Art History and Frank…
My family rendered in the style of Viennese Secessionst artist Gustav Klimt, a name I hadn’t really considered since sophomore year undergrad.
Full disclosure… as a young art student, I was not particularly fond of art history. I could never wrap my head around how any why the simple was forced to be complicated. How connections were connected by a million other connections that didn’t didn’t seem like they should be connected. I memorized the names, the dates, the movements, the art… but it didn’t move me. I was more concerned with the present and what I was making. I knew everything… and if I didn’t know it, so what?
Reason #286,951 why I’d love to go back in time and slap the hell out of my younger self.
As I got older, I got wiser (funny how that happens). And while not all art appeals to me on the same level, I appreciate the creation of it… even if I don’t understand it. I know what it means to stare at nothingness and make it into somethingness.
I’m STILL more concerned with the present and what I’m making… but I now know to create in the present, you have to have an understanding of the past. It all connects. Inspiration doesn’t develop in a airless, space… it needs stuff. A MFA in visual communications and that’s the deepest I go? wow…. friggin’ cartoonists, am i right?
The transformation of my FAMILY CARTOON STYLE series into an art history series is challenging me like nothing ever has… and really, I should just refer to the whole thing as an art history series. I mean, fighting the fight to put cartoons right up there with fine art is part of my life’s work… it’s not cartoon history and art history… IT’S ALL ART HISTORY!
I don’t know how much longer the series will go… and it really is wearing me out… but I’m enjoying brushing up on people, places and pieces I had long since packed away in an undergraduate storage container…
