The Fine Art and Design Blog of Darren Daz Cox

My friend Karina asked me where I was with my art these days as I’ve grown and modified my feelings about it.

To me, art isn’t a contest with other artists, it’s an individual endeavor that you can share with others. The second you think that it has a monetary value then you set limitations and will pursue and settle for money as the reward, problem is, if you’re an artist to begin with  then you really won’t be satisfied by just having money be the end result of your work so money is a pointless goal. Most artists just want money so they can do their art in comfort rather than sit on a big pile of it unless they have some gold fetish or something.

You don’t really need the feedback of your peers either as you run the risk of ending up like van Gogh and Gauguin, two great artists that didn’t want to accept the other ones motivations and the point is to make great art not make your fellow artists sing kumbaya around the camp fire.

comments are pointless as people mostly comment for themselves not for you, popularity can be bought with time and money but those friends are fickle and it’s pointless to pursue fame as it doesn’t last.

you might be making art as a way to showcase your skills, build your personal character, to compensate for percieved flaws in other areas or to capitalize on being different to begin with (and thats probably the mechanism the universe has created to encourage creative behavior, as if you were so happy and fullfilled by regular life you’d probably not be so passionate about the arts to begin with). but art is more than some darwinian compensation for not being a hunter or child bearer as we can be all those things and artists too, so if you do art because you need an identity thats cool but if you dont enjoy the creative process, only the results, then you are missing the full experience I feel.

there is also the idea in art that you are making things that will change the world in a butterfly affect, like Pollock making art into something that anyone can do (not that he intended to or cared) but that might have unintended results such as Yoko Ono going from being a popular big fish in a small pond to being considered un-cool and probably a poser in the very feild of art she helped create, which would suck, as no matter what she does now it will always seem like shes cashing on on her fame and money rather than making art for arts sake, even if she is literally making art for arts sake, it doesn’t make it fun if people think you are a fake, and there is a ‘universal mind’ like Jung said, what people are thinking and saying about you and your work really does have a physiological effect.

For example there have been tests done with sensors on peoples skin etc and the ‘are your ears burning’ old-wives tale was proven to have scientific validity, the same way you prove it to yourself everyday by staring at someone at random and they look back, knowing, if only subconciously. that you were looking at them even if you were behind them and their eyes never saw you looking. Scientists have theorised that’s why ex-stars end up being substance abusers and generally erratic because once they fall from popularity there is a physical withdrawl effect. So be careful if you seek fame as you might end up as a one hit wonder, type-cast by a one shot thing you long ago moved on from or just a miserable wreck when the spotlight is off you, not out of ego but from forces that science hasn’t even explained fully yet, but forces we know are true.

so what does that leave? and here’s where I am with art. I do art for one person, or contiguous group, at a time. Consider the new-age/ancient religion concept of ‘there is only one of us here’. We are all the same person, we just think we are separate individuals and thus if you make one person feel special by catering the project to their personal taste the ‘butterfly effect’ on the world is far more positive than just doing art for whomever discovers it first. If that’s too hard to wrap your brain around, just look at the zero point feild from quantum physics and understand that we are ‘entagled’ whether we want to believe it or not but we are literally all at two places at once, the place where you are now and the same exact point in the quantum feild. (this incidentally is a solid answer for how ESP works).

Expect all the fame and ego-stroking and possibly rewards that you art deserves,but from the tiny target audience, not the world in general. Often giving a reward makes the art even more precious for it’s audience and the artist should be gracious and only ask for what is reasonable. If you do a painting for a friend expect the friend to treasure it more than one they might have bought at an art gallery, if they do not like the art then that is the feedback you need to improve, a friend will take the time to give an honest appraisal rather than fake approval.

In the big picture, any art done with the best intentions, such as painting something pretty for your friends room, is perfect art. Sometimes, that art grows and spreads joy to the rest of the world like the spirals in a sunflower!

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