I don’t know if you’ve ever considered what the challenges are in today’s world when making art. I know I have. In reality, there are too many to write about, but I will tackle a couple of them that seem to plague most artists today.
INSPIRATION
The first one is a heavy one. Inspiration is finding an idea worth working on. So many people seem to make an image here or there, all unrelated or disjointed. One thing that technology (mostly social media) has done is demand immense amounts of “eye candy” for the viewer. I see photographers today “feeding the monster” with all kinds of random, chocolate box photos they have nothing to say about. All trying to get the dopamine hit from the “likes” and “hearts” on the posts.
“Sage and Antlers,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print June 27, 2023, matted with a whole plate opening—I was inspired by shapes again and wanted to create more of a “mood—warm colors and mysterious. These prints are gorgeous in your hands. These are iPhone snaps of them, but you can get the idea.
Many times before, I’ve said that we might need a moratorium on image-making. Slow down. Take a break, maybe step back, and reevaluate everything. Spend some time with self-examination. Like life, making photographs today can seem like a frenzied activity with no particular narrative in mind. It's so easy and quick to press the button and post. Images that are empty of anything of value are viewed for milliseconds and swiped away like toilet paper, never to be seen again. It’s sad, really. We need to think about what we’re doing and why.
“Fern, Antlers, Daisies, and Rocky Mountain Purple Geranium” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) RA-4 Reversal Direct Color print June 26, 2023, matted with a whole plate opening
I love the way the prints look like something you’d see in a frame from an old 8mm color home movie from the 1960s or 1970s. I’ve always leaned into the word “memory,” since it plays such a big role in our lives. The work I’m doing now leans heavily on that idea. The color vibrates; it’s alive, but it’s “off.” A lot like us as human beings. The old optics that I’m using also lend a signature to these prints. It feels old, but at the same time, we know it’s modern. A beautiful way to engage the viewer.
Where do you get inspiration? You can find meaning in most anything you deeply care about or are very interested in. There’s nothing off-limits or “wrong” to make art about. But it’s got to be about something! Something that you are connected to in some way. And something that you can articulate your passion about. There are so many people emulating or copying photographic work today. It’s derivative to me. Far worse than bad “original” work. It is extremely difficult to do anything new. And that’s okay. Everything is built on the previous thing. The trick is to make it yours. The only way you can do that is to be so ensconced in the idea or ideas that the work shows your connection. That’s what makes art powerful and moving—the personal connection.
ARTICULATION
Maybe you have something that inspires you. The second challenge is to articulate that passion to the viewers. This seems to be an even bigger challenge than finding ideas to work with. I think the problems come when the ideas aren’t really a passion or the artist doesn’t really have the commitment they need to have. In other words, it’s not authentic inspiration. There’s no way for a person to articulate anything deep or meaningful about something they really don’t care about. Maybe the idea sounded great on paper but didn’t materialize like they thought. Or maybe they were chasing it because they prioritized how it would be seen—going after the “likes” and the “hearts.” The inability to articulate why you're doing what you’re doing is a death knell for the work.
“The artist does not create, in the first place, for fame or immortality; his production is to be a means to achieve actual life, since it helps him to overcome fear.”
OTTO RANK: ART AND ARTIST
I’ve been studying the writing of Otto Rank. His book, “Art and Artist,” was published in 1932. It’s not an easy read, but I’m figuring it out. I’m interested in him because Ernest Becker wrote a lot about him in his 1973 book, “The Denial of Death.” I think what Rank was implying was that the artist both rebels against his or her culture and, at the same time, feels guilty for it. Kind of a cognitive dissonance thing. Rank also tackles the difficult issue of artistic creativity. On the one hand, Rank says, the artist has a particularly strong tendency towards the glorification of his own will. Unlike the rest of people (non-artists), he or she feels compelled to remake reality in his or her own image. And yet a true artist also needs immortality, which he can only achieve by identifying himself or herself with the collective will of his or her culture and religion. Good art could be understood as a joining of the material and the spiritual, the specific and the universal, or the individual and humanity.
Another interesting idea Rank introduced was the contest between life and death. He felt we have a "life instinct" that pushes us to become “individuals,” competent, and independent, and a "death instinct" that pushes us to be part of a family, community, or humanity. We also feel a certain fear of these two. The "fear of life" is the fear of separation, loneliness, and alienation; the "fear of death" is the fear of getting lost in the whole, stagnating, and being no one.
Otto Rank believed that art and creativity were essential for human psychological health and development. He argued that art serves as a way for individuals to express their innermost desires, fears, and conflicts. According to Rank, the artist is a heroic figure who confronts and transcends the existential anxieties and limitations of human existence through the act of creation.
“Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, his isolation from the cultural world-view that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. The neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create—the “artiste-manque,” as Rank so aptly called him. We might say that both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an external, active, work project. The neurotic can’t marshal this creative response embodied in a specific work, and so he chokes on his introversions. The artist has similar large-scale introversions, but he uses them as material.”
Becker, who was deeply interested in understanding the human quest for meaning and the ways in which individuals cope with the awareness of their own mortality, found resonance in Rank's ideas. Becker expanded on Rank's theories and developed the concept of "symbolic immortality." He proposed that individuals seek to overcome the fear of death by creating enduring symbolic systems, such as religious beliefs, cultural traditions, and artistic expressions, that outlive their physical existence.
Becker considered the artist a central figure in the creation of these symbolic systems. In his view, artists use their creative endeavors to create works that transcend mortality, capturing timeless truths and universal human experiences. The artist, like a hero, confronts the reality of death and the limitations of human existence and attempts to transcend them through their art.
Otto Rank's assessment of the artist had an impact on Ernest Becker, who used Rank's ideas to inform his own theories about the human condition and the role of creativity and art in overcoming existential anxieties. Becker saw the artist as a heroic figure who uses their creative endeavors to confront and transcend the fear of death, contributing to the creation of enduring symbolic systems that provide individuals with a sense of meaning and immortality.
“Daisies, and Rocky Mountain Purple Geranium” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) RA-4 Reversal Direct Color print June 26, 2023, matted with a whole plate opening