Judy Robbins
December 2013
My Turn
Judy Robbins
Judy Robbins of Tucson and Pagosa Springs shares her thoughts on something that most of us experience in our lives as creative persons - self-doubt and "blocks" when we can't write or paint or otherwise engage in our art. Thanks, Judy, for being so articulate and for demonstrating the need to have compassion toward ourselves as well as others. Two of Judy's paintings appear with her commentary.
The Hard Questions
The impressive Santa Fe easel, the Julian easel for outdoor painting, the paints and brushes, canvases and boards lay unused in my studio, reminding me for over two years that I had given up. The fire to paint had reduced itself to an ember and my attitude was one of discouragement and futility. The latest recession had hit most artists hard. Galleries were closing everywhere and it seemed everything arts-related was retreating and folding into itself including any belief that my art mattered, even to me.
I had not stopped making art, turning instead to a new technique in printmaking I had learned in workshops over the course of more than a year and also starting to explore paper collages. It seemed the printing focused my curiosity about the possibilities of ink and paper as well as keeping my imagination churning away. Still, I could not bring myself to paint.
The most difficult barrier for a serious artist to overcome is self-doubt. We see the art in galleries and publications and think “This artist is being promoted. Maybe I should try that.” It is good to experiment, to push oneself in other directions or try new techniques but assimilating current trends in your own work is not the answer to overcoming self-doubt – it is a symptom of it. If the art doesn't work, if it doesn't feel right or look right and it leaves you feeling as if you are just thrashing in deep water then leave it in the studio. Appropriating subjects and styles from other artists makes it look like that is what you are doing. Trying to duplicate the flavor of the month will leave you frantic. The only thing you should be taking away from artists you admire is the high standard of quality in the work and their example of a disciplined work ethic.
My Turn
Judy Robbins
Judy Robbins of Tucson and Pagosa Springs shares her thoughts on something that most of us experience in our lives as creative persons - self-doubt and "blocks" when we can't write or paint or otherwise engage in our art. Thanks, Judy, for being so articulate and for demonstrating the need to have compassion toward ourselves as well as others. Two of Judy's paintings appear with her commentary.
The Hard Questions
The impressive Santa Fe easel, the Julian easel for outdoor painting, the paints and brushes, canvases and boards lay unused in my studio, reminding me for over two years that I had given up. The fire to paint had reduced itself to an ember and my attitude was one of discouragement and futility. The latest recession had hit most artists hard. Galleries were closing everywhere and it seemed everything arts-related was retreating and folding into itself including any belief that my art mattered, even to me.
I had not stopped making art, turning instead to a new technique in printmaking I had learned in workshops over the course of more than a year and also starting to explore paper collages. It seemed the printing focused my curiosity about the possibilities of ink and paper as well as keeping my imagination churning away. Still, I could not bring myself to paint.
The most difficult barrier for a serious artist to overcome is self-doubt. We see the art in galleries and publications and think “This artist is being promoted. Maybe I should try that.” It is good to experiment, to push oneself in other directions or try new techniques but assimilating current trends in your own work is not the answer to overcoming self-doubt – it is a symptom of it. If the art doesn't work, if it doesn't feel right or look right and it leaves you feeling as if you are just thrashing in deep water then leave it in the studio. Appropriating subjects and styles from other artists makes it look like that is what you are doing. Trying to duplicate the flavor of the month will leave you frantic. The only thing you should be taking away from artists you admire is the high standard of quality in the work and their example of a disciplined work ethic.
JRobbins_Black Longhorn_
I recently re-read an interview in the June 2012 issue of The Sun (thesunmagazine.org/issues/438/water-water-everywhere). Ran Ortner, a painter based in New York, won the first ArtPrize in October 2009 for his “Open Water No. 24” painting, selected from 1,260 other works. He was interviewed by Ariane Conrad. Ortner had a lot to say, backed up by thirty years of painting, a lot of living hand to mouth and doing his research by reading about art and philosophy. Here is a quote from Ortner: “When you ask collectors what they're really looking for, they say want to fall in love; they want to feel. But the academics are leery of feeling, and they make the rules, so the contemporary art world is cerebral and favors conceptual approaches. I don't oppose the emphasis on intellect and on concept – in fact I like it very much – but I do feel the passions are underrepresented. Humans are deeply emotional beings. We don't rationalize our way into love, we fall.” I needed to hear this. Ortner's perceptive comment reflected what I felt but could not articulate as well as he has done.
As an artist or art collector, you may have visitors to your studio or gallery or encounter a work yourself that elicits a visceral reaction to it. People will say they “love” a piece and they very often mean it. You will see in their eyes the delight of discovery, a light of wonder and recognition. As Ortner proposed, you cannot rationalize love. In that same sense I think no attempt should be made to elicit love or twist emotions out of people through manipulation. If you do try for an emotional response it may not be what you counted on, especially from an informed viewer. On either side of the fence, conceptual or realistic, trying too hard for a reaction – shock, disgust, prurience, nostalgia, sympathy or sentimentality – is not an honest or sincere appeal to the audience. The appearance is that of the artist trying too hard for what they want. Subjects and themes chosen by some artists look as if they think they have figured out a way into our hearts and minds (and the market) without knowing how unique and personal their own mark could be. By painting sad-eyed puppies or Day-Glo galloping horses you are assuming that the art appeals to the universal and are providing what you think the market expects and rewards. As Ortner states: “Our job as artists is to become powerfully personal in our work, and if we touch the source, the most central wound, the deepest of wells, we actually touch the universal.” To be a sincere and thoughtful artist you must question yourself, your motives, what matters to you.
As an artist or art collector, you may have visitors to your studio or gallery or encounter a work yourself that elicits a visceral reaction to it. People will say they “love” a piece and they very often mean it. You will see in their eyes the delight of discovery, a light of wonder and recognition. As Ortner proposed, you cannot rationalize love. In that same sense I think no attempt should be made to elicit love or twist emotions out of people through manipulation. If you do try for an emotional response it may not be what you counted on, especially from an informed viewer. On either side of the fence, conceptual or realistic, trying too hard for a reaction – shock, disgust, prurience, nostalgia, sympathy or sentimentality – is not an honest or sincere appeal to the audience. The appearance is that of the artist trying too hard for what they want. Subjects and themes chosen by some artists look as if they think they have figured out a way into our hearts and minds (and the market) without knowing how unique and personal their own mark could be. By painting sad-eyed puppies or Day-Glo galloping horses you are assuming that the art appeals to the universal and are providing what you think the market expects and rewards. As Ortner states: “Our job as artists is to become powerfully personal in our work, and if we touch the source, the most central wound, the deepest of wells, we actually touch the universal.” To be a sincere and thoughtful artist you must question yourself, your motives, what matters to you.
JRobbins_Leaving_
If you are an oil painter you may remember the joy you felt when you first took up the medium that gave such luscious color and texture and experienced the startling realization that what was in front of you could be rendered on a canvas and emerge as some semblance, depending on your talent and execution, of what you saw. You could paint for years like this. However, there is a next step in the maturing of an artist and that is to ignore the market and think about your work and where it is going. You must be ruthlessly honest about why you are doing what you are doing in order to gain the confidence necessary to go on. I can think of some questions you should ask yourself and answer from that deepest of wells: How do I (the artist) feel about this work? Can I look at it every day and not grow tired of it? Do I cringe a tiny bit in the center of my being when I look at it? Do I love it - so much so that it would be hard to let it go? What do I love?
When I finally picked up a brush again, at the urging of a supportive friend, I looked back on all the paintings I have done over the years, the ones I was most proud of and in love with, the ones that no matter what anyone else said I knew to be good paintings. I also remembered the paintings I had done to please someone else and where they ended up – donated or in the trash. I looked into at least one of the wells and experienced quiet and saw the simplest and seemingly emptiest of places. When I look out at endless space or the loneliest bend in the road, the shadows of clouds moving over the landscape and the life that exists without my interference I realize that this is what I love to paint. The feelings of self-doubt were generated by what I saw in the marketplace of art but it was the self-questioning that I really needed to process and which helped me better understand myself and where to start again. By doing what I actually love I can leave behind the “ifs” and “maybe's”, those crippling uncertainties that hinder us as artists.
We are never really complete in our evolution as artists nor should we be. Creative minds are constantly producing and turning over ideas. My experience has been that if an idea sticks for a year or ten years, then it is saying something about you and to you and should be addressed in some way, in some medium, through your art. When a viewer stands in front of your art, they are not saying “I want to analyze and try to understand the message of this art”. They want to be moved in that “deepest well” of their being and recognize that part of the universal that includes them. They want to fall in love with what the artist, with love and sincerity, has revealed.
~~Judy Robbins
See more of Judy’s artwork at http://www.judyrobbinsart.com/Home.html
When I finally picked up a brush again, at the urging of a supportive friend, I looked back on all the paintings I have done over the years, the ones I was most proud of and in love with, the ones that no matter what anyone else said I knew to be good paintings. I also remembered the paintings I had done to please someone else and where they ended up – donated or in the trash. I looked into at least one of the wells and experienced quiet and saw the simplest and seemingly emptiest of places. When I look out at endless space or the loneliest bend in the road, the shadows of clouds moving over the landscape and the life that exists without my interference I realize that this is what I love to paint. The feelings of self-doubt were generated by what I saw in the marketplace of art but it was the self-questioning that I really needed to process and which helped me better understand myself and where to start again. By doing what I actually love I can leave behind the “ifs” and “maybe's”, those crippling uncertainties that hinder us as artists.
We are never really complete in our evolution as artists nor should we be. Creative minds are constantly producing and turning over ideas. My experience has been that if an idea sticks for a year or ten years, then it is saying something about you and to you and should be addressed in some way, in some medium, through your art. When a viewer stands in front of your art, they are not saying “I want to analyze and try to understand the message of this art”. They want to be moved in that “deepest well” of their being and recognize that part of the universal that includes them. They want to fall in love with what the artist, with love and sincerity, has revealed.
~~Judy Robbins
See more of Judy’s artwork at http://www.judyrobbinsart.com/Home.html
