Being told your work has "no soul"?

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As an artist myself, I find that it's a combination of premeditation and spontaneity that brings out the best qualities in my work. It's all about having my ear to the ground at every stage of the process, teasing out each thread of importance in the work and keeping a balance between creative *energy* and creative *control*. A lot of the nothing-but-energy stuff that's been popular over the height of the Modern period, though, I find stifling or simply confusing. I'm much more at ease with the supposedly "cold" but in reality richly and subtly emotive work of an artist like Chris Ware, who maintains truth to his own nerdy, precise and withdrawn nature in his process instead of feigning an outpouring he doesn't really feel.


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AngelRho, this leads back to your excellent post (let me say that I'm delighted to see such articulate and thoughtful discussion on art here on WP!). While I respect an artist of the Abstract Expressionist school of thinking - trying to get close to that impossible moment of a full frontal bleeding onto the canvas - the fascination in the exercise lies for me partially in the mediation of an interplay *between* order and chaos, as you indicate in your suggesting the introduction of an intentional chaotic flaw. I try to dance between spontaneity and control - in concept, image-idea and drawing - at each stage, although some of the processes I use currently don't allow for such a modulation. Many of my drawings which end up looking very "tight" actually start out with the force of a running pencil; compositions that look (and are) picked over to a point that a Jackson Pollock type would consider the absolute death of the piece in fact have large new swaths or subtractions of color added late in the process, and shapes are changed. Nonetheless, the finished work is something of a miniature in its own right - small, baroque in a way that would make a vintage copy of Adolf Loos' Ornament And Crime break its tender little bindings, and eaten through with attention to all of those details. [Of course, even on my most ornate days I'm more Sullivan bank than Russian wedding-cake-palace baroque, but never mind all that - I'm a 23-year-old art student and I'm name-dropping ]

It seems cruel to oneself to try to squeeze something that would appeal to the emotional and aesthetic sensibilities of NTs out of one's NNT creative hand, especially given that creative expression is often the only really strong voice that one's got. Isn't it a bit wrong to waste it appealing to people whose ideas of creative worth, while valid, are subjective and certainly no better than one's own? Viewers can rightfully demand that a creator's voice is deeply thought out, deeply explored and deeply felt (that is, deeply in harmony with the creator's feeling, be it strong or mellow, emotional or rational in tone). They can prefer, perhaps, that the creator be well-read in the theory of their discipline, and take the latest and greatest currents of intellectual endeavor in the medium into account (although many great creatives have done without Theory, film studies, feminist literary criticism and what-have-you, of course). Beyond that, their concerns are theirs, and are not something that a creator can or should try to shoulder.

You can only tend to your audience's concerns so much before you stop tending to your own concerns altogether. That doesn't mean that audiences should necessarily be ignored, but it's a careful dance to be danced, and it's dangerous.

Chalk me up as another one who gets told their work has no soul. It's been a common thing people have commented on about my pictures. Mechanical, cold, lacking heart etc. I dislike many pictures I see because of a lack of technical accuracy, and many people dislike my pictures because of a lack of heart, emotion and feeling.

Well, I'm certainly no academic when it comes to visual art. Renoir and the rest of the impressionist school would have been considered intellectually weak in their early years. There is CERTAINLY no harm in being technically rich in your creative approach, and the academics like Bouguereau were stunningly adept in their abilities. As an art student, you have the advantage in being able to "talk the talk," so a lot of that is sadly lost on me when it comes to discussions on art. I only have the layman's appreciation for it that emphasizes what I like in art. I'm a bigger fan of the modernist/expressionist school because I find it visually appealing. Impressionism lacks such precision, but I can look at an impressionist portrait for hours. It just has such a quality to it that I can only describe as "magical."

Something we'll probably agree on in any art form is the discipline involved in producing it, and that's whether it's visual or musical. My advice on creating something, breaking it, and rebuilding it as a completely new piece is more about breaking out of the ordinary, applying precision to a chaotic world and giving a clear representation of it. If I were the sculptor, for instance, I'd want the person looking at the piece and saying "it's broken," to which I'd proudly say "No, it isn't. Look closer." I don't "get" art like I do music and sound, but I do enjoy those magical moments and the joy of having something revealed to actually be completely different than surface appearance. I don't get the impression that Snowfern is really interested in a strictly "academic" effort but rather the joy of doing what she does. If she's concerned at all about criticism, which apparently she seems to if criticism affects her the way it does, then it's certainly worth exploring creative options. This kind of thing happens to me all the time, and I wonder if anyone has considered putting together writings on a general "creative theory" that would apply equally as well to art and music. That's just how my mind works--all creative effort is linked.

When I get in a rut, sometimes I'll listen to a sound someone has created on a synthesizer and then take the software I typically use and recreate it. I write on the gearslutz.com forum, too, and we were discussing the "gong" sound used on the Michael Jackson song "Beat It." I listened to it very carefully and considered the clues I had to how it was originally made. The synth used was a Synclavier, which is an 8-bit additive and FM synthesizer. I know a little bit about the harmonic structure of bell sounds, so I created two distinctive bell sounds, applied Frequency Modulation, unison detuning, and envelope control of pitch and modulation index. It's not an EXACT emulation of the sound, but it's eerily similar.

For me, it's a lot like if a painter hand-selected the very minerals used in paint pigments, or if a sculptor hand-carved a block of marble or granite out of a mountain or dug up clay with specific content from a specific field. I enjoy the complete control of the elements of sound, and I find working with other human beings who DON'T perform with perfect rhythmic precision and intonation to be frustrating. However, if I want a clarinet sound, I can get a clarinet player, or if I want a handbell sound, I can play it myself or get my wife. Sometimes it's easy to get the EXACT sound I imagine, and at other times it takes a little work.

One thing I avoid doing is getting too many results by accident. I can do a number of different things. If I hear a lead synth preset that I like and say, hey, this would make a great pad or ensemble sound, then I know of a few quick and minor tweaks to repurpose the sound. Mostly I prefer making my own sounds from scratch, so I start with a basic shape, called an envelope, and then start filling in the harmonic content of the sound. I imagine it first, then I program it. I like the idea that when people hear something I've done, they've actually just stepped into my imagination for a while and heard exactly what I heard.

The idea of the Persian flaw is not an accident, though, and that's what you have to remember. The weaver KNOWS he or she will mess it up, but the flaw itself is a deliberate and purposeful act once the weaver makes that decision. Yet it is this flaw that makes the work special. I enjoy owning and programming a Synclavier, which is an extremely rare synth/workstation. When the hardware was designed and built, the designers and engineers were doing something that had never been done before and made no assumptions on what their consumers wanted. You want a machine that does everything? Here it is. They never asked questions on whether what was demanded of them was even possible. They had no clue as to how to go about it. The result was an instrument that had a distinctive sound due to the way in which its engineers went about solving problems. The FM synth itself is only 8-bit, but as you decrease the volume of a single sine oscillator, the computer boosts the digital output so that it always comes out normalized. This also boosts the quantization error of an 8-bit, variable sample rate system such that the sine waves are radically altered to become different kinds of pulse waves, something you'll never find on another digital synthesizer. The sampler always outputs a "hot" signal, and the output is all-analog which is controlled by digital envelopes. So even though the digital signal is 16-bit, you never hear a loss in sound quality or increase in quantization error as the volume level decreases.

I like that because it means very few people can copy what I do! I also design sounds for an old Akai sampler, Yamaha DX-line of FM synthesizers, and a Roland aJuno1, all of these things being vintage equipment dating from the 1980s. I also combine that with software tools like Logic and Reason, all of the sounds from which were sourced from the aforementioned "real" synthesizers.

Everyone who is creative has a different way of working. What I mentioned is my stone, my clay, my paint. If what I do is good at all, I owe a lot of that to having the tools I need to get the results I want. When I'm caught in a rut, it's usually this together with a time of contemplation that helps me keep working. I suppose if you ever got bored with what you do, trying to come up with original ideas, you could always try just copying what you've done before or do something with a more utilitarian kind of purpose. If you're into pottery, you could take some time off and just make coffee cups and soup bowls for a while until you get more inspiring (and inspired) work to do. If you're a painter, find one wall in your house and paint it a solid color--no texture, just a solid color. If painting is something that keeps you busy, you'll probably have a very difficult time seeing that solid-color wall as being a solid color. You'll imagine all sorts of things that could go on the wall. Resist the temptation, and save it for your next canvas.

My own worst enemy is a blank page. It sneers and laughs at me, taunting me. Then I suddenly feel COMPELLED to compose, and not often at the most convenient times.

As far as audiences are concerned--you sound a little bit like my old composition teacher!! ! For what it's worth, I completely agree. There is a fine line between communicating your ideas to an audience in appealing ways and compromising artistic integrity. Over the years, I've come to conclude that while artistic integrity is a tremendous value not to be ignored or overlooked, I have failed if I haven't effectively communicated what I want my audience to hear. You want to maintain integrity. But it's like the tree falling in a forest. I like to think of it this way: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it... ...Who cares?

I'm comfortable writing the music I write for the audiences I write for because I don't feel I have to sacrifice that integrity. Some things I write are going to be difficult to listen to. I figure if you are willing enough to stick around for the entire performance of one of my pieces, I at least owe you the respect of making it worth your while to endure the difficult stuff. I love DISSONANT, HARSH music. How do you do that in a conservative church without getting thrown out? I can't really tell you how, but in a church setting--worshippers have to recognize that perhaps the only reason human being comprehend music at all is because we live in a fallen, corrupt world, longing for the paradise we knew before the fall, and living in hope for eternal peace. Force people to dig into the musical expression of suffering and the joy of redemption, and it becomes easier to communicate.

I'm not trying to spread my religious ideals, btw, but just giving an example of how someone caught between writing for an audience and maintaining integrity might resolve that kind of conflict. It's another of those "creative options" we have to consider.

interesting.

since i have limited experience in my craft (started 2 years ago), i have had few opportunities to discuss my work, and the only feedback i care for would be from my fellow miniaturists and my cousin, who is an art teacher. it appears to me that majority of the people online would readily befriend me, only if i would give up the 'secrets' to my craft that is just hurtful, and has happened to me so often i finally gave up believing that they are sincere in becoming friends with me. therefore i do not take the comments and critiques i receive online too seriously.

i think the main reason i am bothered by the criticism is that i did not understand it. reading through the responses certainly helps. i am not as intellectual in my approach to my craft, because i find no need to be XD for now, anyway. but the way i comprehend it, there is a limit (tools, materials, etc) to how much i can learn technically, but artistically, it would be infinite. perhaps i yearn to connect with my audience. or more probably, i am experiencing a slump, and am seeking to understand this alien feeling XD

i would say that up until i had the 'soulless' critique, i never thought about whether my work 'connected' with my audience. it was very simple for me. i would make something, if someone wanted to buy it, YAY! that pays for more materials for me to make more stuff! i am very much enthralled by the process, as i am wholly self-taught and love discovering new and better ways to make an item.

my approach to art and crafts is very methodical. i do not colour outside the lines, i adhere to the knitting/cross-stitching/crochet charts, if i make even the slightest mistake, i start over or re-do the portion containing the error. it bothers me and literally keeps me up at night, knowing there's a mistake that can be rectified. these days, i am more lax in this 'perfectionist' approach, in fact, i deliberately introduce flaws, cracks and 'controlled mistakes' in my miniature works just because the real life items i am replicating are also imperfect. perhaps this is why my works come across as they do, for it is a reflection of my anxieties and idealistic view of the world. or more accurately, my need for absolute control over what i create. yes! i am a control freak!

i am learning to let go of these rigid thoughts, it is a slow and painful process. i'm glad i posted up this vague worry of mine, you all have explained it to me in a way that i can understand. now, to put it into practice!

I had an opposite experience. I had a guitar teacher who told me I played with a lot of passion, but needed to work on my technical skills. I had another teacher tell me I sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughan when I played, a guitarist known for his intense passion.

My songwriting, on the other, not so much. However, it was my own assessment rather than other people telling me. I would listen to the songs I wrote, and then listen to the songs I liked and admired, and there was something that was obviously missing from my own work. Like you, I thought of myself more as a craftsman rather than an artist when it came to songwriting. I took an analytical approach, where I would try and figure out what emotion I wanted to express, and then use my knowledge of harmony, melody, and lyrics to create the desired effect. I always thought my work was mechanical, even when I had other singers, musicians, and producers involved. I thought it was interesting to find out that Stravinsky took an analytical approach to his compositions, but I think one would be hard-pressed to call his work "soulless."

So, I haven't written a song since graduating from music school over 8 years ago. I haven't played guitar in over a year-and-a-half, either.

...and yet you go on to write with technical proficiency on synthesizers, an area I know little about despite a large music collection. I may be conversant in the rarefied dialect of Art School Kids, but I confess to feeling like something of an outsider myself. I'm a "cartoonist" or an "illustrator" to most people, whatever that means - although I don't see myself as existing mainly in response to those media - and I'm no more comfortable with the "graphic novelist" epithet, inappropriate first because I've never had anything published or produced anything approaching the length of a novel, second because "graphic novel" is a bastard marketing term like "classic rock" and not something that anyone should be proud of, and third because I'm interested in communicative images in sequence, period. Those images could be on wood or suspended in space on plexiglass or built by Robert Smithson out of rocks and sand 100 feet square apiece, whatever, I don't care as long as they're communicating their thing, doing their job and not the job of some other piece. For me, it's not about "comics" as an entity, about pamphlets of color newsprint superhero stories or phonebook-length anthologies of girls' romances, thought balloons, . It's about the piece itself. That doesn't mean I don't have an attachment to books, or to comics per se, or even to story. I do; there's a reason why I'm making comics, making images-in-sequence and not, say, enormous drip paintings a la Pat Steir or ballets or series of gates in New York's Central Park or advertisements. I love books as objects, and I love some comics as objects.

I'm not in the game to satisfy some definition of "comics," though, like some people seem to be - genre creators for the most part, although others do this as well. Neither am I out to engage in conceptualism, in art-as-idea, as many artiste types seem to be. This sort of work makes no more emotional sense to me than superhero comics; a piece of art is a physical object in space, not a concept, and I want to respond to the art's presence, want viewers to respond to the art's presence - not just theorize about it. I end up feeling trapped, or at least feeling myself to be without cultural space - neither in "Art" nor in comics. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but that's my honest feeling.

I've been adventuring out on something of a limb technique-wise with a current piece, using carbon paper when the light table tracing/reduction process to get a clean line drawing onto the watercolor paper to be painted became so painfully slow that I couldn't take it any more. There was a risk at one point that I was going to ruin the piece, and would have to start over the tracing process again, restart the many hours of labor; that moment is past now, but that's how I work. Sometimes, the piece actually does get ruined.

Regardless of how well this individual piece turns out, though, it's easier doing the work just knowing that I'm actually getting somewhere with it. I tend to choke myself with meticulousness, with slowness; it's good to relax that hold a bit every now and then.