But I think just this once, I can get away with it. So here you are. . .
BAGELS & SOX PRESENTS
"WHY I HATE 'ARTISTS'"
a Tyler Perry production
"WHY I HATE 'ARTISTS'"
a Tyler Perry production
In my Watercolor class a few days ago, we had midterm critique. This means that everyone brings in the work they've done so far over the semester and give a little presentation on it. Our teacher (whose name is Ellen, for future reference) comments on each piece and then asks if anyone in the class has any comments or suggestions, which they usually don't because no one wants to be the jerk that points out that the flower you painted looks more like a giraffe.
We have a split class. Mostly it's Watercolor 1 students (of which I am a part), but there are three or four Watercolor 2 students corralled off in the adjacent room. I always assumed the reason they were separated from us had something to do with their projects being different than ours.
Now I'm kind of thinking it's because they're all assholes.
So everyone hangs up their projects, and for the first few, no one really comments on them. Everyone claps, Ellen is encouraging, and the students get to sit down without being subjected to any sort of embarrassment. Everything is going smoothly.
Then, and I'm not sure exactly what started it, this girl in Watercolor 2 (we'll call her "Crindy") started speaking up.
Above: An artist's rendering of Crindy.I'm talking interrupting and giving "suggestions" after every piece. And they all sounded exactly like this, which is a direct quote.
"This piece really evokes a feeling in me, like an emotion of, I dunno, fear, and shadows, I think. I really think you should use more darkness and shadows in your piece, because it will lend it a lot of depth, and when I first started out as an artist, like a long time ago, I was like, afraid to use a lot of shadows, but then I did, and I was like, wow, this really evokes a certain feeling, of like, depth. Remember that, Ellen?"
I'm not kidding. Every thirty seconds, a gem like that would come out of Crindy's sweet, deluded mouth.
When the first cycle of critiques was over with (we had to do two cycles because we could only hang so much up on the walls at a time), Crindy jumped up and started setting up her projects in the first spot. I was incredibly curious to see what they would look like; she had such an informed opinion, that surely her art would back it up.
It didn't.
Crindy went first, and she introduced her pieces, which were mostly of people's faces or bodies coming out of some mass of color, by saying:
"A lot of times, I just wake up from a really intense dream, and I think, oh my God, this is really meaningful, I should paint this, and I like, sketch it out, and it's just so amazing."
She pointed out to our teacher that having a circuitboard (or as she called it, "this computer part I found of my boyfriend's floor") glued to one of her paintings ("with wood glue") was mixed media, because she was supposed to do one mixed media piece. One of the paintings was a log cabin in a scribbly forest, which was supposed to be "deep" and "haunting" but was also, according to Crindy, one of her worst paintings, and she didn't really want anyone to look at it because seriously it's so bad okay PLEASE DON'T LOOK AT IT IT'S TERRIBLE.
Then she told us about her favorite piece, which I have replicated in stunning detail in MS Paint.
Crindy introduced this piece with the following speech, which I assure you is a direct quotation.
(To ensure that you have a proper understanding of the experience, I will ask you to read this out loud in your best Mira Sorvino (Romy White in "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion") voice, in a whimsical, inspired tone.)
"Okay, so this is my favorite piece. This is me, of course, and I actually sketched this a long time ago, but when I started taking this class I was like, hmm, this would actually be, like, a great painting. Anyway, this is *REALLY IMPORTANT* to me, because I'm a Buddhist, and the sun is eclipsing my heart, because it's like it's saying the universe wastes nothing, and I'm really into quantum physics, so I put some of that in there, like, symbolically, and I'm a Libra, so I put that in there too. It's also from a dream I had that was really meaningful to me, like, wow."
I have also created a handy map (see below).
She went on quite a bit longer than that, but it was basically more of the same drivel and a lot of stuff about dreams and emotions and haunting, so I'll spare you, but this part here is important: she flat-out admitted that this was a sketch she had done years ago, that she slapped some paint on to complete a grade. And she thinks it is her best work.
Crindy is, in one big douchey ripped-jeans-over-ripped-nylons-wearing two-tone-haired package, essentially why I, as a general rule, hate people who go out of their way to label themselves as "artists", who have been told all their lives that they're the best artist in their class, and who slap stupid crap together in an attempt to seem deep and interesting while also maintaining a passing grade. These people are intolerable assholes. I am embarrassed every time the limitations of the English language force me to refer to myself as an 'artist', and it's because of people like Crindy.
Do I draw weird, nonsensical shit sometimes? Absolutely. It's fun. Am I going to tell you it's for any other reason than because I want to draw weird, nonsensical shit and it's fun? Absolutely not.
Are some of them talented? Again, absolutely. I would even go so far as to say many of them are talented. But an artist who knows they're talented is like an insanely attractive person that knows they're beautiful and uses it to be a douchebag to everyone around them, and oddly enough, I have never actually heard of anyone who was a talented and accomplished artist ever referring to themselves as an artist.
I don't generally refer to myself as an 'artist' because I'm fully aware that there are a lot of people out there who are better and far more deserving of the title. I've never had a gallery show, or won a contest, or anything like that. I've also never suffered for anything I would call "my art". I haven't accomplished anything; I'm still learning. I'm a kid enrolled in a two-year liberal arts program at a community college. I'm no artist.
I'm not saying I hate all artists. I admire people like my teacher, who is a wonderful painter, and Phil Parks, a spectacular illustrator. I applaud truly talented people who put hard work into something they really believe in. They are true artists.
But people who have everything handed to them, spend all their money on piercings and PBR and ripped skinny jeans, go to school on their parents' dime and wax on about being "starving artists", and glue circuitboards to a watercolor painting in order to fulfill a mixed media requirement, are not artists. They're assholes. Pure and simple.
If you disagree, please feel free to say so. It's just an opinion.
A really, really strong opinion about people who are an embarrassment to me and everyone else who actually takes art seriously.
But again. Just an opinion.
I'm not kidding. Every thirty seconds, a gem like that would come out of Crindy's sweet, deluded mouth.
When the first cycle of critiques was over with (we had to do two cycles because we could only hang so much up on the walls at a time), Crindy jumped up and started setting up her projects in the first spot. I was incredibly curious to see what they would look like; she had such an informed opinion, that surely her art would back it up.
It didn't.
Crindy went first, and she introduced her pieces, which were mostly of people's faces or bodies coming out of some mass of color, by saying:
"A lot of times, I just wake up from a really intense dream, and I think, oh my God, this is really meaningful, I should paint this, and I like, sketch it out, and it's just so amazing."
She pointed out to our teacher that having a circuitboard (or as she called it, "this computer part I found of my boyfriend's floor") glued to one of her paintings ("with wood glue") was mixed media, because she was supposed to do one mixed media piece. One of the paintings was a log cabin in a scribbly forest, which was supposed to be "deep" and "haunting" but was also, according to Crindy, one of her worst paintings, and she didn't really want anyone to look at it because seriously it's so bad okay PLEASE DON'T LOOK AT IT IT'S TERRIBLE.
Then she told us about her favorite piece, which I have replicated in stunning detail in MS Paint.
Crindy introduced this piece with the following speech, which I assure you is a direct quotation.
(To ensure that you have a proper understanding of the experience, I will ask you to read this out loud in your best Mira Sorvino (Romy White in "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion") voice, in a whimsical, inspired tone.)
"Okay, so this is my favorite piece. This is me, of course, and I actually sketched this a long time ago, but when I started taking this class I was like, hmm, this would actually be, like, a great painting. Anyway, this is *REALLY IMPORTANT* to me, because I'm a Buddhist, and the sun is eclipsing my heart, because it's like it's saying the universe wastes nothing, and I'm really into quantum physics, so I put some of that in there, like, symbolically, and I'm a Libra, so I put that in there too. It's also from a dream I had that was really meaningful to me, like, wow."
I have also created a handy map (see below).
She went on quite a bit longer than that, but it was basically more of the same drivel and a lot of stuff about dreams and emotions and haunting, so I'll spare you, but this part here is important: she flat-out admitted that this was a sketch she had done years ago, that she slapped some paint on to complete a grade. And she thinks it is her best work.
Crindy is, in one big douchey ripped-jeans-over-ripped-nylons-wearing two-tone-haired package, essentially why I, as a general rule, hate people who go out of their way to label themselves as "artists", who have been told all their lives that they're the best artist in their class, and who slap stupid crap together in an attempt to seem deep and interesting while also maintaining a passing grade. These people are intolerable assholes. I am embarrassed every time the limitations of the English language force me to refer to myself as an 'artist', and it's because of people like Crindy.
Do I draw weird, nonsensical shit sometimes? Absolutely. It's fun. Am I going to tell you it's for any other reason than because I want to draw weird, nonsensical shit and it's fun? Absolutely not.
Are some of them talented? Again, absolutely. I would even go so far as to say many of them are talented. But an artist who knows they're talented is like an insanely attractive person that knows they're beautiful and uses it to be a douchebag to everyone around them, and oddly enough, I have never actually heard of anyone who was a talented and accomplished artist ever referring to themselves as an artist.
I don't generally refer to myself as an 'artist' because I'm fully aware that there are a lot of people out there who are better and far more deserving of the title. I've never had a gallery show, or won a contest, or anything like that. I've also never suffered for anything I would call "my art". I haven't accomplished anything; I'm still learning. I'm a kid enrolled in a two-year liberal arts program at a community college. I'm no artist.
I'm not saying I hate all artists. I admire people like my teacher, who is a wonderful painter, and Phil Parks, a spectacular illustrator. I applaud truly talented people who put hard work into something they really believe in. They are true artists.
But people who have everything handed to them, spend all their money on piercings and PBR and ripped skinny jeans, go to school on their parents' dime and wax on about being "starving artists", and glue circuitboards to a watercolor painting in order to fulfill a mixed media requirement, are not artists. They're assholes. Pure and simple.
If you disagree, please feel free to say so. It's just an opinion.
A really, really strong opinion about people who are an embarrassment to me and everyone else who actually takes art seriously.
But again. Just an opinion.
Every time I get to "the universe wastes nothing" in this story, my head breaks
ReplyDeleteAs much as I hate that kid in class, I do appreciate that they are contributing to the critique. There is nothing worse, in my opinion, then presenting your work and getting no response at all. I know a lot of times peoples comments are self involved and shallow but they at least present a perspective different from your own. Even if those idea's become repetitive because that person doesn't have the capacity to think beyond their latest artistic obsession. I recently had a girl obsessed with Taxi Driver in my Character Development class give a Taxi Driver related critique to every person who read in class, regardless of genre. Even though I wanted to see her seizing on the floor by the end of class, I was glad she said something. It meant she had at least briefly thought about the things I had written and formed some sort of opinion, it had shown me at least one way my work could be interpreted and let me know that maybe I should run with one idea or drop another (of if the advice was particularly bad, do the exact opposite of what was being said). On the reverse side in one of my lower level TV classes no one gives critiques and it resulted in a majority of the class floundering around saying things like "Then Peter Griffens going to get drunk and do something stupid". Critique is a good thing, even if the person sucks.
ReplyDeleteI think that treating the word artist like that creates a real negative stigma around it. I'm sure this girl isn't the best at anything, but if she creates art and would like just one person to see it then I feel she can be considered an artist. She may never develop into anything beyond her schoolcraft watercolors courses, but still, she created, even if it was full of bullshit.
You know who else was full of bullshit? Andy fucking Whorhal, and people still talk about him like some sort of junky God all the time.
I also would say that elevating the team artist to something you aren't because you don't suffer for your art, or haven't it shown publicly is a mistake. The 'greats' most people think of when it comes to 'art' were unknown in their time, and not all of them lived terribly tragic lives.
I guess my point is that art is a big thing, and that I think it's better to give people the benefit of the doubt with terminology.
This is really just an extension of a very heated discussion I had with a friend earlier today about Andy Whorhal and a kid in my class who's writing the least interesting movie in the history of the universe. I totally get what you're saying. Stupid people are irritating as fuck and express themselves in the most horrifying ways possible, but they probably think my well though out comments (for example: saying she's a bitch four times on one page does not make use of subtext) is a really bad critique and that I deserve to be placed on a ducking stool.
Nice entry. Don't hate me.
I just want to say that I have no idea how I wrote a novel sized comment about this, and that I don't mean it to come off bitch and or uppity. The internet is really bad for tone.
ReplyDeleteSarah, you have made some really good points. I went back and edited some things. I never meant to say I hate the term artist in its true definition and application; I use the term "artist" in quotations because if I were saying it out loud I would use air quotes around it, and I think you would get my meaning immediately, just like someone in CAPA would refer to actors and "actors".
ReplyDeleteI didn't really think about the comments that way, that is a very good point.
Don't worry too much about the length, lol. It was 3 in the morning, I totally understand. You don't come off as uppity or a bitch.
I agree with you on the points that the "artist" is a d-bag on the other hand, artist doesn't strictly mean professional either. If you like making something weather it be pottery a painting or a drawing and whether you just do it to have fun or for your career I still call you an artist. Mostly because you are taking up an interest or a participation in the arts.
ReplyDeleteThis was both entertaining in content and intriguing in comments :D
ReplyDeleteCrindy.
i think this problem stems mostly from student artists - not that students aren't "real" artists, but the creative process is inherently different when it's something that you have to do for a grade. i will admit to slapping many a project together and then having to talk it up in critique. nature of the beast. by contrast Crindy probably really does believe in her heart of hearts that everything she is pooping out right now is, like, so ~meaningful~ but at least with all that self-motivated creative energy it's likely that she'll continue to progress as both artist and person and hopefully will one day look back on her quantumlibrabuddhism period and cringe. i honestly envy people like Crindy because i wish that i believed in anything i'm doing artistically right now as wholeheartedly as that. i don't know, maybe it would be better if the Crindys of the world actually had a bit of self-awareness (and i'd probably want to punt her across the room if i had to take a class with her). but i guess i'd rather see a few more Crindys in my classes than the old mainstay of students who apathetically, KNOWINGLY cobble together bullshit and then don't even have the decency to try to see something in it. it might amount to the same thing in terms of the work produced but at least Crindy's bullshit is something she ~believes~ in. that belief in herself is more likely to spur progression than the attitude of people who are just skating through for a grade.
ReplyDeletei don't know if that makes any sense or not and it probably all stems from my own paranoias and failures as an artist. it just makes me sad to see all art get branded with the PRETENTIOUS brush (a word that makes me die a little inside whenever i see it applied to art, even if it has a point). this mythos that art is highfalutin nonsense for some invisible, self-made upper class. this might be a strange thing to relate this whole conversation to but that's one of the reasons that hipsterhate bothers me. for every truly uptheirownass hipster out there are a bunch of people, usually our age, who get lumped into the hipster category simply because of the art or ideology they're engaged with. kids (a world i use loosely - i mean anywhere from high school to early 30s) that show interest in design, analog photography, experimental music, philosophy, etc. get relegated to a subculture that is thought of as full of itself because its members often have a common interest in certain intellectual and artistic pursuits. or maybe i'm romanticizing hipsterdom too much because i worry that i'll get lumped in there with all the rest. WHO KNOWS sorry this comment is 80 miles long.
I could not POSSIBLY agree with you more. I hate those people too.
ReplyDelete