Art through our eyes, not our screens

Linocut about to be inked.

This past week has been a rather artistically eye-opening one for me. First, earlier in the week, I was rummaging around in some boxes of old sketches and art supplies and came across a small piece of parchment paper with an image impressed on one side, with heavy areas of black ink. It is a linocut, which is a method of printmaking created by carving out an image in a piece of linoleum and then using it as a relief surface to create multiple copies of a piece. This particular image was created by a classmate of mine at Cleveland State, and was given to me as  a Christmas gift in 2012. We were in a 2D design class together my first semester, and became friends quickly, only to fall out of touch after I left CSU in Spring of 2013.

Finding the linocut struck at some internal chord, and I decided to get in contact with her and try to reconnect. I was motivated by a lot of great memories of going to grungy (but beautiful) galleries in the gritty neighborhoods of Cleveland, of working on projects together, of being friends with someone who actually engaged me and took the time to extend invitations my way. It was my fault entirely that we fell out of contact. So, I begin my search to get in touch; first, I no longer had her number, and I did not have her email address, so naturally I turned to the 2015 creep method of turning to the Internet to find her. 

I had absolutely no success. She was not on Facebook. She was not on Instagram. She was not "friends" with any of my "friends". Which of course rendered my search nil, but it got me thinking about something; this girl was not involved in social media in any way, and it was clear that she wasn't because I remember her being one of the most artistically free and creatively unchained people I had ever met. 

This is not a social media slander. Well, I guess in a way, it is. This weekend, I took a necessary trip to the Negative Space Gallery in Asian Town Center, Waterloo Gallery in Collinwood, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, all these visits an attempt to inspire myself in some way and drag myself out of the creative funk I've been in. One thing I noticed was the lack of commitment people were giving to the art-great works that took exclusive talent and labor to create, which were only looked at long enough to snap a picture. Most everyone was looking at their phones, not at the art on the walls and in the cases; I saw several selfies being taken in front of the art. 

There was one gentleman in particular I noticed, mostly because it was increasingly distracting; he was looking at every piece through the screen of his smart phone, racing around the room like a maniac, spending about two seconds in front of each piece-again, just long enough to take a picture, which he probably went home and put into a Facebook album in hope of generating a large enough revenue of "likes" and "comments" to give himself the proper social media adrenaline rush. Which is exactly what it really is. While of course I don't know this gentleman or what he really did with his hundreds of photos, it seems true that social media is a bit of a disgrace to art. If you're really only going to see the art so you can proclaim it to the world and see how impressed other people are by you, or torture yourself the need to receive constant affirmation from other people in the form of virtual "likes", then you're really not seeing art for what it is. (And not that I am a saint of the arts or something, but I will say that my husband and I were there for two and a half hours and only made it through three galleries-successfully, without taking any pictures).

I want to be able to see art actually, not virtually. I really don't want to fall into the habit of looking through a screen at everything around me, because the truth is, that's degrading, not only to what I'm looking at, but also to myself, for not assuming that I have larger abilities of thought and vision. So I was a bit ashamed of myself for not keeping in contact with this girl from CSU, because while social media can also connect people, it seems that it really disconnects them as well by disengaging people from the real world.

Yes, I have Facebook, and yes, I'm going to share this blog. You can read it if you want, or not. Whatever you please. 

In conclusion, I saw a great deal of things that other people were missing, even when I was in the same room with them. Which is unfortunate, because there are so many things to see and appreciate and learn from.  

I Sold Out

I have been consistently in the education system for the past 3 years, only just emerging from it this past August when I finally graduated with an AAB in Graphic Design. Now, I have the AAB in Graphic Design, a Certificate of Proficiency in Graphic Design, a semester of studio art work and a semester of graphic design work from Cleveland State under my belt. Plus, a lifetime of drawing experience.

Though professionally I am a graphic designer (by degree) I have always considered myself a member of the artists community. When I first started college, I enrolled as a Studio Arts major, with a concentration in drawing. I had a fantastic vision for myself, and feel that I fit in fairly well to the community of artists that I was learning with and under; I went to galleries, went to museums, basically enriched myself with the culture and artistic experience. But it was towards the end of my first semester in college, after scraping to get by on my own, that in a panic, I sold out.

Yes, unfortunately, that is what the process of switching your college major from Art to Graphic Design is considered among the students of fine art. I remember it being referred to as "going to the dark side". (Jokingly, but with an edge of resentment). I lost contact with a lot of people in the fine arts at school that I had connected with through our common interests. I had evaluated myself, and I had a picture of myself in my head, five years from now, with a degree in art, with nowhere to go but to continuously enroll myself in more and more school, because I couldn't face the fact that I could graduate and not find work. Not that a degree in the fine arts is necessarily a sentence to a life of poverty and joblessness. By no means; I know plenty of successful artists who have paid their bills with their art. But the difference for me was, I wanted a quicker fix.

I consider myself a hard worker. I have paid for college on my own, and managed to live on my own for almost four years and always pay the bills. Yes, I did work crappy waitress jobs, and yes, I realize it was not creative, but it was because I didn't have an option. I got where I needed to be, though I was on the verge of quitting many times. I wanted to go back into the fine arts. I wanted to see my work hang in galleries, not on a dirty, stained easel in my apartment. But I went on what artists call "the commercial route". I took what is considered the "easy" way out. I sold out. Feel free to look down on that.

I still draw and pursue my artistic skills, and I hope that one day, I'll maybe find myself in a position where I can go back to school and hone those skills. But I want to do so with the security and peace of mind of someone who took the fast route to a steady job and income. Yes, many artists can get lucky and become recognized and generate great feedback and revenue when they graduate with a degree in art. But, many can't. This is the digital age, so artists, please do not judge those who choose to connect their creativity to that and use it to their advantage.

I will never stop my pursuit of the fine arts. But why is there this animosity between artists and designers? We are both creative people in our own way. I am an artist and a designer, through many different outlets. So call me a sell-out if you will. Artists, look down your nose. But the fact remains that artists are designers, and designers are artists. A pencil, a paintbrush, or piece of charcoal--those are just a few tools that we can use to utilize our talents. In my opinion, all of these things are legitimate and justifiable.