What is it about art that is hard to define?

A thought on why art is so difficult to define:

If art-making is essentially 'right brain,' 'intuitive,' meaning not of the discursive, logical sides of our minds, then it can never be explained in the language of scientific verification, can it. I think the best art criticism attempts to bridge the chasm. But nothing in the 'discursive' world can explain art, let alone art-making, or predict its occurrence. You might as well talk about shivers if you want to talk about art, as Emily Dickinson did. If you get goosebumps, or are breathless, or feel threatened, or have a sense of awe, if you melt looking at a painting, then, yes, very likely you are before a work of art that is transforming you.

                              

My Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4

I have created an album for my Moleskine drawings. They are quite diverse in their styles I think. Some of them I like; others need more work. I put a detail of one of my favourites first, because that's for show, but then they appear in the order in which they were created, which is not always the order of the pages...

If you click on any of the thumbnails, a lightbox will appear, with all the images in a row on the bottom -click on the next one to make it large, and then you don't have to move your mouse from that position, just keep clicking and you'll go through all the images at screen size. I like the lightbox because the background is black. Embedded below the table I created for the thumbnails is a slideshow, with the captions (the little captions icon in the bottom left of the slideshow window is a toggle switch, click on the playbar and then on it to make them disappear).

I'm not very far into the Mole, and it is my project for the year. Expect a video when the sketchbook is finished!

                              

Not New Year's Resolutions

While I never make New Year's resolutions, this little summary appeared under my fingers... do you ever look back to the last new year to see if you accomplished your aims...?

Here goes:

Most of my current, and only, Moleskine folio sketchbook drawings and paintings are collected on my Green Fire webpage. They are all from 2011. At the rate I'm going, it'll be years before I finish the Mole.

During the coming year, I hope to make good headway on filling my Moleskine up with artwork that comes from deep within me.

Before me I have a fairly large canvas, 30" x 40", on which I would like to do a self-portrait. In March I turn 60, and that feels very significant.

I've been working on a 22 minute triptych of poems in a video for 6 months, and sure hope I finish that project to my satisfaction in 2012.

I have five videopoetry projects planned for 2012, and they are important to me, and, hopefully, in 12 months I will be on the other end of their production.

In 2011 I created an on-line journal, VidPoFilm, that focuses on the poetics of a new art form, the video or film poem, and I've written 11 articles for it so far. I hope to begin receiving submissions for articles and see the site start to develop the breadth I wish for it in 2012.

In 2012, I would like to start sending my work out to journals and publishers, something I have not done ever, not seriously (though I have been published here and there, in a few books, some poems and artwork in academic journals, etc.).

In February I hope to start posting my last NaNoWriMo novella in a private blog, which will constitute the first edit. I have a small list of half a dozen people who have asked to read it, so I will let that be my impetus.

I would like to learn how to compose music out of found sound and with the various instruments and loops in Garage Band, but that may not happen.

I hope 2012 finds my plans for a home business coming to fruition in all the ways I hope it will.

There, a quick list of resolutions that I didn't know I had waiting to be outlined.

Wishing you all a great 2012!

The set-up for a self-portrait painting. The still-wrapped canvas, 30" x 40", is on the right; a mirror on the left. I took this photo with Camera+ on an iPhone 4, and used some of the effects the app offers (no, my ceiling is not mouldy grey-it's actually white. Yes it is.). How many months will the painting take? Oy, who knows....