This post is an example of part of the thought process behind my approach to the art I create. Often when a question or thought enters my head I deal with it first by way of an internal conversation which might last for weeks, months, or even years. Eventually I might even begin writing out those thoughts, in a notebook I am keeping, or even in a document on my computer. Sometimes the notes are incorporated into an artist statement, essay for an exhibition or a blog post such as this. But mostly I keep what I write to myself. The thoughts I am presenting here are relevant to my First Year Project because the question I am addressing came up again recently, this time during my most recent Skype conversation with my studio advisor, Laura Gonzalez. I began to think again about how I define myself and my work and why I chose this definition. As I explored the Drawing Research Network’s website and the journal TRACEY I asked myself, how do I respond to drawing that is only drawing? This modifier, “only” is not meant in anyway as a negative or value judgement of drawing as an art form. In fact, this blog post and website documenting my process can be seen as a drawing.
The “question” came up again recently. It is a question I’ve been dealing with as long as I have been making art. What are you? Are you a painter, sculptor, or do you just draw? It is not a question that is just asked of me by another. It is a question I have spent years asking myself. It is a question I often think the art I make is asking me. Who are you and what am I?
Looking back, each time I believe to have answered the question, it rears its ugly head once more. If it had been answered, it wouldn’t always keep popping up, right?
Well, yes, and no. The thing is, there is no clear or obvious answer. Even when I believe that I have answered it for myself, deep down I remain an atheist artist. To the one “god” who is painting, the one”god” who is sculpture, the one “god” who is drawing, or video, or new media, or performance, or text, or whatever: sorry, for me you just don’t exist. For me there is no council of creative-gods seated on Mount Olympus to whom one must dedicate oneself, one’s art.
That said, I will contradict myself by declaring “I am a painter”.
Let me explain. It is not necessarily that I am denying the existence of the gods of paint, sculpture, drawing, new, performance, time-based, and text-based media; what I am denying is a personal belief in a hierarchy of the ways in which we view, talk about, approach and make art. Instead of building a temple on a hill and worshiping one god, or twelve gods, I have chosen to worship no gods. Instead I’ve chosen to destroy the temples that others have built before me, declaring them uninhabited and the deification of specific art forms obsolete. The walls that close off and separated one sacred art form from another have been torn down- and not by me, others have been doing this for a long time, perhaps for as long as humans have been creating art. In place of the walls remains only space, space in which a fluidity exists. One form flows into, interacts with, and responds to another. Reality is fluidity of definition. There are no gods of any one form, and there is no god of all forms. There are only forms, unconstrained by boundaries, by which the artist chooses to express herself.
This fluidity of terms and definitions, denial of a hierarchy of media and forms does not exclude the possibility or existence of self-definition by the artist in terms of a single art form. Existing forms are unconstrained by boundaries, but the boundaries do exist. However, the role of the artist is to choose to interact with those boundaries, form a relationship between the boundaries and her art either through transcendence or by remaining within. This is much like the discussion today in the area of gender identity. Biological genders do exist. And within those biological genders there is at times an unspecific biological gender which occurs. In the past when this “unclarity of gender” arose others, doctors and parents, would decide which biological gender would be medically assigned to the child. In recent time we have begun to understand that gender is something quite complex, composed of many factors beyond the mere biological, factors which an infant and sometimes even an adult cannot express or share with others outside of the self. We are opening ourselves to a discussion and understanding of what gender identity means. Transcendence of the traditional definition based upon biological “norms” is becoming the norm. Fluidity of identity based on self determination has entered the picture and destroyed the plane on which it was formed.
Some people declare their gender identity as it is expressed by the biological/physiological gender closest to their hormone levels or sexual organs. Others declare their gender identity as it is expressed by the gender closest to what is felt in their “hearts and minds”. What we understand as “gender” is something very individualized and personal despite the boundaries placed on it by biology, because it is determined by factors within the mind. When an artist choses to define herself as an artist of a particular media, she does so not just based on criteria which traditionally define a particular media, she does so based on criteria which defines the term within herself, within her art.
For me this means I call myself a painter because within my heart and mind the manner in which I approach the art I make I do in terms of what I consider “the painterly”. The painterly is within my frame of reference one which involves a layering process. This does not mean that all painting requires a physical layering of traditional painting media in reference and relation to traditional painterly themes of color, brushstroke, form, or tone. Those things are a part of it, but only one aspect. Painting and the “painterly” for me refer to an approach to other media, other materials, to concepts, forms of art, even to life. An artist can paint with words, musical notes, rhythms, movements. This is not a new idea, and definitely not original to me. Does it lessen the value of painting by opening up the definition of “painterly”? I do not believe so. By opening the definition, one opens painting to other media, materials, art forms and influences beyond art. This expansion in the terminology, this evolution is what keeps painting a living art form.
Does this mean that the painter who choses to work within the boundaries of the traditional definition is working with a dead art form? No. The opening of the definition gives the artist the freedom of choice, and choice is what invigorates life. I chose to work beyond the traditional boundaries of painting by focusing on the approach I have to looking at, thinking about and describing what it is I am working with. In exercising my freedom to choose, using the approach of painterly layering within my work, I am staying within the definition of “painter” even if my materials, techniques and media go beyond the traditional boundaries. The boundary that I am often crossing tends to cause the aforementioned question of identity to be raised It is the boundary that traditionally separates painting from drawing.
Are you a painter, or do you draw? The traditionally drawing is seen as the simplest and most efficient means of visually communicating an idea. It isn’t about the materials or techniques, it isn’t about the mark. It is about the simplicity. It is about the efficiency. I do use materials and techniques traditionally associated with drawing. I do make marks in a manner traditionally associated with drawing. Perhaps there are times when what I am doing is the simplest and most efficient means by which I can communicate an idea, and at those times, yes, I am drawing. Most of us do draw at one point or another. As children we draw first, painting comes much later in our development. The finger and tempera paints used by a five year old seldom result in a painting, they remain drawing done in a painting medium. Whatever media or techniques I am using, rarely is what I am doing about simplicity or efficiency.
Drawing is the skeleton of the creative process, and skeletons are complex structures. Drawing provides the bones, the structure that holds everything together. Painting is the cells, building up layers upon layers, simultaneously the building blocks of the bones and material which clings to that structure and creates form. The relationship between form and space, including the relationship between cells, between cells and bones, that is the area of the sculptural. Together they form a body called art.
At times I find myself looking at drawings, defined as such either by tradition or by their creator and I think: “that is creepy”.
Why is drawing creepy?
One of my favorite films is An American Werewolf in London (1981). It is the retelling of a classic, simple story. What makes it stand out in the history of filmmaking, and for which it won an Academy Award is the make up. Throughout the film the main character’s [David] friend Jack shows up to warn him that unless he kills himself he will turn into a werewolf and kill others, turning them into the “walking dead” just like Jack. With each visit Jack’s body progresses in its decay. At first we are only shown Jack’s injuries sustained by the initial werewolf attack. But then things begin to get gruesome when he shows up and the flesh has begun rotting from his face. A State of creepiness is reached when that flesh has fallen away, revealing the bones, his skull, beneath the skin. When people break an arm or a leg we usually are not repulsed by the break, unless the bone breaks through the flesh and reveals itself. Then we might say: “that really creeps me out”. And so it is with drawing, when the bones are revealed things get “creepy”.
This is what makes drawing at times uncomfortable . It might be the simplest and most efficient way to communicate an idea visually because it shows us what the world is made of, but it can show us more than we want to see. Drawing gets to the bones of the matter. It does not wrap the idea in a protective layer one must carefully peel back. It does not sugar coat the idea. It presents it in a straight on, head forward manner. And just like it is possible to paint in any media, technique, or material; it is possible to draw in any of these too. Drawing slithers its way across the creative spectrum, creeping its way into the work to provide the supporting structure for the ideas being presented. Without the creepiness of drawing, the layers of painting, the relationship of space in sculpture, the language in text, the pixels of video, the space between seconds in time-based work, the relationships between movement in dance would fall into a pile of goo just like Jack’s flesh. Drawing is always a part of all creative endeavors.
So why don’t we all just call ourselves draftspersons?
Just because drawing is in all we do creatively does not mean it is the defining element of what we do. For me the element of layering, both physically and conceptually is a determining factor of all I do, and it is what I consider to be the elemental factor in painting. That’s why I call myself a painter and not a drawer. I do draw. I draw a lot. Sometimes I make things that are drawings, not paintings. These things, whatever they may be composed of technically, are drawing because the emphasis is on the structure, and not the layers. From a personal viewpoint while I tend to pick out the structure supporting a work, and often find myself analyzing the drawn elements in any given creative work, the element which makes my heart sing, which keeps my attention and makes me want to fall into the work of art, is the painterly element, the layering. Bones are hard, and sometimes they can be sharp. Who wants to fall into a pile of bones? That would be kind of creepy. But the layers of fleshy, soft cells, squishy and warm, inviting like a pool of warm salt water, now that is something to fall into!
Just as in all areas of study there are specialist, we need specialists in drawing. We need the draftspersons to focus on the structure behind the art. Therefore someone working with materials and techniques that might traditionally place the art she creates in the realm of sculpture in a way where the structural element is the focus, the subject of the conversation, can call herself a “drawer” or “draftsperson”. A filmmaker, dancer, playwright, composer, musician, etc. called such by traditional definition can be by personal definition a “draftsperson”. This does by no means destroy or negate the traditional definitions of these art forms, but expands the possibilities within them by opening the definition to recognition of the role drawing plays in every artistic practice. I’ve identified the role drawing plays in what I do and I have found a definition of who I am and what I make that suits me. Now it is just a matter of waiting for the day the question will come up again, because I am certain it will. And I won’t let the question creep me out.