we used that name for the Post Dogmatist Group's archive idea since he was the resident anti-post-dogmatist you may recall. Which actually made him the perfect post dogmatist. haha. So, whether he likes it or not from the other side of the grave, we secretly honor him by using the name. He was such a grouchy curmudgeon. I guess he was the first loss in our troop from UTA.
I think it is enough for me now though long ago, my appreciation for this was nonexistent. In art school, I wanted to be known and 'successful'. Even recently, I have had anxiety over 'archivalness'. (Is that a word?) Currently, gratitude of another day to create and enjoy takes precidence. My goal is to stay true to myself. Thanks for your article.
yes archivalness is a word even if it is not in the spell checker. I once had an English teacher in college who was a poet and he taught me that language is fluid and you can bend and shape it any way you want to.
I live both in the here and now as well as looking into the future but I don't spend much time planning or seeing what will be or even having much of an idea of what will be there. Just like the items I find to use in my assemblages (old, forgotten, used, rusty, tarnished, unusable as once was etc), the new life I give these things in my art may someday be reused once again in someone else's art or whatever. It's why I love junk and thrifting and picking up cast off stuff I find along my daily comings & goings. Hell, I'll be dead and gone and no way of caring what happens to my art. I suppose my kids will do what they want with it, give it away, find a place to sell it.........whatever. I don't and won't dwell on what will happen to it all as I won't be around to give a damn. There'll be no pyramids built to house my body along with all my stuff. I won't even leave a body as I'll be turned to ashes and dumped somewhere. In the here and now is what I'm concerned with and being in that Zone when I create that's benefiting me NOW. Having been given the gift of life 68+ years ago is a privilege, an honor, and greatly appreciated and I want to do/give/make what I can while I can still breathe and move. Another great article, Cecil. Thankyou.