Lecture No. 2
My first experience with art was during the depression. My materials were things I found in the alley behind my house and in my neighborhood. Our town did not have a Michael's or Dick Blick on every corner. Using scrap was a way of life. We collected cans, bottles,and paper for the war effort and after the war we collected for survival - and for art materials.
My little group of friends combed the neighborhood looking for wooden crates and buggy wheels we needed for our push cart racers. We crushed up sandstone rocks and colored the sand with bluing and dye. We made huts, hideouts and forts out of scrap lumber. Each day of foraging was filled with discover.
Very simply, art is manipulation of materials. All the fancy scrapbook materials,"artsy fartsy" kits, photoshop brushes and coloring books will not produce a meaningful piece of art unless they are creative manipulated.
All materials must be pushed to the extreme so they can yield true creativity. Bend, cut, paste, tear, burn, smash, and altered them beyond recognition and they will be transformed into wondrous creations.
Spend a week foraging your warren and manipulating materials. It will raise your artistic consciousness.
Depression art links:
A Depression Art Gallery
New Deal/WPA Art Project
Art:Depression Era Art:The Depression Era Art Projects in Illinois
Recommended reading:
Spiritual Growth Form
1 comments:
When we were children, we had to use our imaginations for almost any kind of play. Nowadays, the "creative" part of children's minds is short-circuited by being wired into electronic gizmos from a very young age.
What good is a 3-year old's toy computer if in using it, the child is deprived of the tactile experiences of crawling around a house and discovering objects and their properties? The toy may keep the child content in the play-pen or stroller, but limits his growth as a creative human being.
In our throw-away society, raw materials for art-making are plentiful. It's too bad that most of them end up in the landfill, and even most of our recycling attempts are bogus.
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