Myths and Arts Reality

Not being a scholar of mythology in general; and having given up organized religion some twenty years ago, plus being an artist for fifty plus years, I guess I may fit into an  ‘anomalous‘ category when it comes to fables and myths and legends.

 The concepts of heaven and hell do not exist in my world.  But they do only in the sense to use for description in my art to those who still believe in such myths. There were reasons myths and fables existed. Imagined reasons why we and the world exist.  Today, much of the world knows this, even if they don’t choose to admit it.

Danté’s eternal damnation story was a way to” rationalize’ dare I say, the dark mysterious of the unknown universe in which the ancients lived and feared living a “ bad” life.  We no longer fear the dark for we created light. We are, for the most part, less ignorant when we gained knowledge.

We don’t live in Dantés world any longer. And we find these stories just amusing. But today we know these to be just that- fables.  The ‘Desire’ of which we speak is again a metaphor as is Heaven and Hell. 

What makes the world and people intriguing,  is we are all different and choose to believe different thing.  We understand more today  but there is still much ignorance about many things. 

I will forgo any discussion on stupidity. Which is its own realm.

There will always be those who live in a predictable and secure earthly “paradise”.  As with the two “H’s”; heaven and hell there is also no practical Paradise either.

Life is such there will always be those who think and understand and those who don’t. The Chinese refer to this thinking as ‘ yin/ yang.’ theory.  This philosophy exists in many human endeavors.

Regarding the ‘desire’ as relates to Art;  while it sounds dramatic ; the image of suffering; Desire, heaven and hell, are all as well myths.  Art makes it more issues more ambiguous; open to interpretation. Like a strict principal but with added mysteries.

Art is more metaphysical. Somewhat internal.  But approached practically as regards technique, method and principles. But from there Art goes into another unknown realm. We refer to it as ‘creativity’. Where art opens into multiple realms. It is more than about beauty.

Artists do suffer for their art  but not within the realm of the damned. Artists  live a “ practical “ life of predictable and secure earthly issues and problems.

Art, while mystical and unknown in many of its creative permutations, is as practical and earthy as any other principle.

There is no religious or mythical subtext to making it.

It takes conscious deliberate practice and understanding of Art principles. Color, value, composition, perspective. Along with a will to hopefully make something that informs and maybe be  beautiful.  Conversely, art is not alway meant to be solely about beauty.

 Scholars need to not compare the mythologies of the Greeks nor the religious theologies of the Church in describing today’s art. 

True ancient art contained and leaned heavily on myth and religion. But this had more to do with traditions and  control.  To give the people, who for the most part ignorant of how the world works. Or reasons for things, albeit, slanted toward control of the mind by the powers that exIsted. But today,  we read and look and understand the art of the ages and its reasoning and  purpose for its creation through modern lenses in the manner in which it was made. 

We can use the ideas of older but artists must paint their world of today with eyes open and eschew much of the myths. But they can be a tool. A device, a pictorial element.  Even if they are not truth.

If one chooses to believe in a “hell”, it is their right. But right now Hell is not a place above or below our Earthly plane.

Conversely, paradise is not under foot, unless you are misguided enough to believe such things.

Many ignorant people refuse to understand art is a principle like any other. It takes study and discipline to learn.

There are many steps to accomplish that take years to master. And not everyone gets to call themselves artists even after years of study.

Understanding and learning these principles is only the first step. Then you need a voice to use this ability in creating work that shows insight, purpose , sense of beauty, and quality in application.

Why do so many think that anyone who buys a paint set is considered an artist. Being an artist is not a weekend endeavor, or a Sunday hobby. That is called amateurism or dilettantism. Look up what those words mean.

To be a true artist take discipline, dedication , sacrifice. And it takes study.  Years of hard work to master drawing, color theory, perspective, composition. Theories established centuries ago. It take learning about past artists and art history.

Wake up to the importance art played in our history and world history and in our future. Give it the respect it deserves and stop thinking this is easy to learn.

Add to which the expense of an art education. The cost of supplies. The cost to exhibit, entry fees, commission fees and packaging, shipping, travel, paints and brushes and canvases . None of this is free.

Pouring,spilling or tossing paint onto a canvas IS NOT ART. Art takes intelligent, organization, focus, diligence. It takes time away from family and friends. Endless hours sitting in front of an easel attempting to take a one dimensional surface and make it look three dimensional and realistic.

If one paints people then add more years learning anatomy and how to draw and paint the figure in all attitudes, configurations and sizes. And with portraits. Learning facial anatomy and trying to add emotional context or personality to the person. And make them look real and lifelike.

I am tired of the world thinking this is a foolish pastime project to avoid “ real” work. We need to wake up and begin to give dedicated hard working artists, who have a valid profession, the credit they are due.

Art is embedded into our lives in ways most don’t even realize. All your favorite. Sci-if and adventure films , animated movies must be drawing and painted and illustrated by ARITSTS.  Men and women who have devoted their lives to learning art principles. And create on paper the images that eventually make it to the screen. Book covers are made by qualified ARTISTS with years of study. Children’s books are illustrated by professional ARTISTS.

Artists have changes our world. Art has informed our society and culture. Art and artists have had a tremendous impact on how we think. What we believe. How we dress. What we see around us every day with even noticing it.

We would not know any history of humanity if artist did not record it. From cave drawing to the Sistine Chapel to current movies and books.  We must give more respect to someone who devotes their life to Art. Who takes the time and effort to show the world what is possible and where and how we used to live.

Stop thinking one can learn this quickly by pouring paint onto a substrate and calling  it art. And calling themselves artists.

It demeans the principle of ART and glory of how art has informed us And our lives for centuries. Give artists the respect they deserve.

Understanding that nothing lasts forever.

This essay can be directed to ones life but I want to apply it to 

Art and how we approach it. How we see it and how we deal with it  as artists. 

I have, in the past, written numerous essays on living the life of an artist and the difficulties that arise and how to spot them to overcome them. Or at the very least to recognize them when they arise.

I speak from a personal empirical point of view after years of working toward being the artist I am today. This is not a professional guide to the psychology of painting and I do not have a degree in the sciences. This is knowledge gained from years of making art and living my life as an artist.

Stress, anxiety, worry, intolerance are all emotions that will cause many negative symptoms in our life. It will exacerbate the feeling of ‘ loss of control’.  Control over our lives. How we think and how we reacted to the world and our constant struggle to control things in our lives.

One of the things that has helped me to overcome my inadequacy while learning to be an artist is “ letting go”. What do I mean by letting go?

As expected, while absorbing the methods and techniques of creating art, I failed often. Knowledge is a sequitious path of successes and failures. It is not a straight line.

As many do, we regularly feel we are not growing and learning quick enough. Just when we are making strides in our process, we stumble and things fall apart to where they don’t seem to be working as we think they should. So we blame our inability to understand or worse our feeling we lack the talent.

After suffering through years of imagined setbacks I began to realize  I was indeed improving. I could not see it except in retrospect.

It became clear overtime my work was improving and getting noticed by the public who started to buy my work; galleries who accepted me and peers who started telling me so. 

But all this outside support means little with this nagging feeling I could be doing better.

I regularly try to reflect. Take stock. Look at my old work. My purpose is to evaluate my progress. This is necessary to do or one is always discontented with their current work.  We create often but stop to take the time to notice our improvement.

Over time I began to realize life is impermanent. And this translates to art as well.   What happened at the beginning of my learning journey was a temporary situation.  It was never going to be permanent. Sounds obvious.

If you want to be an artist you must take into account outside factors. Learning to be an artist necessitates learning about yourself. Who you are. What you believe. One needs to be willing to accept - Impermanence -in every aspect of your life. 

Letting go. Accept today’s failure as a temporary setback.  All the art you make will change. It is this impermanence one has to accept. 

After years of working and improving I became aware that without

accepting that what happens today may not happen tomorrow. And this is a good thing. For this is how we know we are improving.

Impermanence frees us from the momentary roadblocks. Those days where things don’t go your way. Or a work refuses to come together. 

Without impermanence we would be stuck in the same place.

Knowing “ this too shall pass” relieves anxiety. Our doubt  in our ability for learning. 

If you become comfortable with your work and you think it has reached a level of success. Your process becomes permenant and you continue along butt you stop advancing. 

When we gain control over the Art we make, we stop growing and our curiosity wanes. We became dull. Our new work starts to resemble our old work. We become satisfied with our results. The challenge to create something new dims.

Art has no bounties. Learning has no boundaries except in our own mind and our inability to move forward. 

Impermanence is a necessary factor in our constant continued growth. 

While we maintain impermanence we live. We excel. We seek new challenges. Our art enters new realms of interest. For us and our viewers.

As we improve we may feel a temporary sense of failure or inadequacy. But we need to remember this is a temporary situation. When we embrace impermanence, we free ourselves of all the emotional feelings of loss of control, inability and the suffering anxiety creates. 

When we free ourselves and understand everything is transient;

nothing is permanent, our thoughts and emotions are always in flux, our mind is open and we are free to create. 

Another important thing is to not be judgmental. Show compassion for yourself and your situation. And be in the moment. Acknowledge your feelings. Accept them.

If all things are transient and impermanent, this will pass and you will be free to create without anxiety or fear. 

Embrace impermanence and gain control over your life. Gain control over your Art.

The Reality Revolution 

EMPTY SPACE

Empty Space enhances the psychological depth of the portrait. By positioning the subject to one side,  introduces visual tension and asymmetry, compelling the viewer to engage more actively with the image. This technique disrupts the conventional balance, creating a dynamic interplay between the figure and the surrounding space.

Art educators discuss how off-center compositions can convey complex narratives and emotional states. Noting that such arrangements can suggest instability, introspection, or tension, thereby enriching the storytelling aspect of the artwork . 

Negative space is not merely background; it becomes an active element that amplifies the subject’s presence and the painting’s emotional resonance. This compositional strategy aligns with broader artistic approaches, where subtle deviations from symmetry serve to deepen the viewer’s connection to the subject.

Art, more precisely painting, through the ages, were more than just representations of the times. Whether dramatized or stylized.  They were a method for artists to help explain the world we lived in. Or a way of showing the world was or as it could be.

They helped explain or show us ideas we could not necessarily visualize or consider under normal circumstances.  They also used  mythical symbols that today transcends centuries. 

Over time these symbols would come to represent feelings, emotions, ideals or values most of us came to believe were the embodiment of some psychology. The most obvious one is the skull.  It could symbolize death. 

On a more psychological level light or lack thereof can stand in for certain moods. Colors as well have meaning when used in certain contexts. Crosses can be symbolic of many things. Good or bad. 

Many symbols have been lost or have changed. Many replaced by newer ones.  Some are imbedded into societies psyche.  Vampires, wolves, giant spiders, monsters. 

And space as well can be symbolic. Or lack of space.

A person alone in an open field conjures up aloneness or loneliness, solitude, emptiness.  An objects placement in a painting could also be indicative of some human psychology.

Over time symbolism became absent in art. Some reasons for this could be symbols have been debunked. Shown to be fake or false. Some have been rationalized and are not serious or fearful.  Some pertain to religious belief but many have turned away from fire and brimstone symbols. 

But even with the passage of time and a populace that has come to grips with old symbolisms, we are humans who suffer from life’s trails. And we still react as our ancestors did when it comes to suspicious, troubled or psychological circumstance and issues within ourselves and our fellow man. 

If artists want to be clear in their work, they must be aware of new symbols we can use in our work to move the story or image along.

Art gets only one chance unlike a film or book. The images we create must be concise, on point or viewers can, and do, miss what the artist might be saying in the work. 

One symbol we frequently miss or overlook and dismiss is space in a painting. We don’t generally consider empty space as part in the image. It is considered a lack of anything painted in it. 

In artistic parlance, empty space is considered ‘ negative’ space. 

And negative space, if you will, can have great importance.

For example: An indIvidual standing on a cliff with a vast empty expanse spread before them. Or a women or man sitting alone in a room with a window of an active city beyond.  Take a large sitting room with only one chair with someone sitting.  These, and others like this conger up emotional responses from us. They speak volumes to us. We feel moved. Why? Because we can relate to these scenes of emptiness. There are so many more,some very subtle. 

The point here is the empty space becomes an entity in and of itself. It speaks to us just from its existence in the image. And it can have a meaning for many things to all of us. 

If we take the time to look, it will speak and reveal its purpose for being used in the work. Sometimes it is difficult to reason its purpose.

Empty space has ramifications and is useful in explaining the unsaid. If used well, it tells us what is happening within the painting. It can also tell us about the people in the work.

It can be a warning, an alarm or something more sinister. It can express emotions, thoughts, situations. 

So, next time you view a painting with large empty space, think why it is being used. What does it tell us about the scene or the individuals within that scene. 

ART ENDURES. 

It is the beginning of a new year and in some cases a new time in America. One overshadowed with tyrannies of the past in far away places encroaching on our shores. Places in the world where art and artists of all forms were outlawed, condemned. Or just completely overlooked by societies.

Since the dawn of time men, and more likely women, have been expressing life through art in some form. As ancient cities are uncovered and excavated across the globe, there is one prevailing discovery. And it is their art. Whether created on walls, scrolls, stone tablets, ancient people created art. There was little thought of longevity or greatness. Or even the idea of Art as we interpret it today. It was an intrinsic need to record. To declare, and verify their existence. To declare they were here.  And how they lived and what they experienced. They created stories and replicas, images of the way they viewed what they saw and the world as they envisioned it. 

And humankind continued this impulse, this drive to express all things that shape their lives. Tools and methods and materials have gotten more sophisticated. Artisans became more skilled and accepted. Needed for expression of how people lived.  Over time, they took on more importance and significance. The Artisans images were used to show, to honor; to glorify the real and the supernatural. To bring to life what could then only be imagined. To make what we could not see and only think tangible.  The word ART, in the sense of pure pleasure was not envisioned yet. Then, if any artisan made an image it was to bring to life an event, a circumstance or a deity so the masses had an idea; a concept of what life was. What their Gods and spirits might have looked like. It made worshiping more impactful and solidified in their minds unified images for all that spread across the globe.

As societies became more densely populated and sophisticated ideas needed to be consolidated and organized   Leaders, rulers needed to show their power and influence with more detail and expertise so imagery refined and flourished. More artisans were needed. Great monuments now bore facades of their Gods, Kings and Queens in stone. The creation of which took on more expression and skill increasing the need for artisans and eventually ‘art’ became an industry.

As time progressed images moved from the churches and cathedrals to movable substrates where people could purchase or commission a work of their king or God to display in their home. Artisans started creating agrarian images; bucolic scenes of the areas surrounding them. What we call landscapes today. 

Art was moving away from the sublime to being more purposeful. For no other reason than pure knowledge and enjoyment. 

Artists experimented with different substances on which to paint. More durable and lighter substrates. Moving from wood to canvas. 

The word Art now encompassed more than Religious or imperial subjects. Artists were free to paint more diverse themes. Sculpt more proletarian or commoner every day Images. Which continues even to modern times.

The point I make is from cave drawing to the present day,

art has been an enduring need and compulsion of humankind. A driving force. It grew with each generation. One might say - art has always been. Whether scratched in the sand or on paper, in paint, metal, wood, concrete or steel, the one constant has been the need for humans to express themselves and the times in which they lived. 

Many creatives throughout time are anonymous. There were estimably hundreds of thousands. Their names now forgotten.  Lost or disappeared or were never known. Many achieved greatness in their time some still await their day in the sun.

Even with time, world wars and global natural disasters artists have managed to create art. 

Art has changed and will continues to change. The quality and nature of future art remains unknown. One thing is certain, It will reflect the times In which artists live. 

The great achievement of mankind is we have managed to keep and protect our world art. Cities and countries understand the importance of the arts created in their region. It is more than just pictures.  It is their legacy. A history of who they were and how past generations evolved and thrived. 

Regardless of what is to come technologically, art will endure.

My only hope is that we continue to remember where we came from and the art created by past generations. I wish we continue to add links to history’s creative art chain started centuries ago. 

Art is a record of humankind. A chronicle of our time on this planet. The experiences and transmission of beliefs and traditions.                

Historical conventions which have brought us to this moment. 

An artistic and literary method of styles and beliefs passed down through generations. Embodied forever in our Art.

Wars are happening across the globe but as an artist, I want to address one particular battle. The coming invasion between real hand painted original art and machine made artificial AI.

So I want to make an argument for real art. Painted from individual imagination and by traditional methods.

The art I create comes from the centuries of knowledge learning and understanding of others. Methods devised and cultivated by artists who worked and explored and invented. Work that has shaped the world into who we are today. Men, and Women, who, with intense training and study; who devoted their lives to creating gave us some of the greatest artwork the world has ever seen. Incomparable in its imagination, understanding and creativity. Works that showed us not only a real world but a metaphysical world. A spiritual world only previously imaged in ancient books and on scrolls and parchments. Stories handed down by word of mouth; story telling. Made tangible through art. 

Artists took these stories and made them real. They raised our conscious level of understanding of our world with Herculean effort allowing us to visualize what we were told and in the written word. And they did it with primitive materials. With care and love. From cave painting, by spitting charcoal through their fingers to wall covering, tapestries, ceramics; on wood, clay tablets. Adorning their homes with everyday images. Using paint embedded into wet plaster to cover ceilings of cathedrals and onto porous surfaces like cotton and linen. 

Throughout all these innovations the human hand and mind was used to move us forward. To show us the unimaginable. The unthinkable. Describing what life was like through the ages. Each artist, with training and imagination and ability showed us not only what was, and who we were, but embodied in their work what we could become. The possibilities that lay ahead. Each piece unique and individual from a personal point of view.

Art is the ultimate descriptor. We have build monuments and institutions to it. A visual interpretation of our existence on this earth. 
As we changed and grew so too art changed with new images and ideas from younger generations. Yet all of it individually made by someone who worked and trained. Taking previous ideas to create a new and unique interpretation of the life we now live. To show us the beauty of this planet and what is around us.

Through the centuries, art has morphed into genres and styles that may have caused us concern as to the future of art. But one thing has been true and never changed, no matter the art of any period was it was made by hand from an individual using old and new innovative techniques and better materials. It is a tradition as old as humankind. 

Regardless of what the future holds for us and art or what we invent as a substitute in its place, real hand made individual creativity will never stop being made. Unless we let it. 

Centuries have passed and automation has altered much of what is being made in every field. The individual has slowly been pushed aside in favor of expediency and commerce. Industrialization. Art, great art, takes time effort and experience to create. It takes skill, acumen and knowledge of techniques and methods and materials. 

It isn't made by clueing the work of other artists onto a surface or computer screen. We will always need artists to use their imagination and skills to create art that has authenticity. Not artificial fabrication.

I am practical and realize AI is here to stay. And more and more people will begin to use it. To me the AI being shown on the Internet looks fake. Plastic. Overly detailed and fabricated. I am not being bias here. This is a fact. Look for yourself. Nothing a trained artist would create. But the general public is easily seduced and dazzled by these Images. But, to me , they look 'otherworldly'. It is up to the rest of us to fight in this war and educate and continue to show and produce real art and not give in to the false idea spreading that real art is becoming obsolete. 

We can not control what others do or what the world sees in the coming years. It is more important than ever we improve our training and our techniques; looking to the past and incorporate it with future inspiration and use it to reflect the world we will be living in. Produce work people will look at and love. Not only recognize but appreciate real art is worth having. Art worth purchasing. Not art that is a knockoff from hundreds or hundreds of thousands of unrecognized artists. 

When I look at AI, it all looks obvious. Machine made. Will it get better? Probably. But we need to also improve and be better.