Talent Is Overrated
Encouraged by Professor Hansen, I switched
my major to art despite not being able to draw a lick. In time, I found that I was not alone,
as it is indeed among the rarest of gifts. The ability to visually depict the
physical appearance of things is granted to but one person in every thousand. I base this on the fact that of the
two thousand students enrolled in the college, only two (both art majors) had
the gift. True, not all two
thousand students were art majors, but if they had possessed this gift, one can
assume they would have been.
Fortunately, there was a rapid decline in
representational work as the art world was over taken by abstract
expressionism. The ability to draw was no longer a prerequisite for
creating great art, or art of any kind for that matter. The artistic
community experienced a flurry of one-upsmanship aimed at producing work that
was devoid of talent altogether. I found my personal favorite in an issue
of Art Forum Magazine.
It was a black and white photograph showing a desert landscape accompanied by
the following caption:
Latitude 35.0083 N, 115.4750 W Longitude;
Location where 50 cubic feet of carbon
dioxide
was released on April11, 1961.
When I enrolled in my first art course, I
received my own key to the art building. I would have access to the building any time
of day or night, were inspiration to come calling. There were no
scheduled classes to attend as this was more a program of independent study
where all work was submitted at the end of the semester. Despite being
more than four weeks into the semester, I took a few weeks to devise my
approach and select a medium in which to work. I immediately eliminated
drawing with pen, ink, pencil, charcoal and chalk as it was certain to be the milieu
of the two gifted students. Since oil painting and sculpture were too
labor intensive, that left water color. Granted, I couldn't remember
doing water colors since third grade, but it would lend itself to producing
lots of work, quickly and easily. If I worked fast enough, even tossing
away nine of every ten, I should finish with an adequate amount of acceptable
pieces. In addition, I planned to properly mount and mat each
piece. I had learned first hand by framing prints for the college
President's home, how presentation could improve the overall impact. I
conceived of a mass production approach and scrounged around for spray bottles
prior to my first work session.
The first time I went to the building to
work was on a Sunday around one in the morning when I knew I would have the
place to myself. The building had ample materials for my needs, including
paper, paints and used mats. The best location for my painting session
proved to be the figure drawing studio with a cement floor that would be easy
to mop and the windows were covered. I had only to move a dozen easels
aside to create a large open space. I covered the open space with large
sheets of paper except for a few narrow pathways that would enable me to move
about and avoid stepping on the paper sheets. I used paper intended for
water color as well as a variety of other types. I used an empty Windex
spray bottle which I filled with water and used to wet the paper as I made my
way along the pathways. I used additional spray bottles in the same
manner to randomly disperse a variety of colors.
At one point I noticed that I had
inadvertently stepped on a few of the pieces of paper. I looked closer
and saw that the tire tread soles of the Mexican sandals I was wearing had
created a terrific look. I reserved a section of the floor where I
continued with this technique. The other pleasant surprise was how the
simple use of a little white color can dramatically affect a painting.
This is most noticeable when the white background has been covered by colors
and the addition of white suddenly reintroduces a bit of stark contrast and an
immediate focal point. I hadn't planned on using white, figuring it would
be thinned out too much to show. However, as I began lobbing solid gobs
of undiluted paint of various colors around the room, I saw that with the
white, things really came alive.
In my excited state, I had forgotten to
check the custodial closet to ensure it was open and that there was a mop I
could use. I found the closet was open and there was a mop. It was
then that I spotted the toilet plungers. There was a traditional model
with a red rubber end-piece shaped like an inverted bowl; a second model with a
black rubber end-piece shaped like a globe; and finally, the mother of all
plungers, black and fitted with an accordion shaped bellows device. I
grabbed up the plungers and returned to the figure drawing studio. I
began cautiously as I didn't want to ruin what I had done so far. I tried
each model to see the results. Thwock! It was beyond anything I
could have imagined. I instantly devoted a quarter of the floor to this
technique Thwock! Thwock! Thwock!
Thwock! Thwock! Thwock! Thwock!
Thwock! Thwock! Thwock! Thwock!
Thwock!
I returned the plungers to the custodial
supply closet and turned the thermostat up as far as it would go. It was
getting close to three in the morning and I needed to dry the painted sheets of
paper so I could remove them from the building before five. I removed the
painted sheets from the figure drawing studio and placed them next to the
heating vents in the other rooms.
I mopped the floor, cleaned and replaced
all items that I had moved or used. I loaded up with a variety of
different sized mats to take with me as well. The mats were expensive if
purchased new, hence, the mats that were available to students were
recycled. Once your work had been presented or exhibited, the painting or
drawing is removed and the mat went back on the shelf. I took the painted
sheets and mats home and began working on the next part of my plan.
I set up a work area in the patio of my
parent's house. The next task was to pass the various size mats with
their rectangular openings over the surface of the painted sheets looking
through the opening to discover the best compositions. The painted paper
sheets measured 26 X 40 inches and the mat windows were much smaller, none
larger than 9 X 12 inches.
Using this technique enabled me to locate dynamic mini-compositions that simply
disappeared if you viewed the full sheet. I had gone to the library and
found books on elements of composition which advised (1) a focal point placed
slightly below and to the right of center; and (2), a balance rather than
extremes for visual opposites such as chaos and order, light and dark,
etc. My window method made any intellectualizing unnecessary. As I
slid the small mats across the painted sheets, I would find visual creations whose
brilliance had come by means of pure accident with results beyond the reach of
a rational mind.
After I had marked and cut out the best
of what the windows had revealed, I dumped the remainder of the sheets. I
had managed to harvest around fifteen percent of the total area covered in
paint. I then sorted the mini-compositions into several groups based on
similarities such as size, colors, etc. I titled and dated the pieces in
each group to represent a theme. One such group was the Arroyo Seco Series.
The Arroyo Seco was a tributary that fed from the San Gabiel Mountains into the Los Angeles River
I put in one more late-night mass
production effort at the art building before the end of the semester.
During this session I repeated the same discipline but also found use for some
other items from the custodial supply closet. The furniture polish and the
bleach were a disappointment but the Dutch brand cleanser and the plumbers
snake were winners.
At semester's end I turned in over 170 pieces.
Most were grouped in one of the twelve series I had concocted. Every
piece was framed with a mat, titled and dated. It looked like I had my
own gallery. It was one course down and eleven more to go to make it to
graduation.