camera sketches
Whilst my studio is temporarily closed, the camera becomes a painterly tool. I’ve been editing “squares” as though they are canvases. And they may or may not engender real paintings later.
red
Many of the feelings I have as I paint are informing these photos: the colour, the gesture, the composition, the texture, the contrast, the simplicity, the presence, the light, the interaction with the body…
hastings
And, meanwhile, we watched the ever-changing Eno documentary over the last couple of days. He discusses what art is and what it does. He wants us to recognise that we are all natural artists, that we’re making art all the time in our most quotidian of acts. And we need it. It’s fundamental and should be funded.
“What makes a work of art good for you is not something that’s already inside it but something that happens inside you.”
Eno suggests that art is always political, but that it’s most important element is emotion. It dilates your capacity to feel.
stanmer
Digital images are beautifully fluid to experiment with. I’ve been exploring saturation versus mutedness. Light versus dark. Edited versus tweaked.
In other news, I’ve been exploring alternatives to Big Tech. Instagram is a mainstay for artists, but I’d like to get off there eventually, given Meta’s ethics record. I’m stepping quietly into mastodon.art to see what it’s like.
hastings green
With no algorithm, you can wander in mastodon, trying to find like minds. I’m using hashtags to find my people. Thinking of trying #negativecapability. This is one of my favourite concepts for being open and creative. The Romantic poet, Keats, coined this in the early 1800s when he had an insight about how poetry works. Rather than leave you with Keats’ definition, let me give you this.
“A poet, then, has the power to bury self-consciousness, dwell in a state of openness to all experience, and identify with the object contemplated.”
red 2