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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Curiosity about others. Getting older I guess…

Post Subject: Self inspirationPosted by Saturntube on: 12/21/2009

I am a self retired Painter also in my 40s, It is hard to try to live from art in a developing country and to do it with some dignity, but I did had some limited success.
The road in the art world IMO is really not about contacts and galleries and selling but, in my view (probably an incorrect-unsuccessful view), is about self knowledge. In the beginning one should learn techniques of course and this starts from an early age with some curiosity and some things you find easy to do some others may find challenging. And then the real artistic education starts, which is looking, watching and analyzing any piece of art you can get your eyes on, after some experience you start getting your own favorites and discarding what you dont like, be it because of the use of some limited techniques or because the esthetics dont agree with your own, and then some big walls start to fall when some crazy artist makes a work that really crashes your vision, something you never imagined but like so much you cannot get enough and you start to soak yourself on those few works, in my case I these pieces were Picasso Guernica, Monet Water lilies, Andrew Whyeth, Michael Angelo drawings, Motherwell, Diego Rivera Smaller works etc. and though they were very influential, my work was never even similar to what they did, except maybe for a few test paintings I made to absorb their techniques.What we say when painting is that you dont develop you own style until your own work becomes your inspiration. When you begin to get inspired after looking at your own paintings and start to get new ideas and develop images further on different canvasses. What happens then is that you get isolated you dont want to see anything else that could corrupt the images you are following in you head. Sometimes you are successful in grasping what you wanted and some times you just start repeating yourself without getting what you really wanted, and then you get into a block! and you have a solo show in a couple of weeks and you cant paint anything further. Music helps unblock some times, and my tastes on music became wild, form Beethoven to Cocteau Twins, Brian Eno.. trying to push ideas further. One piece of work can take 3 months while another can take 30 minutes and the 30 minute one is better! Another problem is when you start to acknowledge your sound system is not up to the task and that distracts you too.When you are in this stage comments from people become obnoxious, like shouldnt the hand be higher, or why dont you finish it, and the best from and art dealer: this work tells me nothing I just dont understand it, dont you have something with more colors on it! On my last show I had half the show of crap I got together to fill up the gallery and half of very advanced IMO very complicated works.. I sold half the show, guess which half!You can say I have been on a 10 year block and have dedicated most of my spare time now to advance my sound system and listen to music . I have filled the void of not painting with making horns...

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