WHAT IS ART TO ME?

BY DAVID KLEIN

I think art has been used through the ages for only one thing, to transmit a message.  The artist’s belief in passing on an idea.  You have to think of the early artists, whose work was used to convey a message.  The first artists where the cave artists, who drew on the wall to show animals and plants, they needed to exist on.  They where men, as we were let to believe.   Women would draw design on pottery or intricate patterns into woven cloth.  They would show harmony of family life, usually.  They both used art to communicate their religious beliefs, the best place to go fishing or hunting, or family life and traditions.

To me art is like a riddle I have made up of life.  Why the human mind is like a sieve?  In our western culture, most of us remember the hard things in life rather than the soft thing.  In the east they remember the soft things in life rather than the hard things.  So the human mind in our western culture lets the soft things go through the sieve and the hard things cannot be strained through.

For art to be good, it has to stick into a person’s mind without passing through.  That is what I try to achieve in my work.  Art gives me one advantage that most of us do not think of, control over creation of the outcome.

The problem with this is there are factors beyond your control that effects the creation of the art.  That is the means to make a living at it and buy the materials to execute your work, what I would call the art equation.  This means the ability to sell your work, support yourself and your family and the ability to buy more materials to do your artwork without causing undo hardship to all that you love.

For me the best way for a person to learn to do art is to study the path of the people who have come before you.  This does not mean to embrace their ideas but to expand on their ideas.  For a person not to do it this way, the person would have to reinvent the wheel and loose valuable time experimenting in areas where people have already paved the way.  This means the person is self taught or trained in a classroom setting.

The first thing to do is look at other people’s work.  Not just at men’s work, but women’s work even children’s work.

Second, looks at all forms of work from cave paintings, to the old masters, to the impressionists, to modernists, to surrealist, to the outside art.

Third, not to think of art as bound by geographical location.  Look at the art from around the world.  Look at how other people handle color, shape, form and use of materials.

Fourth, look at art from all time periods that have stood the test of time. If you look at it today and it still looks fresh even if it is a hundred or thousands of years old.

The job of the artist is to make a lasting impression on those who view the work at hand and cause the viewer to think and remember the work.  For me to do work in art gives me total control over part of my world.  I try to do each piece to achieve harmony and balance between the colors and the forms and shapes.  To give the viewer something to ponder about what is being shown.  To give new life to old ideas, cause new ideas to be accepted.

Why does my artwork look different than everybody else?  The reason why is because my mind sees everything different than everybody else.  It is wired differently because I am dyslexic.  My view of color shape and form is a retrospective view of how I perceive the world.  It is a contrasting difference of a parallel world.

Good art stands the test of time.  A good design grows old with time and does not look old-fashioned.