I Have Two Eyes, I Have Two Hands, I Have Two Brains...

08.10.21

I have an urgent need to speak - much has been left too long unsaid,...

By now I've executed countless projects and created many images meant to serve commercial art clients and their needs. I am today 49 years of age.

It seems that visual art in general can sometimes serve as a vehicle to promote or advertise ideas, but the more narrowly defined commercial art form often falls well short of being a vehicle that inspires and uplifts. Its thrust is too focused on the transactional message to allow room for spiritual issues, so, not surprisingly, none appear. Humor is about as close as one gets to anything transcendent.

So what have I gained by my pursuit of the commercial arts? I must admit to choosing that course out of a fear of artistic inadequacy, but the path has brought me much valuable experience. It has brought me a rich understanding of the digital tools of this trade. It has pried me away from a self-absorbed creative stance so that I see the desires of others. It has pulled my ego out of the endeavor, so I now have the capacity to dispassionately execute under the direction of another, offering no judgement as to the merits of the final product. Now, when I do involve my ego, I know that I am doing so and can truly appreciate my own uniqueness.

I observe that years spent in the service of commercial clients, while productive of some satisfying imagery and design work, have neglected the more sublime aspects of the artmaking process. I've become skilled with the digital tools preferred by practitioners of commercial art, but I now want to broaden the scope of my endeavors beyond promoting a product or service.

Advertising strategically takes such a clinical approach, addressing primarily the problem of stoking desire. It addresses us in the language of comparisons, to others, to circumstances unmanifest, to states unrealized. We are asked to accept these as desirable, presented to us often unbidden, unqualified and bereft of true connection to self and source, and embrace them as our own best imaginings. These are but pale constructions of reality, serving only the limited purpose of encouraging commerce.

Thus I have this long history in the service of commerce, but I now seek more than that.

Broadly, the visual arts open us up to the visceral, the profoundly felt, the wordless but somehow still known. Subconsciously, we welcome the familiar impression left by the human touch. In visual art, we see far more than simply what we lack - we can see, from our own inner being, what we truly desire, uncompromised by comparison with another's reality. We see through our own interpretation those messages that are uniquely suited to our personal understanding of the universe. We see these things because there are no restrictions placed on our responses.

Technology has now democratized the artmaking process, or so it would seem. Results are no longer so strictly tied to formal training in the traditional skills and disciplines reserved for "artists." Instead, we are facilitated in our image-making by lenses, software, and other tools, so that everyone can indeed "draw a straight line." This circumstance has been quickly embraced by the commercial arts for the efficiencies it offers in the production of advertising, but more slowly by the fine arts, being somewhat suspicious of the authenticity & appropriateness of these new tools.

We are approaching (are in the midst of?) an evolutionary inflection point in our creative activities. Since our abilities to make images can be augmented by technology, we can choose to dispense with the rudimentary struggles to recognizably describe our given vision and instead concentrate our energies on refining that vision. When we relinquish our adherence to tradition long enough to appreciate the expanded expressions now available to us, we grow with those expanded expressions.

Given that the function of pictorial rendition is now so ably assisted, we might concentrate on intention and ideas. Our constructs might become more ephemeral, as in video or on the web, but I will still argue for the value of the tangible. Nothing quite satisfies like the artifact created, remaining as evidence, a testimony to an inspiration. It endures to deliver its message & impresses us with its vitality, independent of memory. I propose that the tangibility of the crafted artifact grounds us, ties us to our physical reality, brings us a sense of where we are and the relation we have with All That Is. The intention & ideas behind art have in fact always been about accessing those unseen worlds we inhabit but don't quite apprehend.

So, even though we are now able to work more completely with ideas independent of the need to create images or things, but images and things are still the medium that conveys the ideas to an audience. I continue to make images that are meant for output because I wish them to be seen.

It is in this place that I now find myself. I love working with these tools; I have become proficient in their use. I take great satisfaction from the images I can generate, and even more as they are made tangible artifacts by various methods of output. I now have the visual skills & abilities afforded me by these technologies, the ability to see from the perspectives of others, and the detachment from prejudice born of doing client-driven, commercial work. I also know my own heart better, can recognize my inner vision as it emerges, paying it proper deference.