Just as experiences change our lives, so then does art, as art is an experience, either with beautiful writing, poetry, song, painting, or film. Numerous individuals say, “art is in the eye of the beholder!” However, if that is true, then blind is the beholder; although there is a spectrum of beauty, there is a limit to it. One cannot say that a jail cell is as beautiful as a dewy morning in Virginia by a lake as the wind blows through your hair and the refreshing scents fill your nose. Anyone that argues their beauty holds the same standard simply is not fit to judge beauty, and therefore should not be listened to by impressionable art enthusiast. Although I do not like to judge audibly, but instead only silently in my mind as to not be seen as too strict on my ideals of art, I do have many opinions on the matter. As I am currently pursuing an English degree with a concentration in creative writing and with having already achieved my degree in fine arts, it is my duty to have grown very strong opinions of my practices, however, I do not always advertise my ideas out loud for many to hear.
On my first day in college, back when I was working on my degree in fine arts, my class was sat down and asked, by my then painting professor, Mr. Ransom, “what is art?” You would think that because we had all chosen to pay ridiculous amounts of money to learn more about it, we might have some distinctive stance on what art was to us, however, that was not really the case. We went around the classroom as we all gave a few words on what we think art is, and how it was to be defined to us. I was shocked to see that 90% or so of my class claimed everything was art. One student even went so far as to hold up a Bic pen with blue ink in it and declared, “EVERYTHING IS ART, EVEN THIS PEN! EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL!”
My professor scoffed at the class and simply said to them, once we finished our rounds of personal opinion that, “if everything was art then nothing is art, if everything is exceptional then nothing would ever be.” That really stuck with me throughout my academic career. I was also very pleased to know that I was not going to be taught by a professor who hid behind rose colored glasses for once, or a professor that would make us study Pollock for the millionth time, and I was very enthusiastic to find where Mr. Ransom’s teaching would bring me.
With knowledge I was able to acquire through artists like Rembrandt, Goya, and Caravaggio, I established that art is something that can tell a full narrative through just a portrait. What kind of dress is she wearing? Why are her eyes so sorrowful? What reflection may be in the mirror painted in the back of the woman? Storytelling through art is important, as all these artists had something to say. Caravaggio, for instance, would reflect in his paintings what life truly was like in his time, although he would also discuss mythical subjects throughout his art with deep symbolism, he would equally show revenge, pain, and struggle. Something that is important in arts of all kinds, as it helps a person to connect with true human emotion, what every single person craves, when taking in a certain work.
Take Van Gough for example, his paintings weren’t exceptional, nor did they differ from other artist at the time including his roommate Gauguin’s paintings. However, what I believe made Van Gough so exceptional was his life, as he was the quintessential starving artist. He refused to give up, as he was not only starving literally but figuratively. Starving to be great, starving to find truth in art, and starving to make something of himself that would never come in his lifetime. He would have a psychosis event famously cutting off his ear after a fight with Gauguin and consequently checking himself into an institution where he would paint one of the most recognized paintings there is, The Starry Night, which might be why the painting is so alluring to the masses, because of his struggle and the story around it. Still, he would never give up his pursuit for authenticity and truth. I believe he wrote a letter to his brother at this time that said something along the lines of, “once again I had let myself go, reaching for stars that are too big- a new failure- and I have had enough of it.”
This is what people connect with in art, a story that might change them, they connect with sincerity, they connect with emotion. Unfortunately for Van Gough he would never know how his life changed the world as he would commit suicide before his fame. He even failed at that, as the bullet did not kill him, but an infection did days later. Another part of his struggle and story that one might find so interesting about Van Gough. However, the point being that people want to connect with others and are curious to see the world from an interesting individual’s point of view, in some cases.
So, it is true, in my opinion, that although a painting is not exactly the most exceptional, it might be admired by millions because of its artist, and their story. Although, like previously stated, there is a spectrum. If Van Gough had this same struggle but had paintings that match that of some of today’s contemporary art, I am not sure it would have had the same effect on the world. Furthermore, Van Gough would paint what was in front of him, his many self-portraits, one of the most famous being him don with only one ear, or the view from outside his institution window, very raw, true, and interesting paintings.
However, we do see it work sometimes where the art is esthetically terrible but the artists himself is so interesting that people are still enthralled. Like for example with Basquiat, an artist I do not particularly find interesting, but millions of people do. This is because people are connecting with his story, with his struggle. However, his paintings are a bit lack luster, in my opinion. But the story of his struggle with drugs, his infamous street graffiti, selling his works on the side of the road, and being found by Andy Warhol, are all very attractive to people wishing to live such eccentric lives, or just learn about others that do. A dark horse story, that is both enthralling and heartbreaking when one learns more of his constant struggle with addiction. People attach themselves with the story of the man behind the art, in some cases. In those cases, the art does not have to speak for itself, the alluring artist simply has to flash his wisdom and interesting points of view to inspire many.
I did have to argue against his work once while in art school and so I had my husband, of whom has never painted and has no prior knowledge of his work, recreate one of his most famous paintings. I took a picture of it and took it into my debate, once I put the picture up on the board, I asked my opposing team to describe why this painting by Basquiat was so important and so brilliant that it could never be recreated, or for that matter imitated so well that one could essentially recreate his career. They argued how the strokes were brilliant, and argued how the color choice was masterfully mixed. I then was able to reveal that it was a recreation of one of Basquiat’s most famous paintings. This proves that people connect more with the person in some cases, and what the person is trying to say, that they are willing, to ignore the obvious.
Art is a part of its artist, it is a distinct way of how they see the world. And I mean to say art of every sense: of writing, of music, of film, and of painting. Although I think all art can be learned to an extent, the thing that separates the greats from the only goods, is their life and experiences. The more someone experiences, they take into their soul wisdom, and thus have more authentic stories to spill out on a page. People’s pasts and up bringing’s, I believe, does a lot for an artist, simply because us as humans have empathy, and love to feed that empathy through stories, through song, through film, etc. We have a need as real as hunger, and that need is to feel for one another, to share experiences, and from those experiences we grow closer together.
What does one do when they are trying to get closer to a significant other, maybe share a story from childhood that has affected them greatly, or perhaps share what their dreams are for the future, etc. Usually, one’s lover would have learned more about what makes the person who they are through stories, and because of this, love them that much more since they know more than anyone else how their person sees the world around them, how they think, and why it is they do what they do. We do this because it is our way of reaching out to one another. If someone has the power through word and pen, or paint and brush, to make millions feel something new, or something that they have felt before, then that person holds the power of emotion, that person understands the human mind better than others. And that is what all artists strive for.
Writing is an expression of one’s true-life experiences, the more harrowing the life, sometimes makes for a more alluring writer. One could still understand the ideas of storytelling without having such life experiences, for example say a person born to a perfect life, whom has always gotten what they wanted. They could be able to tell a good story still; and this is not to say that some people don’t have and fight with their own struggles, this is merely to say someone with no problems throughout their entire life could still learn the art of storytelling. Although I know everyone that goes through life has experiences that are worthwhile to write, they just need to find it within themselves to articulate their thoughts effectively. However, getting back to the topic, I might be able to tell a story that I have no experience in any way whatsoever, and it could probably come out to be okay, or even really good, if I did enough research. Maybe even someone’s favorite story. For Example, if someone was to write a story about an Asian man of whom is a drug addict living in the Bronx, I don’t think that it should be a Hispanic woman living in the Rio Grande valley that writes it (me).
But rather I believe people should write what they know, if someone shares the absolute truth however, in the most authentic way, it really has an impact on its consumer, whether that be through any form of art. Writers and artist of any kind, they are creating for the lonely, for the sad, for the broken hearted, etc. Again, people crave to connect through emotion, we want to know we aren’t alone in our thinking. We want to feel, we want to remember, we want revenge, we want to laugh, we crave closeness.
I want to move on to Hemingway, my favorite author, of whom wrote many semi-autobiographical stories. He is an author that I had read through many times and would think nothing of. I would read his short stories and find no connection. It wasn’t until I grew older that I got a chill from reading “The Three-Day Blow,” and that I finally understood him. Hemingway, although he did not like to discuss or explain it, put a lot of symbolism into his writing. It seems that the more you learn about Hemingway’s life, you start to understand him and his stories a great deal better, as well as his symbolism and his characters. Although he did not make it very easy to understand him, many academics take deeps dives of his work and find within it metaphors, symbolism, and mirroring events from his real life.
For example, Hemingway had a reoccurring character for many of his short stories, Nick Adams. In the story, “The Way You’ll Never Be,” Nick is in the hospital after being wounded delivering chocolate and postcards to the troops. Hemingway himself got wounded delivering chocolate to troops, so Hemingway was writing what he knew, authenticity. However, it was because the war that Hemingway felt a strong force for writing. When the men would return from war and be rewarded and praised, it upset Hemingway. He felt it was a sham. Moreover, when people came back from war, he believed, chivalry was dead. Men weren’t the same men, nor were the women, in his eyes, elegant any longer. This too sparked many stories for him, some more subtle than others. I recall in one of his stories he had a wife speaking to her husband about something simple, and the husband would not pay attention to his wife but instead read. This was his subtle way of saying chivalry was dead.
He was also quite clever with symbolism, if we focus back to “The Three-Day Blow,” the story that is, in my opinion, one of Hemingway’s best, begins with a small mention that the winds will be blowing in for three days. Hemingway writes about Nick Adams, his reoccurring character, and his recent break up. Throughout the Nick Adams stories Hemingway would use wind as a metaphor for Nick’s healing. He would subtlety say in one story that a window was cracked letting in a light wind, he would go fishing in another story and the wind would blow over him during a hard time, etc.
This thoughtful writing is the epitome to what makes great art. He does not explain to the reader that the wind is healing Nick, but instead he lets the reader deduce that himself. Although the “The Three-Day Blow” is named blow, as in wind, he only talks about the friendship and immaturity of Nick. Again, it took me a long time to understand him but once I did, I could not get enough. I find it fun to search for metaphors and to cross reference to his real life to see what true story he might have taken inspiration from.
I want to move forward now discussing how I feel about writing in general, and what makes for the best kind of writing. A writer must strive to be deliberate and sincere about their writing. If the writer themselves cannot find in their own work sincerity, then how would they expect their reader to… if the writer does not believe in the truth of his own work, then the reader is certainly not going to be able to. As writers we need to remember that we are in control of our story, no limits exist. We are in control of this world we created, we are the bringers of death and life. We bring the sorrow, and the happiness, the love, and the hate. Let our worlds rival our real lives and let us be proud of what we bring and hold no apologies.
We must also remember that we cannot please every single person, as we discussed before, everyone holds their own ideals of what beauty is, what their spectrum holds may not be anywhere near your work. You will only appeal to like-minded individuals, or those who are open to appreciating new things. Because we are writers and artists, people will be quick to criticize and judge every last punctuation, every last brush stroke, ever last thought, or lack thereof, rather than praise for any original idea, that is just the way it is. It can at times be a very pretentious profession to choose. However, it is one of the hardest things to put yourself out there and be judged, so therefore writers and artists of all kinds should feel courageous that they are attempting the pursuit of beauty to the best of their ability, and be proud of the work they put forth for the public to pick apart. The truth is, a writer might be more prone to failure than triumph in a world like ours, with the standard our academics hold for each other and for art.
I sometimes wonder how many people secretly dislike me, those people that kind of dread seeing me walk into a room but would never say so to my face out of politeness. It only takes one comment or stance on a subject for people to distaste your presence. We all have those people, maybe at work, where you just absolutely do not understand them, but pretend to like them and care about how their weekend was as to not come off as impolite, but I digress. What I mean to say is not everyone is going to like your writing, although it may be more transparent when it comes to your art to read people’s minds about whether they find it interesting or not, then when it comes to a polite acquaintance. However, there is someone out there that will find you brilliant, at least I keep telling myself that. Keep moving onward when disappointed, be perfectly free when writing because you aren’t afraid to fail, and you aren’t afraid of someone having distaste for your work. We as writers and artists should care not what others think. Writing should be free, be open, be truthful to your life experiences, be without restraints.
I want to be moving on now to character development, and my many ideals on the topic. When thinking of your characters, think of real-life encounters with people. Even if you just saw someone while sitting on a park bench, and you found something interesting about the way they walked or moved their hair. Maybe you enjoyed the way a couple laughed at each other’s jokes. That is an encounter; you do not have to simply take from the two handfuls of people you are very close with, take from the whole world, but make it true!
If a writer tells a truth but it happens to only be part of the truth, then this too might fall to shreds. Again, art is an experience, art is truth, art is authenticity, and humans crave to experience this. I do not think a writer knows why they write or who they are, really. All artists have an idea of themselves, I am sure, but what truly makes a good writer is all the experiences that have happened in their personal life. It is hard to have a stance on who we are as individuals, if really thinking about it. Everyone will see you differently then you see yourself. We have been a hundred different people in our lives and do not even realize that. A high school friend might remember you as rebellious, an ex might remember you as timid and afraid. Every year we are changing, so it is hard to put a certain idea of who we are on the paper. The past and the present live coexisting beside each other when we reach within ourselves to write. What makes us want to write is also a good question. Some people have a purpose, a main goal they want people to understand. Maybe a personal story of drug use they lived through that they want the world to shine a light on. Others do not know why it is they feel the need to write they just know they want to, they feel it inside them that not only do they want to, but they need to.
It reminds me of one of my favorite films, Citizen Kane. The story of Charles Foster Kane was given to the audience through a sequence of interviews from those that were closest to him, as a reporter strived to understand what the word rosebud could mean to such an extraordinary man. Each person feeling and thinking a different way about him, Kane himself changing dramatically from interview to interview. It is one of the best characters to be written, in my opinion, because of the truth that a person will never be the same person they were just five years prior. Things can be done to someone to make a good person bad. I would even go so far to say that a good person could be corrupted to be lousy without anything incredibly terrible happening to them. This is the complication when trying to create a great realistic character. Kane eventually hated the man he became, at the end realizing that he lived his life very misguided, too encompassed by the wrong things. He longed to be a young boy again, sledding outside in the clean fresh snow, while laughing without a care in the world. He longed for a life where Thatcher never took him from what and where he was supposed to be. It’s interesting to think of the development of the character Susan in that film as well. Very well written, beginning as an outspoken woman with courage, to a shell of the woman she once was, forever doomed to quietly do a jigsaw puzzle buried alive in Xanadu, as Kane had extinguished her spark. People praise that film for the interesting camera techniques Orson Welles used, however I feel those techniques had been done before, only made popular because of the film’s success. I believe the film’s success came from the interesting story and development of characters rather than the use of camera angles.
One of the biggest mistakes I would make when I first started storytelling was explaining exactly to the audience what they were meant to feel. For example, I would write “her father had played a mental game, and she was exhausted.” I think it is important instead to write what one feels through dialogue. This could be explained in two sentences, “she leaned over and sighed, barely able to hold her head up high.” “Again, her father said, “why isn’t the house clean yet, your mother would be disappointed in you if she was still here.” What I failed to understand is that the reader would be able to tell that the daughter was depleted as well as that the father was playing a mental game. As a writer, one shouldn’t think so little of their readers. Most are capable of understanding what it is you are trying to say, and if they do not understand then maybe it is not what you are saying and the way you are saying it but rather that the reader needs to practice reading more to understand text in a clearer way. Just how I had to grow older to understand Hemingway in the way he intended his readers to understand him. Write dialogue and trust that most will understand. Let the reader come to their own conclusions, instead of explaining exactly how they should feel in each moment and with each new scene.
When thinking of how to introduce your characters do not simply name out everything that makes them who they are in one intro paragraph before they begin their dialogue and introduction to your story. Instead let a reader figure out who they are by the decisions they make. What makes a person real is their stance on a situation, for example, how your character handles an argument. Make sure you expose who they are by the choices they make, the words they say, and the things they act upon. Make it so that even you as a writer might be confused of what choices your characters will make next, do not allow the reader to be able to predict who these people you created, are. Let fantasy and real-life merge to create a mirage for the reader that is so real they believe they could live it and it could be true. If really thinking about how we as humans are so unpredictable, to the point that we will marry and devote are lives to someone, but one day that someone might run away with the pool man to California and take up acting on a whim. And thinking of how absurd and how still realistic it sounds, shows how unpredictable a character should be.
Humans have flaws; I know how badly we love to write the hero, how we want our hero to save the day, be perfect, and faithful to their lover. But just how we crave this perfect person and understand them, they aren’t realistic, remember humans are walking imperfections. Just as we want and write our hero to be understood we should also write the villain to be understood as well, for example, no villain believes himself to be wrong. They all have a purpose, they believe they have a mission, a reason for doing such evils. They think they are the hero of their own story and therefore they do not see themselves as a villain. And in this way, it may be easier to understand the villain better than the hero for the reader, because they are wrong, and to some degree, we all are wrong about some thing or another, or have done wrong. No good villain believes himself to be the bad guy. And I say villain, but I mean to say any person that is trying to stop your main character or point of the story, from happening.
Having said all that, telling a reader exactly how to feel could still be done affectively, and many great writers have used this approach just fine. However, it is just my opinion that I think a writer should let the reader feel whatever they want to feel from your reading. Maybe they would have come to a different perception than that of what the writer proposed, and found new meaning in the writing, if the writer does not tell them exactly how to feel. Just provide all the information and a reader will spark their own conclusions by connecting the story with their own experiences. By doing this maybe a reader might draw a different closure than the writer had previously had in mind, and perhaps find more connection with the story this way.
Movement is similarly very important to a writing, a writing needs to get to a point, no matter what maze of events you send your characters in, the maze should have a meaning. As Henry James puts it in The Art of Fiction, “every word, every punctuation,” needs to be working toward its main purpose and goal. Which is a very good point, everything that is in your writing should be relevant or be working toward a main point. No matter how interesting you may find a side plot that you want included, but that is not working toward the main goal, ask yourself if it is necessary to the story. Why it is you might want to leave it in, and if it goes with the whole theme and tone in general of the writing piece that is being worked on. Some readers will not understand the reasoning behind an unnecessary addition to the story and thus will feel as if you used their precious time for a ridiculous side plot. However, if the tone accounts for it, like say in one of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, (some of my personal favorites) it would have room for additional information that made no sense to move the story forward. I believe one of the side stories that was completely unnecessary to the central plot was that the main character opens a sandwich shop on a different planet and is known as a kind of wizard because of his exquisite sandwich making. In this very unlikely situation, then yes, unnecessary information could move with the novel. His novel’s point was chaos and unexpected movement with character development, which resulted in a reader unable to predict the outcome of neither character nor conclusion. But most likely a story will not have such unique perspective with so much chaos in the writing, and therefore a writer should think of every sentence and every paragraph as a whole to see if there are any unnecessary pauses of movement.
Moving on to an artist’s style, to start, you cannot just call something a style. I find many writers and artist that are inherently bad at their craft or simply trying to imitate, to a very close degree, hide behind the word “style.” Being inspired by and imitation is two very different things. These are the same people of whom I spoke of earlier, that argue that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and that most just “do not understand their style.” But the truth is beauty does have a standard and we cannot always live ignoring it for the sake of some people’s feelings. Although as time goes on art needs movement and change, which means to say that we may not have many Caravaggio’s amongst us still, but maybe instead we have the new age Caravaggio’s learning and growing with every new day.
Some artists learn how to recreate a type of art that perhaps someone studied and spent months or even years figuring out. This imitation is ridiculous. However, if an artist sparks an idea in another artist, that is just inspiring others to greatness. I think everything these days comes from some sort of seed another has planted into our hearts. Every artist is inspired, in some way or another, by other artists. It is interesting actually, all the different ways certain artist inspire us throughout our lives, mixed with our own personal struggles and experiences, make up the way we see and connect with the world. It is such a random mix of ideas that still I believe there is room for change and growth in all areas of art.
Finally, one cannot try to achieve greatness without failure. It takes years to get to a point in which you finally truly understand a subject. But still, some might be too afraid to jump into the idea of bettering themselves without a guaranteed payout. One might have a dream of writing, painting, or even film making, but instead choose to go to school for accounting because they have no faith in themselves that they could make anything of a degree in, say, film. They choose, instead of striving to live the life they truly want, to be stuck in a life of a 9-5 that they are guaranteed to hate. I think the fear of failure is scarier and stronger to a person then the fear of not living and breathing their chosen dream. It is much less scary jumping into a job knowing you will hate it than jumping into something that could have nothing come of it.
It is a fulfilling reward to get to understand a perspective from another’s point of view that is nowhere near yours. It is a wonderful thing to change a person’s mind through art. Making someone across the world that you will never meet want to change the way they live, to be inspiring to others with your thoughts and actions, which is the power of art and written word. Our experiences and influences in life make up our unique voice. The hope to reach a perfection in being able to articulate our feelings in a way that could touch others and release in ourselves the need to be heard, is a kind of justice to the soul. Speaking a wisdom, no matter how small, is an important and fulfilling job.
Even now, with much experience and nearly graduating, it is tough to articulate my thoughts and what it is am I am trying to say. It is something I will always have to be pursuing and studying. I can only say that I chose to live a life of art because of my children, which for most might be the opposite. Before they were born, I would just go through the motions of life, never really caring to better myself, which was a lame existence, although I did not know it at the time.
Now I believe I can achieve anything I set my mind to only because I want my two daughters to believe the same. I want them to look back and think about how I wasn’t afraid of failure and to be proud of that. As an artist finding a reason for your pursuit is very important. Once you find it, it will fuel your fire to live art, to learn more, and to grow. Plant your seed and water it often.
