A Little Guide to Art School

How Not To Make Art 101

During the last few weeks of varsity, I've learnt a lot about how not to make art, and how not to be an artist. It's surprisingly easy to fall into this trap in Art School, so I thought I'd share a little bit of naive wisdom that I've figured out.

Apparently no lecturer can tell you "how to make art", but there are a lot of unwritten laws about things you shouldn't do when you're making art: Here is the technically-unwritten-but-typed list of things you shouldn't do.... Unless you're an avant-garde artist who's already made a name for themselves. 

1. Compose your image or work centrally. Seriously, apparently its "too perfect".
2. Use anything cliched... so butterflies, wolves, arrows, the globe, watches, hourglasses, dogs, cats, dream catchers, skeletons, naked people.... the list goes on
3. Leave a lot of empty spaces... Unless you are really good at understanding negative spaces.
4. Paint from photographs... draw from photographs... referencing photographs unless you're doing photography
5. Only use grey tones or mid tones. This one I do agree with, having a deep dark tone and an almost white tone is a good way to create depth and contrast in an image. 
6. Forget about preparatory work... This one varies from artist to artist, because people see planning in different ways. For me, writing and thumbnail sketches in ink are a perfect means of organising an image, for other people full scale perfect sketches work for them. It all depends on what works for you.
7. Comparing your work to other artists work, This is a sure fire way to stop feeling inspired and to give up art entirely. Rather all yourself to be inspired and learn from others instead of putting yourself down.
8. Leave all your prep work and current work in a mess. Trust me after two weeks of working in a messy pile of papers, trying to find one prep drawing is a bit of a nightmare.
9. Take criticism badly. Yes some people are honestly just rude and unhelpful, but most of the time criticism, both positive and negative can be really useful and help you to see your work in a slightly more neutral way.
10. Give up. No matter what happens, never ever give up on what you love to make. That's a good way to never become an artist

So dear readers, a little advice for those of you studying art or know someone who is.... Make what you love doing and you should be okay. 

Until we meet again

Talia

And So The June Countdown Begins...

Happy Mother's Day dear readers! If you forgot it was Mother's day then shame on you! Yes, I know it's only been 35 minutes (in South African time) but that's no excuse. Today is the day you take a moment to appreciate all the things your mother does for you everyday, not to mention the nine months she had to haul you around before that.

Now... I know it's late and yes I should probably be in bed by now... But unfortunately my workload seemed to magically pile itself up in one week to have all the time consuming elements take place in uncomfortably close proximity to one another. There always seems to be a million things to do when you seem to get one huge deadline out of the way... The list is constantly growing and changing... Kind of like life I guess. If things stopped changing and we didn't have to adapt, I think we would all get bored eventually.

But the frustrating thing about the workload now... especially for sculpture and printmaking, is that it takes so long to produce a single piece of work. After so many weeks of being back, I only have two final etching prints, a sculpture drying in the sculpture studio and a complete set of photos that still need to be made into a book. That's not much considering how much work and time has gone into everything...

I'm just itching to draw or paint something that I can look at when I'm done... But the saddest thing is that time won't allow me to do that until June... and that's still another month away before I can breathe normally again. But the show must go on, and no mental breakdowns can be allowed near the etching equipment. For now I don't have many pictures of work to share, but I promise I will post them all as soon as I can.

Happy Mothers Day dear readers!

Until we meet again
Talia

That Confusing Question

"Is being consistently inconsistent the same as being inconsistently consistent?" Chances are your brain just froze a little bit trying to decipher that question. Mine does the same thing even though I've thought about this question more than once. Whilst you're probably picking your brain trying to figure it out... I thought I'd pick my brain a bit on consistency and persistence.

Throughout my life, the one thing I've always been consistently good at is throwing myself into my art and putting in so much effort that what was required. I was so consistent at it that I made it a habit for myself. And last year when I was going through an especially rough phase in my life, my work and my art became my reason for existence for several months. Metaphorically my art became my significant other.

This is a good strategy when you're going through a rough time and feeling quite alone in the world. But for me, I suffered for a while and then the suffering stopped. I picked myself up and started living life again. I found someone I could actually talk to and touch and be held when I was feeling upset. Someone who makes me feel special, and someone who I can care about. I remember for a while when I was single I would actually miss caring for someone, but then I would distract myself by drawing and painting.

Now I have realised a flaw in my past strategy for beating loneliness through art. When you apply consistency to only one area of your life, and you apply a lot of it, chances are the consistency everywhere else in your life diminishes. There's the flaw you don't really see until other people point it out to you, and I realise that I have been a guilty party for quite a while. I guess you could say I'm both consistently inconsistent and inconsistently consistent in many other aspects of my life.

As various self-help books will probably tell you, admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it. Now my goal is to be consistently consistent in every other area of my life. I think posting once a week every week on this blog is a good motivation to be consistent.

Until we meet again dear readers
Talia
P.S. Being consistently inconsistent isn't the same as inconstantly consistent, just in case you were wondering. It took me an hour to figure it out, but I have an answer now at least!