June « 2009 « L. Joshua Goodman’s Art Blog

June 27, 2009

Miss Bennett

Filed under: General Discussion — Joshua @ 2:03 pm

Back in the days of my High Schoolhood I had a teacher who changed the course of my life. Barbara Jean Bennett. She came from Colorado, or so I was told. She smoked like a fiend and had emphysema. Supposedly the climate in Phoenix was good for her.

She loved etching. By that I mean she DEEPLY loved etching. I can still hear her tone of voice when she would rub two fingers together while speaking about sugar lift and other techniques. She was intense and it touched something deep and intense in me. She taught us this technique and that technique, but what she really communicated was her love for intaglio printing.

Probably everybody has a teacher who changed their life. Everybody should have one. I think that love is the fulcrum by which all knowledge is leveraged. I read recently someplace where a man was recommending leaving your nine-to-five job and doing what you love. The first step, he said, was to find out what it is that you love. One way to know what it is you love is if you find yourself thinking about it in the night, and I quite agree. THAT is the kind of intensity that Miss Bennett brought to us.

If anybody knows what ever happened to Miss Bennett, PLEASE let me know. I can’t imagine that she is still with us. Except in moments like these when I am working in the studio and thinking about her. Then I know that her love is alive and well. And still inTENse!

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June 5, 2009

No Pretty Pictures

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: Andy Warhol, art, etching, Franz Kline, pictorial, Rembrandt, Reubens, Surrealist Manifesto, telling the story, Van Gogh, Vermeer — Joshua @ 1:24 pm

I am philosophically opposed to pretty pictures. I’m not sure I could do a pretty picture even if I wanted to. Maybe I could and maybe I couldn’t. But the thing is that there are enough pretty pictures.

Now don’t get me wrong. Making Ugly Pictures is not the only alternative. There is enough of that too. Sometimes it’s even the same work that is pretty and ugly at the same time. That’s called “kitsch”.

But I’m not talking about that. I mean, that for me for an etching or a painting to be satisfying, fulfilling, and maybe even appealing, has to be intellectually satisfying as well. I want it to talk back to me and tell me things that I’ve been thinking. Or that I would think, if I would have thought of them. I want to ask, “What’s going on here?” and I want the piece of art to tell me what is going on; and I want it to make a certain amount of emotional and/or reasonable sense.

I don’t mind if there is a verbal explanation of the work. Everybody from Rembrandt and Vermeer to Franz Kline and Andy Warhol had their explanations of what they were doing and that, interestingly, enhanced the pictorial value of each piece. The Surrealists and others had their manifestos. Telling the story is a big part of what pictorial art is about.

To look at a Reubens and to see the hand(s) of his students is a big thrill for me. But until somebody explained that most of Reubens’ paintings were painted by his studio, I just saw a painting, or perhaps an illustration of a Bible story. I didn’t see the genius of the hand of Reubens in the sections that he actually painted until someone pointed out that the backgrounds were not actually painted by Reubens.

Stories is what makes Art.

Everyone knows that Van Gogh was ignored in his lifetime. What people don’t generally know is that he only became known because of his tragic life. His paintings were a by-product of his compelling human interest story. Now, I’m not going to cut off my ear. But I am going to tell the stories that are the reasons for what I do.

Blogging as a gentle alternative to ear-cutting.

Be well.

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