Un-intended thought consiquences

For a while the ideas of multi-dimensional thought and understanding have been prying, flowing,showing-up, and tickling my sometimes all to grey brain. In contemplating this post, the feelings I have come from a more straight forward approach. When first trying to grasp what wants to come out of this thought pattern I thought "New age religion" that is what I am trying to convey. No not at all actually (this is not an attack on any religion or thought process, just a bit of inter-connected thoughts that might make sense by the end of the article). I thought of where people are in the world that we are in and see great divides. Does this multi-dimensional thought have anything for all of them? I think about progress and the ability to better one-self. I think about what I feel means to better myself, and that it is probably something completely different for everyone else. Looking around and seeing all that we as a human species are doing to our planet, to each other, and to ourselves, I fell bogged down.
Multi-dimensional thinking for me is not that there are separate layers that we move through and each of these layers has its own set of thoughts, experiences and understanding. When you listen to music you might here the drums more distinct or the woodwinds or the piano or the strings, the brass. What is it that makes you here that? is it that they are more prominent at that time in the piece and all the others are not there? Of course the others are there, they are needed a little later for a change in tempo of volume or intensity. What if the orchestra or band is playing at once? Is it turmoil and confusion or is it sensible and distinct? Well it can be both.
To get music that astounds and uplifts, there is usually many layers or dimensions that interweave to allow the thoughts and excitement to scurry around you allowing for the connections to happen between thoughts, thoughts and people, people and people, and so on.
What does this have to do with art? well I work in different mediums and try to weave layers in and out of each other to allow for the previous layers to show through where they need to be and the new layers showing where they need to be.
Allowing layers or dimensions to interweave makes for a more unified piece of artwork. The same can be said about our lives. Sometimes one layer needs to be more visible and others receded or there may be a inter-lacing of many layers to show a more unified piece or there may be a jumble of layers that can be interpreted as chaos.
The ability to have many things in our lives, many thoughts, and many interests can be a burden and it can be a blessing. These many dimensions in our lives give us direction and inspiration. Sometimes when feelings of mud or lack of dimensionality comes along, someone might feel the need to make major changes in their lives. Sometimes they really do need to make major changes in their lives to accomplish this. I feel though that for many of us, if we add a little bit here and a little bit there, maybe take away a little bit or hide somethings that our lives (or our artwork) will be more balanced and unified.
Sometimes when a piece of art does seem to be going in any direction I feel it needs to, I try and do a few things. I will step back and ask my self or trusted others waht it is conveying. I will contemplate what the original intentions were and if they were off a little or I didn't have enough information then (the process usually gives more insight into what you were actually wanting to accomplish). Then with new thoughts, inspiration, understanding or impulse I will proceed. Sometimes this means that I completely change what was going on in the piece and sometimes, I just need to retrieve some underlying layers and bring them more to the surface. Both solutions (and there could be many more) work well as long as I have a clear understanding of where I and the piece want this project to go.
painting for me like running, music,biking,reading,dancing,and many others things for other people, gives me a great opening to allowing the art process to open my mind to new thoughts and to revisit older ones.

Until another flood hits my head I hope you fell this to.

Communication

As a species that is offered so many ways of communicating, I often wonder what is a good way for me to cut through the clutter and say what I have to say. This could be anything from everyday information to my artwork to cultivating new relationship to writing proposals and grants. Sometimes when I am so excited about a project or an idea, I can bombard those around me to the point of surrender. Some might listen, some might politely ignore me, and some may interchange dialogue. There are a few problems with this mode of information, sometimes I forget to listen to the other person and I probably come off as I don't really care for their opinion or ideas (this is almost never the case). I get going with my ideas and the excitement caries my to fast talking and quick reactions. I become selfish as I will hog a conversation to the point of boredom. To better understand communication I try and analyze what I say, how I say things, how I react to opinions, why I say things, and with whom I discuss different types of topics. Sometimes I can analyze all of that during a conversation and adjust it as I go a long and other times I will walk out the door and think real hard about how things went. Just like this post, I really have the ability to ramble about what ever and make it seem interesting to me. That is until I read it tomorrow and over analyze what it is I was trying to communicate.
What does any of this really have to do with art? Well art is communication and the better that I understand that, the better I can communicate through my art. I also approach art in a contemplative / meditative state that requires me to focus and un focus on my art and the topics or theme or theory I have set before myself.

I am currently pushing through many projects and one of the is a "I am for the art..." project where I use the basis from Swedish pop artist Claes Oldenburg to help me describe to myself what I feel art can be and is. Here is a link to his writings.

Getting side tracked or is it Inspiration

One of the hardest this for me is to stay focused long enough to finish all the projects I start. I do eventually finish them, but one project will develop into 2 or 10 other projects. I am currently in this situation as I am taking a figure drawing class and it is eating up a lot of my time. I have so many other things that I would also like to be doing. I am not going to go into detail right now but I am trying to narrow down my list faster than adding to it and hopefully by the end of summer I will have checked some items off the list and put some away for another day. Creativity begets creativity and that is not always a good thing, but maybe it is.

New things and experiences

This has been a great week. After finishing off the spring semester with a full load and an extra class on top, my grades were posted and I got my first 4.0. That was fantastic for me and well deserved after the work that was put into this semester. Today 15 Bytes, a online art magazine out of Salt Lake did an article on UVU, the art program, and the Woodbury Gallery. Part of this article focused on my artwork and some of the experiences I have had as a student at UVU. Here is the link http://www.artistsofutah.org/15bytes/10may/page5.html
With that, I have started a figure drawing class and look forward to learning to look at things differently while honing my more realistic side. I have a bunch of projects in my head and have even started stopping in on a alternative photography class to learn some of the techniques that are out there. I am excited because when I don't have to much to do, I get anxious. Til another day...

Changing gears

As projects end and new ones start, I find the process of changing gears to be exciting, challenging, depressing, and enlightening (yes all at the same time). The winding down starts and my body thinks that it is a good thing yet my mind says other wise. Almost as if an alarm goes of warning my internals that things are going to change, about a week before a major change, I get major anxiety. This usually is a restlessness brought on by the unknown. I do find that this changing allows for me to contemplate what I have been doing and what I enjoyed about it and what I didn't enjoy or would like to learn more about. This also allows me to think and learn about the new venture. I don't always know what I am going to do, but I am not one to go into things unprepared if I can help it.
Changing gears can be tricky in some situations and disastrous in others. It can also be smooth and very rewarding. Sometimes there is a slight or even major downshift that slows momentum and other times there is an increase in revolutions and speed as things pick-up and start to fly by with a nice hum of the engine.
The most challenging thing for me is when I am conflicted in wanting to do something different and wanting to do what I am doing because it is working great for me. This is not because I am scared or nervous about the new venture, it is more that I won't put the effort and dedication into both projects that is needed. Now if you know me you might be chuckleing about this, but I am trying to have a balance in my life that includes sleep and I have to try and dedicate myself and allow myself to pull back on things to create that balance. So changing gears I am and so far, I am not spinning out of control. Give it a few weeks.

The impulse reflector

When I view art, I usually try and figure out how it was created and why. I find that My own personal interactions with my art leads me to discover more and more of who I am and what I want. One of the great discoveries of my self has been my coming to understand better how I work most efficiently. I can be descried as an abstract artist, and this is certainly true, but I also am a photographer, a sculpture, a realist (if I really focus), a print maker, and many other types of art. I have found that I like to move and work quickly. This has led me to understand that I have some very strong artistic tendencies and impulses. I find that when I have a fairly clear Idea of what I want a piece to be in the end, I have to be very mind full of these impulses. These could be impulses of destruction when I really don't think that the piece needs to be destroyed or any number of other impulses. One of the ways that I work through this to work on multiple works at the same time. An example would be; if I am working on a watercolor that requires focus, dedication to the project end and restraint in over working, I will need to have a alternate activity to take the shock of the wide brush, big stroke, crazy color artistic impulse. This can be in the form of another canvas, a sculpture, or a bike ride. Anything that helps to take the tension and dissipate it. There have also been many times when these impulse are correct for the piece that I am working on and that is a different blog about why and how to look at and analyze these impulse to add this or take off that, and do I have to have a clear reason why I do something or can I just use my training, background, and abilities to decipher where the piece wants to go. So until that day...

Interacting with art and ideas

To be perfectly clear about my intentions (as clear as I have ever been, which is mud like), I would like to start out with a little bit about my ideas of art and the what and whys of art according to me.
As I view art I ask a few questions; What was the intent? How am I reacting? How do I feel about this piece both from a distance and up close? Does the artist make me question myself, both on a positive and negative level? A better question than that could be, Does this piece of art work make me feel something and does it help me in my progression as a human? These feelings do not by any means have to be positive, happy, spiritual, or enlightening. They might be boring, dark, depressing, surreal, or even sad. The feelings that a viewer gets may or may not be the same feelings or intent of the artist.
The progression as a human does not mean that each work of art has to impact you so deeply that you feel like you must change the world. The feelings that a viewer or even the artist gets because of a work of art, can be small and may not even leave a visible impact. It is then up to the artists to create enough work and get that to the audience to view to allow these works to slowly impact a viewer until one piece does make them want to change the world.
I feel that when the exchange of ideas happens either verbally or through any other media and your whole body gets excited, then true communication is being accomplished. That excitement can then be turned into action, whether it is in an artistic pursuit or not, your excitement and energy will prove to be a universal display of your interactions within yourself and with those people and ideas around you.