Comments on: Entertain Me Lest I Swat Thee 2

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:41:55 +0000

Rick, the evolution of a piece of writing or music– or of a body of photographs or of a painting — can draw upon so many ‘influences’, can’t it?

When it works, it’s like a meeting of kindred spirits.

By: Rick Neece

Rick Neece — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:27:57 +0000

How words come to those of us who "write" is a mystery to me. How paintings, drawings come is even a further mystery. I write. I draw sometimes, though much to a lesser extent. In writing, sometimes a phrase will stick to me and I will follow it. Most of the time it comes from the most mundane thing I could place on a page. In my stint with Lish, somewhere along the line, he said something like, "Write a sentence, look for the mistakes and capitalize on them. Look for the place to insert the probe." When I wrote Insomnia, I first wrote just the experience of waking up in the middle of the night, hearing Danny reciting his lessons in Japanese in his sleep. I was awake for a few moments to hear him. It wasn't until I happened on the device of using the teacher's voice, to take me a few steps distant, that I found that story. At the time, I was also taking a course in Lit Crit at the University of Minnesota which turned the story into vague references to Eliot. It turned into something I could never have dreamed of. Abstract? Yes. And it went someplace for me, that I could never have conceived of, yet it got under the carpet of something I had buried for those long years. "What is love?" Perhaps? I don't know. Does the reader who now might read it understand my stuff with it? I doubt it. But perhaps a reader might see enough of something their own to own some piece of it? I seek kindred spirits, I think. And in that search, I find them once in a while. Like here, on the 'flock.

By: Coop

Coop — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:46:51 +0000

Daryl, I kind of like that idea of saying I made the head small because I ran out of space. But seriously– I considered replacing the head with a block, probably with writing upon it, as I have done in other drawings. Here instead is a recent drawing which plays with a similar pose: http://www.flickr.com/photos/r3nn3r/4128865090/

By: Daryl Scroggins

Daryl Scroggins — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:04:27 +0000

I like what you say here very much, Phil. Especially this part: “What I am trying to achieve is like a subconscious notion – I know what is wrong more than what is right – I see a scene and think it doesn’t work rather than it does.” That does seem true–that it’s easier to see what doesn’t work than to select something and know it’s the best choice that could have been made. Your pictures and films never fail to do it for me, and whatever the mix of abilities, hopes, practices, aims–there’s not anybody out there who can do what you do the way you can do it.

I guess some of what I’m trying to get at here is embodied in this question: If I think my singing sounds good in the shower, should I take it on the road? Should the people who care about me tell me the truth about this, or just get out of the way and let me “express myself”? I don’t think these things can really be answered in the abstract. But look at how many people go audition for things like American Idol, and are apparently devastated and absolutely perplexed to find that people beyond their immediate families are cringing and laughing about what they regard as a tone deaf person screeching.

Seems to me that all art hovers around the question: Where do I stop, and where does the world begin? It’s the mystery of matching what moves one (in a playful sense, or a tragic sense…) to what seems to move others. If you take the “other” out of this, who is ever going to be in a position to say that you haven’t “expressed yourself” in exactly the way you wanted to? This doesn’t mean that I must let others decide what and how I pursue an art, it just means that we always live in relation to the Other, or we are just falling into our own little party of one.

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:01:03 +0000

That was my question, I believe, Cooper.

And even then, I knew that everything is funny.

By: Cindy Scroggins

Cindy Scroggins — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:58:25 +0000

Everything is funny.

Yes.

By: Phil Bebbington

Phil Bebbington — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:34:07 +0000

Fuck! I ain’t bright enough for this – Mmmmmm process, thoughts! I guess firstly nothing I do is with others in mind, I don’t feel that I am photographing for an audience, even though I may have a notion what my ‘audience’ might like or dislike – actually like as people rarely say what they dislike in my experience.

What I am trying to acheive is like a subconscious notion – I know what is wrong more than what is right – I see a scene and think it doesn’t work rather than it does.

Of course, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t care about peoples reaction to my photos, I guess the mere act of making them public is looking for some sort of affermation or something. Oddly though, if I am pleased with it, negative comments would not bother me at all – generally I show what I am pleased with – positive is good, negative is bad but doesn’t change my opinion of the shot – as long as I have achieved what I set out to I am happy.

I’m not good at expressing my feelings and I am just that guy with a camera who reacts to what I see. Reading back over lots of words, not sure if I have addressed what is being said.

I guess the bottom line is I am secure in my ability technique and creatively, I guess dislike for a photo might make me ask why – nothing more than that though.

By: Coop

Coop — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:26:12 +0000

Well, I tried to post a comment a while ago, and CF’s server went bonkers and didn’t post it. That’s a good sign that I should stay out of this good discussion–which is mostly what I wanted to say anyway. Sheila (or was it our friend Melanie?) used to say, “Which is closer to being true: Everything is funny or nothing is funny?” In the spirit of that dichotomy, I offer, “Which is closer to being true: Cooper hasn’t got a brain in his head, or Cooper is just full of brains?” My answer to both is “The former”.

By: Daryl Scroggins

Daryl Scroggins — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:39:11 +0000

I’m big on “not knowing” when I write; I like to be surprised by what appears. But I would say that that works (when it does) because I have a grasp of certain skills that I don’t have to think about much when I use them, and because the “nothing” I am drawing on is actually a sensibility that reflects (again, when it works) years of having cared deeply about getting something just right–about not settling for “okay, close enough.” But where does this sensibility come from? It comes from my admiration of what other people have done and my ill-defined sense of what it might be possible to do that hasn’t already been done in the same way, better, by somebody else. It also has a kind of hope in it (sorry Lucy) that makes me eager to know how the people I care about most deeply will respond to what I do. I always want to be honest. If I say I don’t care what others think but then my feelings get hurt–I need to look more closely at what my real expectations are. In my view, the views of others are a necessary thing to push against–to keep myself from doing just anything and telling myself it’s brilliant.

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:29:40 +0000

Good question, Cindy; in fact, that is pretty much what I am just now mulling over, as one of the questions that can be teased out of Daryl’s musings is, “How does the artist judge his own creations?”

As for the reference you ask about, I was thinking about how I apply judgment to my own work.

Still thinking.