John Lacey » Art

When The Student Is Ready… - Benefits Of An Art Teacher

John Lacey — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:22:58 +0000

My friend Michael Meloni started a personal blog recently. I actually read one of his blog entries and found myself thinking, “Oh it would be so cool to have a blog…” And then – of course – it dawned on me that I did have a (much neglected) blog. So yes, here I am.

I don’t want to gush too much but I’ve been going to art lessons for a few months now and I have to say it is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I want to try to unpack some of the benefits I’ve experienced from having a great art teacher.

The Obvious – Technique
A good art teacher will provide you with specific technique relating to your medium. Perhaps it’s about improving what you do already, perhaps it’s about introducing a whole new skill set. You may be surprised at what you can do even with a medium you’ve practiced with for some time. Sometimes it’s just about getting a new perspective.

Philosophies
It’s not just technique that your teacher passes onto you as a student, it is also their philosophies. One of teacher’s favourite sayings is, “The only difference between a good painting and a bad painting is more work.”

The Stuff That’s Not Written In The Books
And then there are those tips and tricks that are garnered through a life time of creating and shared with you the student. Whether it’s cost effective ways of reusing old objects (a stay wet palette made out of a sponge, an icecream lid and some cling wrap?) or when to use industrial hardware over “artist supplies.”

How To Explain It To Your Parents - How do you explain what you do?

John Lacey — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:32:04 +0000

There’s an old adage – well, I’ve been using it for years; families, can’t live with them, can’t kill them and bury them underneath the pool (we have no pool).

Now there’s little doubt that I am part of my family, the family resemblance between siblings is too striking for me to be adopted. But at times I have this overwhelming sense that we might as well be different animals and that I am certainly the odd one out.

So how do you explain what you do to your family, to your parents? It was hard enough for my brother to explain he was in IT Support, so what hope do you have of conveying meaning when you’re doing something as seemingly esoteric as creating art?

Lernert & Sander have produced a documentary series in which 5 abstract artists attempt to explain their work to their parents.

The first episode features Arno Coenen trying to explain his work (with beer) to his father.

How to explain it to my parents – Arno Coenen from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo

“Explain to me in simple terms how this beer is art,” Arno’s father (perhaps quite understandably) asks.

You can watch the other installments at Lernert & Sander’s Vimeo page.

“No, I want you to put in a real profession” - Artists Urged To Get 'Real' Job

John Lacey — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:59:38 +0000

Oh who hasn’t enjoyed some variation on this old chestnut? You want to be creative? You better have something to ‘fall back on.’ You best have a ‘real job.’

Watercolour artist Joyce Faulknor, speaking to ArtistsNetwork.TV, explains her origins as an artist.

I’ve always thought of myself as an artist. In my house everyone painted so I thought, ‘well, of course I’m an artist.’ Little did I know I had little talent. But I remember back in third grade my teacher handed out these cards and she said, “write down what you’d like to be when you grow up.” And I wrote ‘artist’ of course. And she handed it back and said, “No, I want you to put in a real profession.”

You can find out more about Joyce Faulknor at her website.

Margaret Fabrizio: Commitment, Not Complaining

John Lacey — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:43:56 +0000

This video seems very timely for me. As Margaret explains creative people are bombarded with ideas and projects they’d like to do and sometimes this can overwhelm us to the point where we don’t do anything at all. (I chuckled because like Margaret I sometimes play solitaire to distract myself.)

I’ve been dabbling in a lot of things lately. Playing with different types of art supplies has made the process fun, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to good results. Similarly I run the risk of spending more time shopping for novel art tools than I do on actually creating art. I’ve decided to narrow my interests a little for the time being. I’m going to put most of my energy and time into pencil sketching (inspired by DVD instruction from Lee Hammond) and acrylic painting. I’m going to work on those things and see where they end up. (Perhaps where I end up.) I’m going to work on developing specific skills relevant to these activities. And all other distractions – such as an interest in Chinese Calligraphy – will go into the ‘maybe someday’ pile.

There’s really quite a lot to be said about the momentum created through action and the pleasure of being lost in your own process. Happy creating!

[Thanks to Mo Mapes at Lovin' Mixed Media for bring this video to my attention.]

Knowing When To Stop…

John Lacey — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 23:45:46 +0000

I’ve often been a little bemused watching some of Gary Reef’s videos. He’ll present something that, to my eyes, looks extraordinary. But sometimes you’ll detect a note of unease, a kind of restlessness in him. He isn’t crazy about what he’s produced, but by the same token he often doesn’t seem able to articulate exactly why. This confused me a little… until it started happening to me. And maybe that’s the downside to this “taking a step and then reacting to that and then reacting to that” approach. You’re not exactly sure what you’re building so you’re not sure when it’s done, or if it’s working out or if it’s gone completely off the rails. There’s a certain freedom in this but then freedom can be terrifying. And often you’re only working with your emotions, how you’re feeling in a given point in space and time. Is the painting wrong or are you annoyed or restless because of some completely unrelated piece of minutia from your life?

I was rather ill last week, but I managed to create this acrylic painting on canvas. I’ve been fascinated recently by palette knives and was keen to see what I could do to with one myself.

Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t know what it was or if it was finished or not. It was much too abstract, much too colourful, much too… something. Much too little something else.

I have a new found appreciation for this, unfortunately three or four coats of paint later it hardly seems to matter. What it was exists only in a handful of sketchy photographs. So I wonder, how do you know when to stop? How do you know something needs to be developed and how do you know you should just leave it alone?

Google’s Nod To Arthur Boyd

John Lacey — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:00:46 +0000

I’ve already published this in a few different places but I feel it’s worth sharing here too.

I don’t know if people outside of Australia are seeing this but over the weekend Google have tipped their hat to Australian artist Arthur Boyd to acknowledge his 90th birthday.

My little corner of the world – the Shoalhaven, on the south coast of New South Wales – was a particular source of inspiration for Boyd. He’d often depict the Shoalhaven River in his works. He and his wife Yvonne gifted their property and collection to the Australian people (you can find out more about Bundanon here).

A Creative Catalyst

John Lacey — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:10:07 +0000

I’ve talked previously about how I wanted to paint but didn’t. Something I was perhaps less forthcoming about was that I had told a person, a very specific person, about my desire to paint. Infact painting was one small part of a much larger, more grandiose fantasy I had been concocting in my head. I was going to move to a new city, I was going to work during the day and study art at night and I was going to date that particular person.

Strangely it wasn’t this scenic imagining that got me started so much as when it became apparent that fantastical bubble had burst around me. I was in a hotel room in a city where I knew next to no one and was being essentially ignored by the person I traveled to see. A dear friend of mine accompanied me around the city when he could, but he was in the throes of his own significantly more successful romance and I didn’t want to tread on their toes. I watched a lot of tv in my hotel room. I spent a lot of time in food courts, particularly enchanted with one place that boasted home made chocolates. And I bought a sketchbook and some water colour pencils and a paintbrush. That sketchbook turned out to be one of the best investments I had made in some time. I filled it’s pages with childish drawings and trite poetry – my hopes, my fears, my sadness.

Something triggered me earlier tonight, it made me think of that person and that notebook. I probably won’t share it’s contents with anyone but there were times when it felt like my only friend in the world.

Maybe it would’ve been nice to disappear into the sunset with that particular person. But it didn’t happen and when it didn’t I started drawing in my new sketch book in the hotel room… to alleviate the boredom, to process the rejection, to foster some sense of things. It was an unhappy time but a powerful catalyst. Perhaps ultimately this will prove more worthwhile.

Paula Scher: Solemn Versus Serious

John Lacey — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:21:10 +0000

Sometimes I go looking for things to watch online. I balked at watching the video I embed above. Ironically it proved to be one of the most fascinating things I have stumbled across in some time.

It seems deeply counter-intuitive that you could have ‘serious’ play, that somehow you could be serious by having fun. And I think it’s great that Paula Scher makes this distinction between seriousness and solemnity. Because I think most of us think they mean the same thing.

Taking your art seriously isn’t about developing a serious tone. It’s about making your artistic practice a priority within your life. It’s about respecting your ideas enough to honour them, to let them develop and to follow them to see where they might lead.

Telling Secrets

John Lacey — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:26:10 +0000

I like to keep this blog as upbeat and positive as is possible but the truth is it isn’t always fun and games when it comes to art or life more generally. Somehow actually creating art gave way to not creating art and feeling very irritable and anxious. I’m sure I quote Julia Cameron too often on this blog, but since I couldn’t have said it any better myself…

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron writes:

Making a piece of art may feel a lot like telling a family secret. Secret telling, by its very nature, involves shame and fear. It asks the question “What will they think of me once they know this?” This is a frightening question, particularly if we have ever been made to feel ashamed for our curiosities and explorations – social, sexual, spiritual.

My art practice involves too many secrets. Things I don’t want to share with anyone, things I don’t even want to admit to myself. Even bringing myself to admit that I wanted to paint in the first instance took over a year. It’s one of the greatest ironies of my existence that while anyone who knows my name can throw it into a search engine and see everything I create and share online I am incredibly guarded with people I know in (quote-unquote) ‘real life.’

There have been breakdowns and breakthroughs this weekend though. I went for a walk through the escarpment, listening to Tori Amos. Listening to the Dakota Version of Hey Jupiter and really reflecting upon what that song meant gave me a way of accessing my own unarticulated sorrow. When I returned from my walk I wrote a poem, my first poem in probably seven years. I also, somewhat mysteriously, ‘found’ some lyrics to a song I wrote back in 2000. It seemed I was able to express things that I hadn’t been able to before. But looking back at them, realising they were fundamentally what I wanted and needed to say, I wasn’t sure I was yet prepared to let those sentiments see the light of day. It’s this underlying tension in so much of what I do. I see it in my painting too – in the subjects I choose to paint, the way in which I choose to paint them – sometimes I’m sure they reveal more than I intend them to.

It’s a terrible thing to spend so much time talking about cultivating a self to ‘express’ and then being fearful when you do. But in a lot of ways I have to exist in a world that doesn’t appreciate most of what I do, that doesn’t understand who I am, that is keen to criticise my rather fragile ego. I’m not sure I want to feel so exposed and vulnerable.

Amusingly the poem I wrote this weekend was about not feeling brave enough to write a poem. When I realised this was indeed what I had done, I laughed and felt strangely accomplished. Where there’s life, there’s hope.

[Mary made the observation that it had been some weeks since I last posted a video here. I do have one which I will post this week though I can't guarantee how regularly they will appear after that. There is some stuff (cryptic enough?) happening to this website behind the scenes that will ultimately make the site more enjoyable to the people who visit it but in the meanwhile I have to play catch up and work on some special secret projects. Watch this space!]

Sister Wendy: Art Changes But It Doesn’t Get Better

John Lacey — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 10:16:36 +0000

Sister Wendy Beckett is a bonafide nun with a considerable knowledge of and contagious enthusiasm for art. I recently had the delightful opportunity to watch her documentary, The Story Of Painting. One of the things that really struck me the first time I watched it was an early scene in which she visits some early cave paintings and muses over the nature of art.

Sister Wendy:

And so you see, scientifically these are primitive people. Because science advances. It’s like a ladder – one step leads to another, but art isn’t like that. Art is about being human. Children make art instinctively. Archeologists know when they find evidence of art they’ve found evidence of human beings. It expresses all that is best in us. Our desires, our hopes, our truth. And so art changes, but it doesn’t get better.

I’ve devoted so much space – in this blog and in my head – lately to the idea of Ira Glass’ gap and about wanting to develop technique and my own ill feelings about my limitations as a painter and writer, but there is something about this idea that rings true.

Certainly our forms and techniques may vary and evolve over time but art – that fundamental human desire to express one’s self – remains constant.

John Lacey » Art

When The Student Is Ready… - Benefits Of An Art Teacher

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How To Explain It To Your Parents - How do you explain what you do?

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“No, I want you to put in a real profession” - Artists Urged To Get 'Real' Job

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Margaret Fabrizio: Commitment, Not Complaining

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Knowing When To Stop…

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Google’s Nod To Arthur Boyd

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