The Danish-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose was once asked by a couple about how they should relate to their son's ambitions of becoming a writer. Should they discourage him or support him? They shouldn't bother, he told them. If he was to become a writer he would be one, no matter what they did. If he wasn't, he wouldn't become one, no matter what they did. I tend to agree.
I became what I became, because there was no other choice left for me. I had to try to survive as an artist - or go down.Quality is something you add to your work by being one with what you're doing, no matter if you repair your bike or if you play the violin.
I often feel that a lot of what is going on in the art-world of today is a frantic race to try to conjure up something brand new, something noone else has thought of before. It seems a bit empty to me. We're running around like crazy chasing for novelty.
We had a period in the 70's within litterature in Norway. Only social realism was comme-il-faut, then. Writers were writing for the working class they said, but the working class read Barbara Cartland and Alistair MacLean. But if you was Mrs. Johnson on the fourth floor, cleaning factory floors from 7 to 4, with a husband who drank up all the money and a daughter who got pregnant in school and a son who ended in prison because of drugs, would you feel enlighted to read a novel about Mrs. Hansson, a woman who was cleaning factory floors from 7 to 4 with a husband who drank up all the money and a daughter who bla bla bla bla bla etc.? No, you would probably go and buy the latest Cartland to dream of another kind of life. A life you so bitterly know is not for you, but you don't have to be reminded about it all the fucking time, do you?
Isn't that the situation of Art today, in a nutshell? Even when we say we create for the people, the people are not interested. Then we turn away from the people and accuse them for not understanding. What if they express an understanding beyond the surface?
I suspect that the reason why people read stuff as Cartland, is because we long for myths. We long for stories told about what we no longer consider as real; the realm of ideas, the world of spirituality. Those stories are dead now, so we read Cartland instead.
As long as artists of all kind is content with commenting the surface of reality - no matter how brilliant and intellectually deep-soaring they do it - we will have this gap between us and "people". It hasn't always been like this. Artists haven't always been outcasts, odd creatures who eventually will become "understood" after a 100 years or so.
I don't mean to say that we should only paint nice landscapes. Far from it, but somehow I feel that the true revolutionary art today, do not lie where the trends flow - and there is too much trendiness around. Art has become too much a game for intellectuals. "Me oh my, I wonder what X mean by this and by that?" And they put their brains together and come up with some words; some of them witty, even, and they laugh a bit and sip their champagne. I for myself couldn't care less about what X or Y "mean to say"! I want to get moved; not "intellectually stimulated"! I don't care if someone is putting up a kind of an enigma, a puzzle for me to resolve and call it art. But don't expect me to go wild over it. Don't expect me to become inspired, enlighted.
"Oh, dear! A soup can, darling! It makes me see those cans in a new light. I think I've never been aware of those before, really!"Then we go home and admire ourselves in the mirror for a while.Now you see - I mean really see - soup cans. Maybe it can bring you to begin to see other subjects, too - just as isolated - and you begin to muse over it. Oh, the mass consumption. Oh, this and oh, that - and it isn't bad at all. It's a nice beginning, it is.But what I want to see and what I want to create is something which goes deeper. I'm not so sure as to what it would be, but haven't we all realized by now what kind of society we live in? Why stress it anymore? Isn't it about time to think about what kind of future we're moving into?
I think art is the real powerfool tool to do something about that future, but first we have to realize it. And we have to realize that real changes don't come through commenting the surface of life by printing it on posters or create slogans or puzzling together something to puzzle the viewer. That's just petty games to me.What's interesting to me is what kind of an influence the objects we create, has upon their surroundings. This shape here, what impact does it have on the minds of those who're viewing it? This colour? This sound?I don't care how they "understand" it or how they will intellectualize it. I don't care if they they see a puzzle in it; a kind of an artistic quiz to which they try to find the "correct" answers to. Do we understand a rock? Can you explain the evening sky?
I want to create something which silently works on the sub - (and why not super?) - conscious levels, if they exist. I want to create something which is really subversive, because it undermines the ground upon which we've built these societies we live in today. I want to slowly dig away the solid ground we stand upon. This is a slow but steady effect. I wanna tear the whole shithouse down! I don't want just to comment it.Isn't this what we intend when we're talking about the right side of the brain? To combine the right and the left and make them work together? To explore the right side which has been left in the shadows for so many years now?
I don't mean to suggest that there should be any limits to what is Art and what is not. I'm working with popular art, myself, and I'm striving to make it accepted as Art, but also in this I'm trying to imply my thoughts - mainly by trying to become as much "one" with what I'm doing at the moment. The idea behind a political cartoon is important, of course - but I suspect that it is even more important if I try to put "love" in every line I'm making. The readers may not be aware of it, but I do believe (or at least hope) that it will have a deeper impact on them over the span of time.Therefore, I think it doesn't matter what tool you are using, what kind of art you are into; if you just do your best to become one with what you're doing at the moment, it will spread on like rings in the water.
Another question is where do this thing we call talent come from? Is it something we are born with, or can we simply develop it by exercise? Can we educate talent?
I tend to think that we're not born as a "tabula rasa" - a blank page. I remember looking into the eyes of my son immediately after his entrance into this world; it was a shock almost, to meet that look in his eyes; ages old. That was no new born baby. That was a spirit who had seen it all; who had lived through aeons of time. At the same time, it was a puzzled look; dazed and confused. It said: How did I get here? What the hell is this? This phony body? Is it another nightmare? And who the hell are you, mister, by the way?
I think that we can develop talents, but I also think that we need a little extra "brought with us" to obtain that little special. It doesn't have to be skills in drawing, painting or whatever. On the contrary, if you look at vanGogh, for instance. But we need a certain drive, a longing in certain directions - and that is what I think we bring with us from somewhere.
This brings me to another subject; all those work-shops which are so popular today. It's quite impressive - if you want to write, you go to the nearest work-shop and is taught the do's and don't's. Then you go home and start your new novel. All in all; I suspect that there is a danger in being taught too much. Of course it is necessary to be guided to a certain extent, but I think that the guide/teacher/professor must leave the student exploring on his/hers own. In my view, art teachers should only be the keyholder; the one who has the keys to different tools and techniques, but if they interfer too much with the development of the individual student, there's danger at hand.
Teachers should develop a kind of intuition for the individual needs of their students. We all need guidance, true - but it cannot be into one and the same direction for all of us. But this topic is a difficult one, because there are imminent dangers in allowing too much freedom as well. I believe in a certain degree of restrictions, be it self-inflicted or set up from someone outside. We need obstacles in order to develop. But this differs from individual to individual and the teacher must be aware of this.I believe that workshops of different kinds might be a good thing, but it is a danger there. It all depends on the person leading it. The danger lies in being taught "tricks", to be taught how to avoid what is considered wrong. Maybe it would've been better if one was lead into traps?
The perfect lies in the imperfection it is said. Now, I believe there are at least two paths, the one is learning the perfect in order to work one's way away from it. The other lies in being imperfect and strive towards perfection. Both are just as valuable - and there might be more. To educate others is a highly difficult task, and maybe extremely so when it comes to art. It's not for amateurs. It requires a fully developed artist, but s/he must also know something about the human nature.
Wilfred Hildonen, autumn 1998
The following is from an e-mail Kelchen sent. I have added it here with her permission. Wilfred Hildonen, Jan26, 2002
I've been trying to understand this art world, and I've gotten farther and farther away from what it must mean. Personal statements, personal feelings. Art for art's sake. I've watched the artists here. There is one in particular that reads novels constantly. She walks to class with her nose in a book. She thinks and talks never-ending about doing what she wants to do, and finding herself. Many of the art majors here are basically the same. Too much time on their hands.... I sigh. I battle. I am afraid of the professors, who are never happy with what I do. I used to draw, and now I can only think about how different my technique is from the professor who wants things to look like the way she does it. Grading is really tough, and its hard to know what is expected. I suppose, when it comes down to it, the real artists simply have luxury. I say that because the "real" artists go onto grad school. They fucking don't even have jobs during college, and will figure out later what they will do with their glorious art degree. They simply want to paint. I don't think that any of them really had it hard, like the poor artists such as Van Gogh did. As I understand it, Goya lived the better part of his life wealthy. They are more like Goya today. It made sense to me when I thought this. I was thinking about the snobs at all the snotty little openings. I thought about their coffee and cakes. These sorts of people come to my college all the time for their weekly debates and forums on big issues they can't do anything about. And then... you know what I think about? I think about the cleaning lady. After they move into the other room, she has to pick up their nasty mess on the floor. The spilled cake crumbs, the left over paper coffee cups. She has a day job. She doesn't look like she has the luxury to even read one of their books on tape in her car much less form a giant analysis of it. I suppose in the world, there are different classes. It has been in the art for as long as time was time. The poor were quaint. I identify with this working class. They are far more interesting than this elite group, with its struggle for "me and what I want" art. I admire the nameless cleaning lady. Her work is beautiful. Her life, far more interesting than any of the elite. I suppose that this has been some of the core of the art I don't like. Deep meditation on the bigger picture. I tend to disagree. I think that the small picture -- the life looking away from the novels and the lofty debates -- and at the core of how people actually live is substance. The rest, crap.
Cindy Kelchen
Home