This past week I was able to finish a drawing of a ‘Monster’ face. I have been meaning to wrap up the drawings, and it was very fun to work on – I’m including an image, as well as another Monster painting, since it appears I have only shown one other on this site (Monster .4, the self-portrait, in the first entry). I expect to start another this weekend, but it is likely it will remain unfinished until January, as the Holidays require a shift in focus and energy. I also hope to start painting me as an Astronaut. Likely, next entry I can show the work-in-progress.

This week, two items regarding the arts have been on my mind. First, I have been thinking a lot about integrity in art-making, and the manifold rationales that artists have for making art. I have a deepened respect this week for those artists who, despite economic considerations and the wish for popular approval, choose to integrate art primarily as an exercise and a manifestation of their ethical and philosophical value-systems. It is possible, as a creative person, to tailor the art to fit external needs of success, fitting into qualified aesthetic norms (art as an end?), and it is possible to alternately/also use and create art as a vehicle for crafting ideas and value-systems (art as a means?).

I adore the artist who creates in order to speak louder to the world, respectfully declining careerist pressures when it conflicts with his/her vision and passion. I had the opportunity to watch the Nobel Prize Lecture of the playwright Harold Pinter this past weekend, and while admitting a limited knowledge of his work, felt very well educated regarding his perspective on life and art. It was a roughly 40-minute, intensely-well-composed speech, full of simmering passion, a direct confrontation and interrogation of culture, politics, and art. I gained a tremendous respect for his work, even without having an intimate knowledge of it, and feel very compelled to search out his plays. It was a heated politically-pointed speech, and also very deeply humanitarian. It was very clear to me that his process is deeply ingrained in his daily life, and I came away thankful for the experience.

The other item I have been thinking about, somewhat related to the first, is the quality of having the drive to see one’s vision through with minimal self-censorship. Again, I think that this is an issue of integrity, certainly self-confidence. Last weekend, I purchased a large used book of Gilbert & George art from 1971 to 1985. I was initially reluctant to pick it up, but I was drawn to the huge history of work in the catalogue. [As a side note, I may have to open my own Art Library should my book-buying addiction persist.] It was good to be able to see the range of work through the 15 years, how they developed, which works seemed thin and which ones were deeper-feeling. They are not my favorite artists – I sometimes think of them as possibly the most non-shocking shocking artists – but they have a fine hold on their craft, and they seem to work free of a significant degree of self-censorship. This makes a number of their works very intriguing and dynamic. Granted, not all the images are great, but taken as a whole it is rather powerful.

So, as I begin one painting for me, and possibly another for a client, while I near the end of this year and the beginning of the next, I am thinking on these things. While walking the overlap between wanting to make art as a livelihood and the desire to make art because it is one of the voices I speak best with, I feel myself leaning toward this will: making the best work my skills and thoughts can bring together, and making more art – allowing myself to err in judgment – in the hopes that the voice I develop through the exercise is clearer, stronger, and more integrated with the life and future I envision.

I think that that is a reasonable resolution for the New Year.

Best,

Demi Raven