DAY 8 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

Lesson 4: Art Is Not About Understanding. Or Mastery.

It is about doing and experience.

No one asks what Mozart means. Or an Indian raga or the little tripping dance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to “Cheek to Cheek” in Top Hat. Forget about making things that are understood. I don’t know what Abba means, but I love it. Imagination is your creed; sentimentality and lack of feeling your foe. All art comes from love — love of doing something.

(From Jerry Saltz’s How to Be an Artist.)

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Here’s Anoushka Shankar with a classical raga

Ginger & Fred

“All art comes from love.” In these times, that will have to become a mantra. It’s too easy to hate.

DAY 7 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

Lesson 4: Art Is Not About Understanding. Or Mastery.

It is about doing and experience.

No one asks what Mozart means. Or an Indian raga or the little tripping dance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to “Cheek to Cheek” in Top Hat. Forget about making things that are understood. I don’t know what Abba means, but I love it. Imagination is your creed; sentimentality and lack of feeling your foe. All art comes from love — love of doing something.

(From Jerry Saltz’s How to Be an Artist.)

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The Uninvited Guest, 2018. Debra Matlock

Well, people may not ask what Mozart means, but I was asked about this painting multiple times from the same classmate. Every time she would look up, she would “discover” the painting for the first time. “WHAT IS HAPPENING??” And I explained it. Then a little while later, same question. I tried a different answer. Less for her than my other classmates who had to hear the exchange. It actually was pretty enjoyable having to come up with multiple interpretations.

DAY 6 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

Lesson 3: Feel Free to Imitate

We all start as copycats, people who make pastiches of other people’s work. Fine! Do that. However, when you do this, focus, start to feel the sense of possibility in making all these things your own — even when the ideas, tools, and moves come from other artists. Whenever you make anything, think of yourself as entering a gigantic stadium filled with ideas, avenues, ways, means, and materials. And possibilities. Make these things yours. This is your house now.

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Hoo boy. Looking over my choices, I revised them. I looked for a really simple version of a Basquiat and a Kalman. Not to say they’d be easy, but more like I had the slimmest chance to maybe reproduce them. I think part of their charm though is a spontaneity that disappears when you try to copy them.

I noticed all 3 “R” are different. The first two are almost like he wrote a “P” and then decided to make it an R. Which really works on the RAY being PAY. I don’t really know anything about boxing, but it always feels like it’s tied up in gambling, or a big prize. I like that at first it seems like a pure black background, but it’s got a lot of shades. It looks as though, it might be black fabric to start with? I like the tiny bits of blue oil pastel and the reddish brown box around RAY.

I didn’t want to waste a canvas on copying someone else’s work, so I used a tiny panel. It was almost fine, except the oil pastel was not in the proper scale. So the writing on mine was less successful.

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This seemed simple enough, the version I looked at was more nuanced that this one above. More pinks. I tried to use gouache as Maira Kalman does. I used my new Liquitex ones, but was unable to get a pink that didn’t look like ham. So mine looks like a big brick of ham. Also, hard to see how she did the string, but it might be some sort of pencil? It looks amazing. Mine, again, does not ;)

DAY 5 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

Lesson 3: Feel Free to Imitate

We all start as copycats, people who make pastiches of other people’s work. Fine! Do that. However, when you do this, focus, start to feel the sense of possibility in making all these things your own — even when the ideas, tools, and moves come from other artists. Whenever you make anything, think of yourself as entering a gigantic stadium filled with ideas, avenues, ways, means, and materials. And possibilities. Make these things yours. This is your house now.

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I worked all day on an election for my neighborhood council. I will work on this tomorrow.

Here are some choices to copy:



DAY 4 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

More time with Lesson 2: “Tell your own story and you will be interesting.” — Louise Bourgeois

(from the Vulture article by Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist.)

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I’m not going to overthink this. Just be you. Got it.

DAY 3 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

Lesson 2: “Tell your own story and you will be interesting.” — Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois in 1975. Photo: Mark Setteducati, © The Easton Foundation/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS ), NY

Amen, Louise. Don’t be reined in by other people’s definitions of skill or beauty or be boxed in by what is supposedly high or low. Don’t stay in your own lane. Drawing within the lines is for babies; making things add up and be right is for accountants. Proficiency and dexterity are only as good as what you do with them. But also remember that just because it’s your story, that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an audience. You have to earn that. Don’t try to do it with a big single project. Take baby steps. And be happy with baby steps.

(from the Vulture article by Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist.)

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I came up against this in film school a bit. Suburban, middle class, white kid is kinda boring. But I guess Bourgeois means tell your own story, not in a historical sense, but in a individual moving forward sense.

I do envy kids today, they seem to be allowed to be themselves and not have to conform as much. I feel like I wasted a lot of time in junior high and high school trying to be what would get singled out for ridicule the least. And you sort of fail at that too because you just seem fake. If you do it long enough, there’s nothing real left. Thankfully, in college no one seemed to give a shit what you did. I feel like I flourished in wearing whatever I wanted and coaxing out the weirdo I had locked up for so long.

DAY 2 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

Taking a second day to think about letting go of being good, it reminded me of when I used to go to The Drawing Club many years ago. It’s three hours of uninstructed figure drawing with a model in costume relating to a theme like “Annie Oakley” or “Alien Girl Shatner’s Capt. Kirk Would Hook Up With.” It’s fairly commonplace now, but at the time it was pretty unique. And full of amazing talented (mostly) men. They ranged from Art Center boys to Old Disney guys.

One time I sat next to an older man who was really great, but I couldn’t figure out why he was drawing the hot alien chick so…unflatteringly. I thought, “He’s making her look like Ursula.” I googled him later. The reason he was making her look that way was…he was one of the directors of the Little Mermaid. Anyway, long winded way of saying I was way out of my league. Eventually, I had a few drawings I was willing to have photographed for their blog.

But when I first arrived, I had a chat with the guy who puts it on, Bob Kato, about my goals. And in the course of the conversation I said “I want to learn to draw good.”

And he said something to the effect of “What do you mean, ‘good’? There is no ‘good'.”

DAY 1 - HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

The 100 Day Project

Step One: You Are a Total Amateur

Five lessons before you even get started.

Jerry Saltz, New York’s art critic, as Salvador Dalí, based on a photograph by Philippe Halsman. Photo: Photo by Marvin Orellana. Photo Illustration by Joe Darrow

Lesson 1: Don’t Be Embarrassed

I get it. Making art can be humiliating, terrifying, leave you feeling foul, exposed, like getting naked in front of someone else for the first time. You often reveal things about yourself that others may find appalling, weird, boring, or stupid. People may think you’re abnormal or a hack. Fine. When I work, I feel sick to my stomach with thoughts like None of this is any good. It makes no sense. But art doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t even need to be good. So don’t worry about being smart and let go of being “good.”

from Jerry Saltz’s article How to Be an Artist.)

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I’m taking an art class at the Armory in Pasadena. It’s less a class per se as an open studio where the instructor is more like an art coach. The first day of class, I arrived and everyone was already in mid-painting, but I didn’t even have any supplies at all. I couldn’t figure out what was happening. Turns out people had been coming to this class for years, in some cases decades. [And sure enough, I have taken this class three times in a row now.]

I thought we’d be learning how to paint a bowl of fruit together, but everyone picks what they want to paint. The instructor Patricia Liverman makes her rounds during the class, suggesting things in such a way she’s never telling you exactly what to do, but coaxing out a way forward. It’s great. The only problem I have is painting in front of people. It’s happened more than once, where I’ve made a bad mark just as Patricia arrives. It’s mortifying. However, the way she guides the class during the critiques speaks to what Mr. Saltz is getting at, about “being good.”

I’m a judgey person by nature. I feel like I have really discerning tastes. It’s part of my work as a graphic designer to be able to hone in on a specific font, for example, but the way I know the right font, is by also knowing the wrong font. As a result, I’m generally hypercritical, to no one more than myself. It’s exhausting. And honestly, not very pleasant.

But seeing how whether something is good or bad doesn’t even enter the equation is so freeing. When we do critiques it’s always in service of helping the person move forward. You don’t have to like their style to offer “I like how you used the blue there.” or “I like what’s happening in the upper corner.” Not lying, but looking harder to find something you appreciate.

It’s almost like gratitude.

#The100DayProject

#The100DayProject is a *free*, global art project. The idea is simple: commit to 100 days of making and sharing your progress on Instagram. Starting on April 2nd, ending July 10th.

This year I plan on doing 100 Days of Jerry Saltz, based on his wildly popular article, How to Be an Artist, 33 rules to take you from clueless amateur to generational talent (or at least help you live life a little more creatively). At first, I thought “I’ll just x3 each step.” But going through it, there are some exercises that could go longer and some ideas that definitely don’t need three days of contemplation (i.e. you will be poor.) Look for the hashtag #100DaysofJerrySaltz

Also I’m starting Season 2 of OCTOPIED, my web comic which runs from April Fool's Day to the first Tuesday in November.