A Matter of Style

Most artists seek financial reward and critical recognition for their work, and this is reasonable and understandable. However, success comes at a cost. The “successful,” artist quickly finds him or herself pushed into the “style” trap.

The typical gallery owner, patron, collector, critic or curator has too much invested in their favored artists and doesn’t want them to change their styles, at least not radically. Just imagine if Jasper Johns suddenly began to paint like Thomas Kinkade? What if Jeff Koons decided to devote himself to needlepoint? Or what if Sean Scully began to paint circles instead of color slabs? Breaking away from a signature style is always a risk for the artist and those who benefit from his or her work.

Of course an artist need not be a superstar to fall into the style trap. It can happen to any artist at any level and it is often self-imposed.

Style is the achilles heel of the artist and art-making just as it is the unavoidable emergent personal signature of the the artist—the sum of his or her preferences of palette, technique, material, tools, method, and purpose.

But if style is unavoidable it is also true that there are two kinds of style. The first is that which naturally arises from the work—from the authentic expression of the artist. The second form is an imposed style. This is the calculated application of technique and embellishment that is principally intended to enhance sales and build brand identity. It is this imposed style that threatens true creativity, growth and artistic integrity. Likewise, it easily becomes a crutch—a formula.

Almost always it is a mistake for the artist to try and develop a style, appropriate one or substitute technique in place of an authentic style. The thinking and genuine artist knows that style will take care of itself if only he or she does their work with passion and integrity.

Rembrandt knew how to paint light masterfully but he did not seek to turn this skill into an imposed style and marketing gimmick. Instead he used his tremendous ability to make pictures that today rank among the greatest paintings ever made. Thomas Kinkade, on-the-other-hand has promoted a facile technique into a style and brand—the painter of light—and thereby gained great financial success as a marketer. However, his reputation as a painter is nowhere near that of Rembrandt.

© 2012 Michael Maurer Smith

The Art of Art

Petroglyphs, Three Rivers Petroglyph site, New Mexico, © 2009 Michael Maurer Smith

Making Art offers the artist a means of escape and redemption. It is a personal and often selfish act usually done in isolation. Yet it is always an act of creation and giving. It is about finding truth, beauty, hope and renewal.

Whether the artist’s work is appreciated by only one person, many or none is of little importance. It remains an offering—a gift for anyone who would receive it— whenever they are ready. And if in making the work the artist has become a better person that also is a gift to the world.

Genuine artistic expression is never a contest. It is passion and understanding made manifest.

Art does not command obedience nor does it exact a price for membership. It excludes no one who wishes to join the fold. It cares not if you are male or female, healthy or sick, rich or poor, young or old, black, red, yellow or white. Art asks only that those who come to it bring with them an open mind and the willingness to see, hear, feel, absorb and learn.

Making art is the evidence of the artist’s decision to matter.

© 2011 Michael Maurer Smith

Photographer: Hunter, Shopper and Thief

Eckert Power Station, Lansing, MI, © Michael Maurer Smith 2011

Photography is an act of collecting and consumption. It is therefore in keeping with the zeitgeist of our times—particularly here in the United States.

As a nation we are dedicated to the production and acquisition of material goods. Our personal and national success and status is measured by what we can acquire, accumulate and show. We value nearly everything using economic measures. Everything, including reality, as exemplified by so-called “reality television,” is priced and offered for sale.

So it is we consume and value images as physical stand-ins for the desired object—the poster of the Ferrari or some other object of desire.

The photographer anticipates, observes, stalks, selects and takes the pictures, much like the hunter, shopper or the thief. Likewise, the photographer exists at the edge, outside the action even when in the midst of it. The photographer is by self-selection a voyeur, commentator, and the witting or unwitting shaper of propaganda. It is nearly impossible for the photographer to make a photograph that is not in some way a political statement—the tangible evidence of personal and cultural values made manifest and fixed.

Painters and writers also observe and collect but their art generates from interpretation and expression spread over time—multiple paint strokes, mixing, word changes, edits and erasures until finally the work is declared finished. This kind of expression is very different than using a mechanical device (the camera) to record the appearance of something in a moment of time.

The painter of necessity is immersed in the act—he or she is doing the painting and it will go whatever way the painter takes it. The photographer, by contrast, is separated from the action by the tool and technology—she or he cannot photograph the boxing match and be one of the boxers.

So one may say that photography is the (sometimes creative) act of exploiting and trafficking in arrested development. The photograph is a selective extraction from the flow of life that is presented and represented as a product that then may be collected and consumed.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2011

Eldorado’s Ghost

The Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau  encourages every Lansing resident to, be a tourist in your own town. This is a laudable sentiment and indeed Lansing offers wonderful things to see and do. However, there are things every resident should see that will never be shown in a tourism brochure.

I visited such a place this November (2010). It is the former site of the General Motors Craft Centre.

Originally built in 1919, as a General Motors foundry it was eventually used to produce Chevrolet Cavaliers, Cadillac Eldorados, Pontiac Sunfires and Buick Reattas. It was closed in 2006.

Today, General Motors is making a comeback. However, throughout Lansing and other Michigan cities there remain many reminders, like this one, of the cost of that recovery.

Here are few images of what remains of the Craft Centre. A word of warning. This is private property. It is fenced off and marked “no trespassing,” and that should be respected. The images shown here were accessible without violating the no trespassing signs and were taken from outside of the fenced off areas.

All images are © 2010 Michael Maurer Smith, all rights reserved.

GM Craft Centre site, Lansing, MI. © 2010 Michael Maurer Smith

 

GM Craft Center site, Lansing, MI, © 2010 Michael Maurer Smith

GM Craft Centre site, Lansing, MI, © 2010 Michael Maurer Smith

GM Craft Centre site, Lansing, MI, © 2010 Michael Maurer Smith

The Corporate Artist and Designer

Today, the nexus of money, commodity and culture has erased any significant difference between design (the applied arts) and fine art. The long standing definition of design as a service performed strictly for a contracted purpose is no longer adequate. Likewise, the idea that fine art is supposed to be (or even can be) strictly an expression of the artist’s vision is dubious and in the practical sense was never really true.

As evermore painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and designers, with their newly minted BFA and MFA degrees, emerge from the university, they are smacked with the need to make a living. After spending, 20, 30 maybe even 50 thousand dollars getting their degrees they want to make them pay, they are eager for an art/design career—to get into the “business.”

Artists have always had to contend with the market. If they were to do more than amuse themselves they had to secure patronage. In western society that once meant the church or King. Today the art market is a swirl of corporate and private collectors, museums, dealers and online selling. The concept of art-making has been overtaken by art production, marketing and branding and this has encouraged artists to adopt a calculated and scripted approach characteristic of following a “design brief.” The contemporary artist does a market analysis, and shapes their work accordingly.

So today the designer and the fine artist swim in the same ocean—our capitalist/consumer society where everything has its price—where every thing is a commodity, including reality. The large mural painted for the lobby of the corporate headquarters is as much a part of the corporation’s image and identity as is its logo and stationery system and both the painter and the designer will have been commissioned/contracted to do their part.

Ironically many designers want to be seen as artists. They want their work to be as self-expressive as they perceive the work of the painter to be—to display a personal signature—a brand. Likewise, many artists are willing and eager to make pieces for corporate clients according to the client’s terms and specifications, as if working from a design brief.

© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith

Deluxe Black Heart

Thousands of hearts once beat in these rooms on the south side of Lansing, Michigan. Some gave out here. Some were stopped by force. It was a place where many in their loneliness and despair heard their hearts beating over the buzz, squeals, chatter and swoosh of the traffic on the interstate just outside the door.

A view of the Deluxe Inn, © Michael Maurer Smith 2010

In its last days, the place was called the Deluxe Inn, but it was not Deluxe—that throwback name from a bygone era of big, over-chromed Olds, Chevys and Buicks.  From its beginning this was cheap place and over the years it had devolved through various owners and chains. Its last claim to respectability was when it bore the sign of a Motel 6. In the end it was just another “no tell motel,” a cheap and convenient spot for hooker’s and a place to score whatever substance might promise a quick escape from reality. It became a place of murders, fights, prostitution, break ups, breakdowns, and suicides.

Deluxe Inn, detail, © Michael Maurer Smith 2010

Finally, the self-selected good citizens; the police, city council and the very structure itself got tired of it all and said, “enough. It’s over.”

The Inn was boarded up and slated for demolition and the Ingham county Land Bank, which now held the property, decided to give the place a special send-off. They decided Lansing need an infusion of Art. So 20 or so graffiti artists were invited to paint what would be the Deluxe Inn’s death mask—its final makeover.

I found the graffiti interesting, but not unlike the graffiti found in almost any city. It was mostly predictable repetitions of common themes and characters. However, there was a difference. The graffiti here was done as a kind of funeral service. It was sanctioned and encouraged. It was not an act of defiance but rather one of homage and respect.

As I explored the grounds, I realized that no single photograph of these graffiti paintings would capture what I was feeling. Each door had been bolted shut from the outside as if to keep the ghosts in their respective rooms. It was eerie.

I began taking pictures of details, of what were like paintings within paintings with no clear idea of what I might do with them. Then I came upon a door with the painting of a heart. This black heart with its cracked paint had a powerful impact on me—I immediately thought of the many hearts that once beat in these rooms and I felt as if these rooms were now tombs—that I was walking in a kind of archaeological dig.

The result is Deluxe_Heart_001. This photomontage captures some of what I felt that day. There are more to come.

Deluxe_Heart_001, © Michael Maurer Smith 2010

© Michael Maurer Smith 2010

On the Value of Painting

In her essay, Creatives at a Crossroads, which appeared in the 27 July 2010 edition of the Huffington Post, writer Janelle Brown relates how the internet has glutted the creative market with work which is available free or at ridiculously low prices. The overall effect has been to make it nearly impossible for artists to survive from their art alone, no matter how good they may be. This has been most devastating for writers, photographers and musicians, whose work depends upon reproduction for its use and dissemination.

What this implies is an increased value of the hand-made work of art. As a painter I appreciate this.

Paintings, specifically those done by hand by an artist, using actual paint upon a physical surface, are unique in their singularity. They may be photographed, digitized and turned into representations however the original painting remains a single physical object—an original. Therein lies its value—a potentially a high value.

Consequently the reality of painting as a life choice, act and object is increasingly meaningful, valuable and important in a world that is becoming ever more digital and virtual.

© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith