A good read......"Art and Fear"

[Ed Richards]

I am not thinking about his craziness - likely schizophrenia - but his pressing on with his work and his technique despite the craziness. I don't buy the crazy genius story. He worked hard. Lots of crazy people see a different reality, but not many turn that skewed frame of reference into brilliantly executed art.

[Amedeus]

In illuminating and stressing that hard work and the daily grind making art is the common path to successful art making, it posits that simple hard work trumps the myth of genius (or troubled genius), it provides (to me anyway) a realsitic and sober assessment of the working life of a "successful" artist in all its various manifestations..

I didn't read any of the books mentioned in this thread yet (will do ... ) but "Talent is overrated" by Geoff Colvin touches in a way on the same subject ... he calls the hard work leading to success "deliberate practice" and cites a good amount of research with examples around it. Hard work in itself is not necessarily a recipe for success but hard work with a goal or in the right direction delivers results that sets one genius apart from the other.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, it does seem that his act of suicide is now being seriously questioned. I've seen painter friends of mine poisoned enough by heavy metal pigments to understand
what that can do. Nowadays "artistes" seem more into piercing and tatooing themselves than cutting ears off, but what's the difference? Bizarre behavior never has
been the mark of an artist anyway. Some are drunken wackos for some reason, and others are just as fluent yet seem like ordinary people. And I'd never bother asking a shrink why, because that's one profession more than its fair share of even goofier practitioners. I am one person who regards art and an art "lifestyle" as
completely unrelated. This town is utterly filled with "artistes" with both pigments and cameras, and damn few produce anything worth looking at. A few do, and
they're relatively ordinary people otherwise.

[Brian Sims]

I think it was Thomas Edison who said, "Invention is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." Replace "invention" with "art" and you probably have the ratio right. I've read a lot about creativity, and no matter what the creative result (a new interpretation of a classic landscape, a break-though discovery in medicine, or an inspired pot of soup) most of the effort is hard work--hard work leading up to the AHA moment and hard work making and perfecting the inspired work.

[Brian Sims]

oh...and I just downloaded the book onto my Kindle....look forward to reading it.

[Ed Richards]

Moving away from the metaphysics of the book, I like the pottery class example: students were divided into two groups. One was told the would be graded on the single best pot they made during the term. The other was told they would be only be evaluated by the number of pots they made. The group who just made as many pots as possible also produced the best pots by the end of the course.

This fits into my own prejudice that you make the best images by making a lot of image, not by waiting for the perfect occasion to make an image or using the ultimate gear to make the image. Now, do I follow this? Not nearly as much as I should. I lust after new gear, thinking it will make it easier to make more images, and I do not drag the view camera out nearly enough and just shoot. I also do not spend nearly enough time on the equivalent of darkroom time. For example, I shot several hundred sheets of film documenting the damage and recovery from Hurricane Katrina. We are now a little less than 2 years from the 10th anniversary of the storm and i should be going through all of those, reprocessing and rescanning, and putting together a story.

So maybe the book will prove to a useful kick in the ass for me.:-)

[Jody_S]

Moving away from the metaphysics of the book, I like the pottery class example: students were divided into two groups. One was told the would be graded on the single best pot they made during the term. The other was told they would be only be evaluated by the number of pots they made. The group who just made as many pots as possible also produced the best pots by the end of the course.

This fits into my own prejudice that you make the best images by making a lot of image, not by waiting for the perfect occasion to make an image or using the ultimate gear to make the image. (...)

Interesting analogy. Though it seems to contradict everything we assume about 'art'. Was that from the book, or was it yours?

[Jody_S]

I was just responding to a previous post, Kirk... and not making a remark about the book per se. Anyway, probably nobody will ever know the truth about him unless
they exhume his body and test for lead and cadmium poisoning, which still won't explain his genius.

The most convincing theory I've read to date is that he was color-blind. His choice of colors is apparently consistent with how color-blind people see the world. But, of course, I wasn't there either, and the colors are only part of what makes his work exceptional.

[Brian Ellis]

Bruce Barnbaum handed out a copy of "Art And Fear" to each of the participants in one of his workshops some years ago. Excellent book.

[Ed Richards]

> Interesting analogy. Though it seems to contradict everything we assume about 'art'. Was that from the book, or was it yours?

From the book. it is pretty consistent with the practice makes perfect view. For an art class, where they are learning to make pots, a physical skill, it makes even more sense. Like playing the piano. But I think I see better the more time I spend shooting, rather than just thinking about shooting.