Jun. 28th, 2007
Thoughts on art, and drive
Jun. 28th, 2007 09:32 pmI've been thinking about Cliff Burns.
He makes an argument that those who don't suffer, and strain and live in terror of failure, aren't "artists," and are stealing from those who do.
To which I say, nonsense. Art isn't a zero sum game. It's a meritocracy (for proof, it has, as![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tnh says, lots of funny looking people).
As Bill Rostler said, "Quantity of effort does not equal quality of product." Someone who does photography as a casual hobby is still a photographer. She may be good. She may not. She might get a few great pictures, and a whole lot o' crap. So what?
She's not taking money out of my wallet. If she sells it, so what? People buy my stuff because they like it. I'm not Capa, or Weston, or Brady, or Decker I'm me.
Maybe I'll look at some "dillatente's" work and find something I like. I'll internalise it, and my craft will grow, my "art" will get better.
I've spent a lot of time and effort learning the "grammar" of photography. I didn't do it for anyone but me. I didn't suffer for it. Some do, that's fine. Some don't work at it, at all (the woman who took the gold in '84, in Air Rifle [for which I tried out... didn't make the cut, I'd have needed a career day, but I was good enough to get a slot at the trials, but I digress] had only been shooting 18 months), they are naturals.
None of that makes them any less a photographer (or painter, or writer, or cook, or, or, or).
Which led me to thinking about cooking (I think about cooking and photography almost constantly. I eat every day, and I look at things every day).
I became a photographer by happenstance. It was a requirement for my studies in journalism. My father (whom I'd just met, but that's a whole 'nother story) bought me an N2000. It didn't change my life (not right away, anyhow).
On the other hand, I know when I became a cook, or rather I know what it was which set me on the path.
It was two things, butter, and black pepper.
When I was a child, we ate margarine. My mother, in my mid-teens, re-married. Marty, ate butter.
I never ate margarine again.
I've never cared for pre-ground pepper.
Sometime, in my mid-late teens, I was eating a piece of meat, it was a little less done than I preferred (at the time I was a just short of well-done kind of guy, dressed with salt, and perhaps worchestershire), I added pepper; from the grinder at the table.
Uff-da. It was a revelation. From there on out, the way spices and foods worked with each other became a thing to investigate, to explore, to play with.
I read books, tried recipes, strove to recreate things I'd eaten in restaurants.
So those two moments, close in time; at an impressionable age, turned me into a cook.
I'll toss out a question (I don't do this sort of thing often, so bear with me); what similar things have happened to you?
When/where/what changed some aspect of the things you do, added an abiding passion to the things you do/love/enjoy?
And why? What was it about that moment/experience, which altered your sense of wonder?
He makes an argument that those who don't suffer, and strain and live in terror of failure, aren't "artists," and are stealing from those who do.
To which I say, nonsense. Art isn't a zero sum game. It's a meritocracy (for proof, it has, as
tnh says, lots of funny looking people).As Bill Rostler said, "Quantity of effort does not equal quality of product." Someone who does photography as a casual hobby is still a photographer. She may be good. She may not. She might get a few great pictures, and a whole lot o' crap. So what?
She's not taking money out of my wallet. If she sells it, so what? People buy my stuff because they like it. I'm not Capa, or Weston, or Brady, or Decker I'm me.
Maybe I'll look at some "dillatente's" work and find something I like. I'll internalise it, and my craft will grow, my "art" will get better.
I've spent a lot of time and effort learning the "grammar" of photography. I didn't do it for anyone but me. I didn't suffer for it. Some do, that's fine. Some don't work at it, at all (the woman who took the gold in '84, in Air Rifle [for which I tried out... didn't make the cut, I'd have needed a career day, but I was good enough to get a slot at the trials, but I digress] had only been shooting 18 months), they are naturals.
None of that makes them any less a photographer (or painter, or writer, or cook, or, or, or).
Which led me to thinking about cooking (I think about cooking and photography almost constantly. I eat every day, and I look at things every day).
I became a photographer by happenstance. It was a requirement for my studies in journalism. My father (whom I'd just met, but that's a whole 'nother story) bought me an N2000. It didn't change my life (not right away, anyhow).
On the other hand, I know when I became a cook, or rather I know what it was which set me on the path.
It was two things, butter, and black pepper.
When I was a child, we ate margarine. My mother, in my mid-teens, re-married. Marty, ate butter.
I never ate margarine again.
I've never cared for pre-ground pepper.
Sometime, in my mid-late teens, I was eating a piece of meat, it was a little less done than I preferred (at the time I was a just short of well-done kind of guy, dressed with salt, and perhaps worchestershire), I added pepper; from the grinder at the table.
Uff-da. It was a revelation. From there on out, the way spices and foods worked with each other became a thing to investigate, to explore, to play with.
I read books, tried recipes, strove to recreate things I'd eaten in restaurants.
So those two moments, close in time; at an impressionable age, turned me into a cook.
I'll toss out a question (I don't do this sort of thing often, so bear with me); what similar things have happened to you?
When/where/what changed some aspect of the things you do, added an abiding passion to the things you do/love/enjoy?
And why? What was it about that moment/experience, which altered your sense of wonder?