Baby You're on the Brink

“The seminal lie of radicalism is that all change is automatically for the better, even though much of our experience of life teaches us otherwise.” – Giles Auty, Postmodernism’s Assault on Western Culture.

When I was at Art School groundless assumptions and one-sided affirmations whirled about me persistently, held me up at classroom doors, and smirked at me conspiratorially from set exercises and scheduled excursions. Sounds like paranoia pure and simple, I know, but in fact it describes the effect of institutionalised radicalism on an oversensitive (or as I sometimes prefer to think of myself: a sensorially astute) conservative (unbeknownst to myself…so yes, that would imply less than politically astute).  At the time, I kept quiet. I was too overawed by the sheer scope of my intended career to begin charting a way through the mists according to any particular set of beliefs. Well, that’s not entirely true. I arrived at the base of the mountain with a history of belief at least, after exploring the possibility of a vocation in the convent (okay, go right ahead and think of Julie Andrews swinging a trunk against a backdrop of edelweiss) and so had the benefit of religious experience, with its clouds and nights and contemplations. But contrary perhaps to what is often assumed of such excursions, my mind was therefore honed to doubt, and to hesitate at assent, especially to anything that was broadly believed to be true. 

I had a deep respect for my teachers at Art School, I relished the opportunities to absorb the wisdom they’d accrued in their various pursuits of the summit (and I’m not just saying that to sound humble – to this day I cannot think of their ways without intuiting some lesson or other). But as far as ideologies were concerned, I was fairly sure our paths weren’t intersecting, except in so far as our purposes crossed.

I’m a shy soul, and it’s just not in my skill set to speak dispassionately in public forums, especially on topics that are important to me, instead I keep my cards to myself, and hope someone else less likely to stuff things up will set things to right. Case in point: the much maligned art critic Giles Auty, who in my opinion has made some pretty insightful observations on certain aspects of Modern Art criticism and theory in recent years. The article from which the above quote has been taken, for example, published in Quadrant, June 2000, is worth weighing in, when considering matters of ideology as they pertain to Art, and a quick peruse could be quite illuminating if you’re in the process of rethinking your approach to the practice of and discussion of Art and Art theory. Of course, you could always disclude it from your deliberations because it lacks popular support. Actually, I would recommend that you opt out in order to preserve a contemplative reclusion from worldly disputes (a valid, meaningful position I have complete respect for, as would be self evident from the nature of this weblog), but if you happen to be amongst the fray already…well, then.

“In visual art, the rhetoric of radicalism holds total sway and we have been persuaded somehow to make novelty almost the sole effective index of quality.” - ibid

I’m picturing in my head the vast white walls of my local national gallery, patterned as they are with those works that best demonstrate the ‘boundary pushing’ that has indeed become the defining criterion of worthiness, and I’m almost certain that as I gaze upon the bold,  monumental, controversial friends of my youth, there are actual scales falling from my eyes. They were loosely attached, I’d like to believe I’ve been looking around them for years, but sometimes the voice of another gives the necessary jolt to shake them off.

droplet #1

“the true vision and the true knowledge of what we seek consists precisely in not seeing, in an awareness that our goal transcends all knowledge and is everywhere cut off from us by the darkness of incomprehensibility.” Gregory of Nyssa – Life of Moses (2:163)

We are for the wonderful clouds

 I just can’t believe how serendipity has played out here, in providing me with such a fitting subject for my first manifesto review - the Manifesto of the Cloud Appreciation Society. I do love clouds myself, so I suppose my review cannot hope to be even vaguely impartial, but neither vaguery nor impartiality has a place in the unique mode of rhetorical expression that is the manifesto, so I hardly think their lack can be felt much in the review (allowing of course for the ultimate irony: a manifesto declaring in favour of impartiality). Taking a vaguely parodical tone, the Cloud Appreciation Society’s manifesto manages to be both vague and partial, without being blatant about either. But then, we would hardly expect the cloud loving folk of the Cloud Appreciation Society to be blatant about anything, would we.

So here goes.

The manifesto is a tight one, in point form – six points to be exact, or six plumes if you like, since clouds aren’t often pointy creatures. These are separated by cute, whimsical cloud dingbats – making an important visual statement I think – and range from pledges to defend clouds, to phrases in recognition of their beauty, to deliberations on the advantages they offer in practical terms to those who watch them (saving on psychoanalysis bills). It is a rather poetic manifesto, without being weighted down with too much high falutin’ language, while its organisation of content is random enough to evoke the sensation of cloud watching itself. Its tone builds beautifully, starting with tongue in cheek solemnity, and ending with a rousing exhortation, to “look up” and live with one’s “head in the clouds”.

It does a nice job of identifying the enemy – specifically, the tendency to exhibit “blue-sky thinking”, but overall it has a tone of reparation, and is predominantly peaceful in approach – one might, if one happened to be having a ‘blue sky’ sort of moment, expect to be gently encouraged to reflect rather on the benefits of clouds, not mocked or harassed loudly into line.   So, I would say, a highly successful, multi layered manifesto. Light, contemplative, far reaching without over reaching, and clearly defined, like a cumulo nimbus.

Indefinite beginnings

Here is where the blog begins. The hiatus, however, began a long time ago. I was once a practicing artist - I painted, I sketched, I went to art school. I exhibited - tentatively. Then I opted out. Like so many artists before me, I took indefinite hiatus from my practice. This doesn’t mean I’ve pursued something else, because I haven’t. I’m an artist to the core, and when I come out of hiatus, it will be with renewed determination, and hopefully, purpose.

There’s something of an art to this hiatus business, as it turns out, and the aim of this blog is to document mine, whilst exploring the theme of hiatus in a general, more universal sense.

Why? Well, first of all, because making hiatus doesn’t mean giving up, it just means doing something else for a while - and for me, incurable recluse that I am, it’s writing. I’ve always written, nearly as much as I’ve drawn. When art became impossible, writing was my fall back. Both artforms transport, both construct pictures, both allow for bizarre eccentricities of character (like cash register phobia, and the compulsion to edit). If I were really smart, I would have played chess of course. Indefinitely.

The other reason is, I love art. I love thinking about art, writing about art, and just coexisting with it. I also love making it, but for me that one’s on the backburner, for now. I’m confident I’m not alone, if not in my hiatus, at least in my doubt. I’m also confident there’s something to this hiatus business, and I intend to find out what it is. I’ll be looking back at the history of art, the lives of artists living and dead, the theories that define art now and those that seek to define the future. Who knows? It might turn up something interesting. It might even, arguably, be art.

Okay, probably not.