#i get his creative vision. i understand him. i could be a real artistic collaborator. Alan move the fuck out of my fucking way

[bitegore]

[frantically beating off] ohhh mercy, thousands have been lost beyond the labyrinth of me, when you're lost you're lost in your own company, annnnddd CUT! Now That is DRAMA! god i NEED him

#red rambles #lemon #god i need to be out of this stupid school so i can be fucking insane horror directors who will let me bite their throats until they bleed #i get his creative vision. i understand him. i could be a real artistic collaborator. Alan move the fuck out of my fucking way #normal on main about tom seine rn #left alone for slightly too long with a headache so of course i went back to imagining getting to shoot him in the face again #im right. hed look gorgeous with his mouth stretched around the barrel of a handgun

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

#sw #salt #more unhinged rambling #anyway dowload the despecialised editions #unsubscribe from Disney+ #be free #usually we'd be having a big family thing for Boxing Day but you know #so God bless us all at home separately #I hope everyone had as happy a Christmas as possible in keeping with the situation #I should see if I can drag my brother outside to build a snowman

[theparaminds]

The musical puzzle that lays in front of artists is both sprawling and overwhelming. To make sense of the swirling emotions within humanity and form sonics that mirror them monumental. But in walks Umru. Just as the puzzle seems almost impossible, he reminds of the missing piece that had fallen on the floor. Like a breath of fresh air within pop production, Umru is solving different artist’s puzzles while also looking to finish his own. 

Based in New York, Umru is seeing production for more than its surface later ability. More so than just a collaboration tool, it is. in his hands, being transformed into a means of shared expression in a time of distance. In strengthening the vision of others, Umru finds a voice his own which carries through each of his works. This voice, ultimately, is telling a story self-discovery and freedom, stitching itself into endless far-reaching stories.

And so the puzzle sits on the table still with pieces missing, with a slew of holes and complexities. All of our puzzles do. All of our personal stories are united in the full photo being incomplete. But without individuals such as Umru, the pieces would be missing a lifetime. With every song he creates, one which touches another’s heart, a piece of their puzzle is found. The resulting image is slightly more clear and ever more beautiful. 

                                                         -

Our first question as always, how’s your day going and how have you been?

Good! I’m alright, I've felt really busy, yet unproductive recently though.

In your eyes, what defining features in your upbringing brought you into the path you’re on now and what was their significance to you as an individual?

I’ve got two very creative-minded parents and was lucky to be in an environment with few obstacles in getting to do the things I wanted creatively. I was able to use my dad’s old laptop with Ableton Live installed for example. I think access to the internet was also a defining feature, moving through online communities from Minecraft servers to Tumblr and Youtube fandoms to Soundcloud and Soundcloud producer group chats on Skype and Twitter. I was in a very small town and definitely relied on these communities just as much if not more than “real life” relationships to develop as an individual.

What were the core visions you went into music with at the beginning and how do you reflect on those original mindsets and values?

I don’t have this stuff all figured out honestly. I didn’t start making music with an end goal in mind. I started working on music early on enough that I wasn’t thinking about these things, I was just finding sounds and directions I liked on the internet and wanted to start replicating them. Since then I feel like I’ve been able to carve out and develop a sound world that’s uniquely mine even if my influences are pretty clear, but I’m still an immature artist with a lot to figure out in terms of vision.

Do you feel there was ever a shifting or eye-opening moment within your career that made you realize what it is you truly wanted to create?

The closest thing I can think of is A. G. Cook emailing me and expressing his interest in the parallels between our work. This was in 2016 or 2017, I was a high schooler and “Soundcloud trap” producer. I was a fan of PC Music but never imagined my music in a Pop context. Not too long after, A. G. had me working with him on tracks for Tommy Cash and then suddenly Charli XCX. “I Got It” came out on Charli’s mixtape, Pop 2, not much longer. Then a month after I worked on it, all of a sudden, I had all this new attention as a forward-thinking pop producer. It definitely helped me understand that the lines between these worlds were more blurred than ever, and my direction has definitely shifted since then—as much as I still end up focusing on sound design and convoluted production techniques, I want to make pop music, and stretch what that can mean as much as possible.  

Now, how do you ensure that as an artist who collaborates heavily with others you don’t diminish or lose your own personal spark and vision? How do you approach creation with others to be able to allow yourself to be heard and not simply listened to?

I used to be very protective of my work and “sound” and found it hard to collaborate a lot of the time. But I’ve learned to step back a bit and trust everyone else a bit more and the result has been better music. Especially in the pop world it’s impossible to get too attached to your work because there’s just endless music that will never hear the light of day and I have to be okay with that. And the work that does get heard may go through many changes by others after I work on it, I’ve had to learn to get less bothered by that inevitable process.

Which artists in history do you feel you could work well and create great art with, even though to many it would seem like an impossible or confusing combination?

I’m honestly a lot more interested in working with people who are making the current musical moment interesting. There’s plenty of good music throughout history but it’s exhausting to think of everything in the context of the past. I go to music school and everything is constantly about emulating the legendary studios and gear of the golden era of recording which never feels that relevant to me. That being said, I would love to work on a track with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, J Dilla, Sylvia Striplin, Wendy Carlos, or John Tavener.

What improvements and developments do you hope to see within your sound and artistry going forth and do you feel you’re near a point of satisfaction with those elements?

I’m never near a point of satisfaction, I’ve spent a long time trying to perfect a complex, detailed, sound design-based approach and I’ve still not made it far enough in that direction.  Now, I’m feeling like a more immediate, stripped down, and more fun style that’s less concerned with the perfect details is becoming my new goal. This is after hearing projects like 1000 gecs and waterboy by William Crooks that are in this vein. What I need to improve most on is songwriting and the simplicity and catchiness of pop music that I’ve relied a bit too much on collaborators for in the past.

What do you feel is your largest goal with creation and with your efforts as an artist? Do you feel it important to speak to others or is there personal learning that you’re drawn to?

I’ve never been good at speaking to others in any other way, so music is definitely the way I do it. I guess the largest goal is simply to create or help others to create music that positively impacts as many people as possible. Production ends up being a very supportive role if you’re the kind that works with recording artists, and that’s definitely a role I’m still learning to fill. If I can get super-rich and famous that would be sick too.

Looking forward, what has you most excited for the future and what moments are you ready to experience?

Music! There’s a lot of really important work happening right now and It’s gonna sound really good in the future.

Do you have anyone to say thank you to or anything you’d like to say into existence? The floor is yours.

Thank you Rylee. Thank you A. G. Thank you Tiam and thank you Paramind for having me speak.

                                                           -

Listen on Spotify and Apple Music

Follow on Instagram and Twitter

                                                          -

Cover Photo by Max Schramp

                                                          -

Words and Interview by Guy Mizrahi

[dprdabin]

Korea's Rising Rap Star DPR LIVE Looks Back on 2017 and Talks New Plans: Exclusive Video & Interview

With an onslaught of addictive bangers and visually-captivating videos in 2017, DPR LIVE has ascended from an elusive, underground rapper to one of the most talked about and celebrated new voices emerging in Korea's rapidly growing hip-hop scene.

Since gaining recognition through knockout bars and a scene-stealing performance on the critically acclaimed viral hit "Eung Freestyle," DPR LIVE―real name Hong Da Bin―has excelled thanks to his chart accolades and internet co-signs.

The 25-year-old spawned two impressive EPs via his explosive debut EP Coming to You Live from March 2017 and stellar follow-up Her in December, the latter peaking at No. 8 on Billboard's World Album chart, despite no big-name features. DPR LIVE also played to sold-out crowds in Korea and London last year, scored a promotional video campaign with Nike, and racked up millions of views on YouTube, all helping him garner a legion of excited fans all across the globe.

Yet what really sets the charismatic rapper apart as one of the more interesting come-ups in 2017 is the fact that he has achieved all this as a completely independent artist -- a rarity in Korea's highly-competitive music scene.

DPR LIVE and his crew Dream Perfect Regime -- a creative collective better known as DPR -- have relentlessly hustled with nothing but talent and determination, all in the name of keeping LIVE’s budding rap career authentic and true to the crew's message. Never bowing to industry standards, the collective's focus on positioning DPR LIVE onto the mainstream radar has already paid off in a big way: The crew received their first major monetary investment in late 201, which helped fund a new Seoul studio.

While DPR LIVE has already made accomplishments most of his indie peers can only dream of, the young talent is eyeing 2018 with higher aspirations. Gaining stateside traction for his witty flow flips between Korean and English and forward-thinking ear, LIVE earned a slot on this year's massively-anticipated, sixth annual "Korea Spotlight" showcase at SXSW 2018 among some of Korean music’s biggest names -- like R&B phenom Crush, rock sensation Hyukoh and powerhouse diva Lee Hi -- all taking place on March 16 at the Belmont in Austin, Tex.

Ahead of his debut U.S. show, DPR LIVE exclusively sat down with Billboard Koreafor his first-ever, in-depth artist interview at his new studio to share his personal struggles, creative vision and goals.

Watch DPR LIVE’s recap video and read full interview below.

What were some of the challenges you faced in the industry as an indie artist without an actual label?

Oh man, where do I even start? We had a shit-ton of challenges. First of all, financing everything on our own was the hardest thing we had to overcome. We started with zero capital. No investor, no fancy equipment, no nothing. That’s why we had to start as a visual team, but that was probably the smartest move we made, to think about it now. Not only did we get a chance to showcase our talent, but it also helped to connect with other musicians and entertainment labels. It was a good way of learning the ropes of the Korean music industry; how it worked, how we needed to evolve to get to the next level, etc.

For a good two years, DPR REM [creative director] and DPR IAN [visual director] busted their asses shooting materials for other artists in order to help fund any and all of our projects during that time. And the more I think about it now, the more I’m grateful for that, you know? Cause I know it takes a lot of trust and commitment. They were sacrificing a lot, and that’s what fueled me when I was making music. I knew I not only had to do it for myself, but more importantly, for my team.

The second biggest challenge, I guess, was the fact that we were completely clueless. [Laughs.] I didn’t even know what it meant to "mix songs," or how to get distribution for my music. It was all trial and error, because none of us had any prior experience. We had no money or any real knowledge as to how this [music industry] really works― all we had was just a whole lot of untamed passion and a dream. If one approach didn’t work, we would learn from it and move onto the next one. We learned a lot in those years. That experience is what helped us launch our own company. Now, we get to run our own show and do exactly what we want to do. No one tells us what to do, what to make or how to do it. If we like it as a team, then we do it. That kind of freedom is truly incredible. Our struggles brought us closer together and I’m proud that we have accomplished this as a team.

What is your and DPR’s greatest strength and weakness?

Our greatest strength is that whatever we do, it’s organic. We also know each other so well now to the point where we can easily align our thoughts in such a quick way that it allows us to get straight to work. There’s really no buffer period or queue. We have our own system that works efficiently for all of us. But on the other hand, we can improve and learn how to expand and grow our team. We’re known to be mysterious and unpredictable, and we like that because it keeps our fans in suspense and on edge, but it makes it harder for all of us to bring in new members, because we are such a tight-knit group. However, I’m confident we’ll get into the hang of things in due time.

Last year was great year for you. What are some of the most memorable moments?

2017 has been a life-changing year for me and my team. I released two albums, moved into a brand-new, dope studio, got to travel to some awesome places and work with some amazing people. I honestly couldn't have wished for more. Although all these moments were significantly memorable, I’d have to say getting our studio was probably the most memorable moment of 2017 for DPR. Might not sound like a big deal to some, but you have to understand, we used to hold meetings ranging from coffee shops to even local karaoke rooms on a regular basis just to get some privacy at times. Now that we have a place we can all call home, with separate recording, producing and meetings rooms; it’s surreal, to be honest. Really goes to show what can be achieved.  

Any mistakes or regrets?

No, I don’t have regrets. Everything I’ve experienced was for a specific purpose, and I really believe in that. Literally everything. Although, I had a fair share of upsets and disappointments, now that I look back on it, I'm starting to see how it all came together. Each experience was meant to happen at that exact moment so that we can draw a bigger picture. I'm a huge believer in the whole "everything happens for a reason" quote and so is my team. DPR was basically founded upon that motto. We all happened to meet by chance if you think about it. A bunch of kids, who grew up in all corners of the world, somehow met up in Seoul and eventually came together to do what we do now as DPR.

Your debut EP Coming to You Live boasts guest features from some of the top names in the industry. How did you get them to collaborate?

It was a mix of good timing and mutual respect, I guess. DPR was slowly getting recognized in the industry as an up-and-coming visual team and that really helped my musical career and credibility. While I was in the studio recording demos, IAN and REM were hustling on the video side and doing whatever they could do to spread our brand name. It also helped us earn some money to finance whatever we wanted to do in-house. [Laughs.] Also, being featured on "Eung Freestyle," which was also produced and directed by my team, gave us a good boost. It helped start a lot of conversations with artists in general.

Your recent release Her has also been successful. What did you want to resonate with this project?

Her is a more genre-specific compilation of songs than my first EP. I wanted to get more personal and intimate with my listeners on themes relating to love and relationships.

Where does your musical inspiration come from?

For me, inspiration comes in many angles. I’d say half of it comes from just an array of talented musicians and their music. The internet in itself is inspiring sometimes. On the other hand, a lot my inspiration comes from my experiences in life and the things I place value on.

Why and how did you start making music?

I started making music when I was stationed in the Korean army. I went relatively early for my age, and I had a lot of free time on my hands so I would start writing whenever I had the chance. That’s where my passion slowly grew. It was a good time for me to reflect on my future;  I had a lot of thoughts/things I wanted to say. That’s where I really picked up writing song lyrics.

What goals do you have for 2018?

I can probably make a huge list of what goals I want to hit in 2018, but ultimately, I really just want my team to stay healthy, committed and passionate. That’s not only for 2018, but that’s really a lifetime goal I have.

And what's the biggest drive that motivates you?

I just want to release quality music and materials.  I hope we [DPR] never get lazy or complacent, and continue to challenge each other so that we can continuously push boundaries. It’s not easy to impress people these days, but to rise above that, and to see that stamp of approval and recognition from people is where all my adrenaline rush comes from. It drives me and my team to go beyond.

Where do you see yourself in the next few years?

Hopefully in the next few years, I’ll not only be a better artist myself but I hope to see our team grow and continue to do more exciting things together. Whether it be a visual thing, or a music thing, or something completely different, I just want to see us all succeed together. That’s really the main point.

In the end, it's not really the legacy that I leave behind, but the impact we make as a team. There aren’t that many teams like us in Korea and for that reason, it’d be really dope if we could almost set a benchmark or an example for the next up-and-coming generation of creatives to think outside the box and really learn to DIY. In the end, that’s what we did and it's been the best decision we’ve made.

© Jessica Oak @ Billboard

#dpr live #dabin #hong dabin #dpr #article #billboard #im so proud fuck #180117

[rahirah]

Long ramble about personal fannish history of no interest to anyone except perhaps @fontfolly , who was There.  I mainly wrote this down to get it out of my system, and to put it down somewhere before I forget it all completely.

A few years before getting involved in Buffy fandom, I was involved in another fandom, where I was part of a writer's group for an ongoing shared world.  I really loved working with the group, and I really loved the world we created.   One of the other people in the group was someone I considered a good friend.  She was one of the founders and was an extremely prolific writer.  She controlled several important characters which held positions of power within the fictional universe, introduced many of the major storylines that affected everyone's characters, and wrote the story arc which was the major plot lynchpin for the entire series.  She was also the editor of the fanzine.

Some years into the project, Founder #1 stepped down as editor, ostensibly to work on original fiction, and passed the editorship on to Founder #2.  However, because Founder #2 was reluctant to say no to a friend and fellow founder, Founder #1 kept control of her powerful characters, and got special treatment when it came to getting storylines approved.  

Founder #3 was the zine's treasurer, and he got similar special treatment, even though he was far less prolific, and in fact finished only... one or two short stories in the entire time I was with the project?  He was also forced to step down as treasurer after several failures to send people the fanzines they'd ordered.  This behavior on his part, and Founder #2's reluctance to censure him in any way, stirred up a lot of bad blood among the rank and file members of the project, which would become important later.

Founder #4 was an artist, and her professional career was taking off at about this time.  She really didn't have time to contribute much, but she had a sentimental fondness for the project and didn't want to give up HER powerful characters.  She had vision problems and didn't like writing or responding to letters, which were our main form of communication at the time, until I set up an email server for the project through my work.  (At the time, I was working at a place which didn't mind if you did things like that.)  She liked email even less.  If you wanted to contact her with any hope of a quick response, you had to phone her, and hope she'd have time to talk to you, (which she often didn't, because art career) and tough luck for the people like me who hated making phone calls to relative strangers.

In the early days, Founders #1 and #3 kept in regular contact with #4 by phone.  However, as time went on, Founder #1 (and to a lesser extent Founder #3) dropped out of contact with the friends she used to write and phone, communicating only with those of us on the email server.  She stopped responding to requests for character Oks and plot consultations.  She also stopped work on the main story arc, complaining that so many other members had written stories around it, and added so many subplots and sequels and spin-offs, that she'd lost any desire to finish it.  Instead, she got involved in creating yet another monster plotline with Founder #3, set several decades in the future of the original story, which would have major (and often unpleasant) repercussions for everyone else's characters.

Since other people riffing on your stories is the whole point of a shared world, I thought this was very unreasonable of her.  The group, by this time, had a lot more members in it who weren't personal friends of the founders, and many of them were chafing at the fact that the main storyline was apparently a perpetual WIP.   At one point, I offered to finish it for her, just to get them off our backs, of course giving her full veto/approval/rewrite power over anything I produced.  She refused.  

Things continued in this vein for awhile, with more and more members getting annoyed at #1 and #3, and annoyed at #2 for enabling them.  #1's old friends were hurt and angry that she'd stopped talking to them and stopped collaborating with them.  In the absence of communication from #1 and #3, one of the newer members of the project cozied up to #4, becoming her liaison to the rest of the project members, and becoming the power behind the throne (literally, as one of #4's characters was the ruler).  This newer member was one of the people who'd been screwed over by #3 when he was the treasurer, so she hated him, and set out to amass as much power as possible by making alliances with other newer members and convincing them to have their characters oppose things that the characters of #1 and #3 were doing.  (I suspect that what she really wanted was to oust #1 and #3 from the project entirely,  but things never got that far.)  And the new Monster Plotline that #1 and #3 had concocted was making everyone angry, as it basically involved some of their villain characters running roughshod over everyone else.

Through all of this, I was desperately trying to play peacemaker among all these factions.  Back in the real world, I was having huge problems at work, chronic health issues, a major creative slump, and going through a very rough patch in my relationship with my then-girlfriend-now-wife.  This project had been my retreat from all that, and I wanted to keep it that way – but it was quickly becoming as stressful as everything else in my life.

At some point in here, Founder #1 told the small group of people with whom she was still communicating that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and that was why she had stopped talking to most of her old friends.  She was in a depressive phase.  I tried to convince her that she should at least tell those old friends what was going on, but she refused, and told me that (and I'm paraphrasing some here, but not much) she had a chronic, incurable disease, and no matter how much therapy and medication she got, she was always going to be at the mercy of her biochemistry, so she couldn't be held responsible for making people hurt or angry.  Furthermore, this same disease meant that she didn't have the emotional energy to make apologies or amends.  Instead, she strongly implied, it was my responsibility as the Neurotypical Friend to intercede on her behalf with the people who were hurt and angry, and prevent any consequences of her actions (or lack thereof) from coming home to roost.  Nor could I take any hurt or offence myself if I wanted to consider myself a real friend.

(For the next several years, I tried to do exactly that.  Needless to say, I failed.)

After #1 revealed this, #3 decided that he was going to give his favorite character a Cool New Backstory: all her villainous deeds were because she had bipolar depression AND her cold, demanding mother had pushed her into Rebellion!  

Now, you gotta understand that Favorite Character was already roundly hated by almost everyone (both writers and characters) except #1 and #2.  Mainly, this was because #3 seemed incapable of writing her without applying a +10 Cloak of One-Upsmanship.  Most of us were writing power fantasy characters of one sort or another, but Favorite was incredibly irritating because #3 fondly imagined she was not just a good fighter and a powerful magic user, but a brilliant strategist, a cunning tactician, and a wildly charismatic leader fully capable of forging a new nation on her own.  And was totally incapable of WRITING her as anything more than an egotistical and/or self-pitying bully.   Because he got preferential treatment from #2, #3 had been able to foist several Favorite Character Is Better Than You plotlines of the group as a whole, which had not endeared either him or Favorite Character to anyone.  His new character concept would have been a hard enough sell under the best of circumstances.  Unfortunately, he failed to consult the person who controlled his character's mother, and she was not at all happy to be informed that her character was now a terrible mother – AND she was the best friend of Power Behind the Throne.   They pushed back, and hard.

So #1 undertook to write a story about Favorite Character and one of her own characters which would convince everyone that Favorite Character and the plotline everyone hated were both awesome.   She not only undertook to write the story, she sneered at people on the public email list who'd been complaining about edits, saying that she'd post it for everyone to take a crack at beta reading it, because she was a Real Writer who could take it.   I had deep reservations abut this, but I couldn't stop her.  And she WAS a good writer, and she DID know how to take critique.  Or she used to.  So she wrote it, and posted it.  It was... not good.  It wasn't terrible.  But it was far from her best work, and it did not in any way sell a skeptical, much less a hostile, reader on the idea that Favorite Character had redeeming qualities.  It was critiqued.  Roundly, and deservedly.  And #1 had a full-blown screaming meltdown.

Things went downhill after that.  Later, #1 said that she reacted badly to critique of Favorite Character because #3 had given Favorite Character the same emotional issue she had.  So if people hated Favorite Character, then they hated all people with mental/emotional disorders in general, and her in particular.   Critique of Favorite Character was a personal attack on her.  And instead of recognizing that as an emotional reaction which she shouldn't treat as gospel truth (even if she couldn't help feeling it), she doubled down on it. #1 became grimly determined to promote Favorite Character as the greatest thing since sliced bread, with #3's enthusiastic support, writing her into more and more of the Monster Plotline.

I tried, and tried, and tried to get #1 and #3 to see things from the perspective of the people who were angry at them, and vice versa.  I had so many Fraught Conversations – over email, on the phone, via letter.  I'd go to bed emotionally exhausted and wake up rehearsing arguments.  #2 genuinely liked Favorite Character, and didn't really understand why everyone else hated her so much, and never liked conflict anyway.  She couldn't say no to #3 and #1, though she knew she really ought to.  She started to fade out, and eventually handed over the editorship to me.  

So I was left with a project which had ground to a halt, immobilized by feuds and bitterness, and far too many friendships which had been irreparably tarnished by the same.  (Believe me, this account doesn't cover half of what was going on.)  For another year or two I tried my damnedest to get everyone to work together, because I really did love the project.  I made a lot of mistakes, and had blind spots and indulgences of my own, and in the end, I realized that this thing I loved was killing me.  I announced my own resignation, killed off or gave away all my characters, handed the reins over to someone else, and escaped to Buffy fandom.  Within a year of my leaving, the project collapsed.

Flash forward to S6.  I was seeing a lot of meta and discussion to the effect that Buffy wasn't responsible for her actions, because she was depressed.  She was in a bad place.   Besides, Spike was evil, and he deserved to be treated badly.  He probably enjoyed it.  Regardless, Buffy shouldn't have to apologize for anything she'd done.  The authors identified with Buffy because they were depressed too, and if you criticized Buffy in anyway, you were making a personal attack on them.

I'd read this stuff, and I'd find myself shaking with fury.  Literally, physically shaking.  I eventually realized that it was because the fans' justification of Buffy treating Spike like crap was reminding me of #3's justifications of Favorite Character treating everyone like crap, and even more, of #1's justification for treating the other members of the project like crap and treating Favorite Character as her personal avatar.  She was depressed.  She couldn't help it.  She never has to apologize for anything.  She can destroy everything you love, and you've just gotta take it.   You never get to be angry at her; you just have to suck everything up, you stupid <s>neurotypical</s> vampire; you can never understand her pain because <s>you're not chronically depressed</s> you don't have a soul, and your pain doesn't matter.

I recognize that this is an emotional reaction on my part.  (And it's faded over the years, thankfully.)  But it shows how one's personal baggage affects one's perceptions in new situations.  Buffy's a character I loved before S6, and I've very slowly come around to loving her again, but S6 had some unexpected parallels with a previous bad experience – not even so much the story itself, but the fannish reaction to it – which turned me off of her, at least in canon.   I'm grateful that I was still able to love her in fanfic, and that kept me around until I was able to love her in canon again – both because she changed, and because I have.  

It hasn't been as easy for me to forgive #1.  We're still in sporadic contact, but I don't really keep up with her or her life any longer.  I don't wish her any ill, but I don't want to get sucked into her orbit again, either, because I don't think she ever realized how badly she... well, used me.  And I suspect that if I tried to explain it, she'd be angry and offended, because She Was Depressed, It Wasn't Her Fault.  Better to let sleeping dogs lie.  But I do miss the project we worked on, sometimes.  Just the other day I caught myself mulling over some of the dropped plotlines, pondering ways they might work out.  And regardless of the rest, I can be grateful to #1, #2, #3, and #4 for creating it.  

#personal

[old1ddude]

Louis, Harry and Their Solo styles

It’s interesting hearing Louis talk about the kind of music he’s making.  He said he’s trying to find a middle ground between what he likes (more alternative stuff) and what his fans like.  This immediately struck me as a sharp contrast with the way Harry approached his solo album.  (I am NOT saying one approach is inherently superior, or inferior to the other, or that Louis is creating formulaic music.  It is a very different approach, however, and I think related to Louis’ level of confidence and his particular creative process.)  Formulaic music is very often created by a committee making sure to hit all the popular sounds to make “sure hits.”  Artistic music (irrespective of genre) is created with singular vision and artistic purpose.  This is NOT to say that “real music” has to come from one person, as it very often comes out of a shared vision (Louis and Liam teaming up on 1D songs, for example.)  Louis had a clear vision for Back to You and he couldn’t realize it until he brought Bebe in.

Louis is very business savvy.  He knows his strengths and he understands sounds and music trends.  I think Louis’ approach is to find a musical language that both he and his existing fanbase will appreciate.  Louis is an artist, but he also approaches his music as a business - I think it’s just built into his personality.  This approach worked very well for One Direction and they made some stellar pop/rock once they took control of their own sound (under Louis fearless leadership.)  Louis is, for the most part (there’s a lot he has to lie about, of course) a very matter of fact - says what he means guy.  His music can be symbolic and layered in meaning, but it’s not cryptic - like him, it’s more matter of fact.

Harry is one of those deeply artistic types who has a very clear vision in his mind of what he wants.  I’m sure he can hear those trumpets in Olivia very clearly.  In One Direction, Harry spent a fair amount of time writing with and for other artists.  He learned guitar and some piano (and who knows what else?)  I believe he has been almost driven to learn enough in the language of music to express and realize all the songs he could hear so clearly in his mind.  He needed that experience and language to bring others into his vision.  I think he’s spent years leaning how to make the music in his mind come to life with the exact sound he imagines it should have.  (This is not to say, he always comes into a writing/producing session with fully formed songs in his mind, or that the process does not inform, or alter the resulting product.)  

I believe the reason Harry didn’t do collaborations on HS1 is that he already knew the music he wanted to make.  Harry loves riddles and symbolism - he’s a cryptic guy in many respects.  His music, as a result, has deeply layered and symbolic meanings.  It’s hard to understand everything Harry is trying to say on the first, or even 100th listening.  Harry also understands the music industry quite well, but his vision is such that he was unwilling to compromise it for HS1.  He very easily could have made a white-hot pop album - ruling the charts (he has all the connections to get almost any team he wants) but he made a straight up rock album.

The differences in Harry and Louis’ approaches to  solo music are fascinating.  I believe both have the tools and talent for long term success.  When One Direction reunites, the four will have so much “legitimate, industry credibility” it’s mind boggling.  Four artists, four different types of music and four unique approaches to making their music.  (Though I do think Niall’s approach is somewhat similar to Harry’s and Liam’s more comparable to Louis’.)

#Louis #Harry

[jeffybruce]

Chad Allen Ortiz

Doing these interviews has become an extraordinary experience for me! I will admit that in this Instagram world I am one of millions who is visually stimulated by it BUT I am also one of the few who actually reads those pesky hashtags and whatever the subject has to say. Many preach soapbox wisdom, as I call it, since they are too young to preach any worthwhile sage wisdom. How can they possibly know what awaits them with age? All in all, it’s always the luck of the draw with whom I hone in on; happily I seem to find a sampling of those who actually have more to say than just with their body.

Chad Allen Ortiz is sort of a jackpot for me since I only had an inkling of who he actually is and what exactly got him to this point in his life … oh, and he is a “sharer” which certainly does help me and tell you why and what you need to know about him. I’m impressed and gratified that I sensed something more from his images and even more behind the words he espouses on his Instagram account. My subjects turn out to be multifaceted personalities who actually live “beyond the image” and have actual goals that supersede perfect abs and biceps… I won’t continue the list but you get the idea.

So here is Chad in his own words telling us all about his past, present and future since he falls under the purview of being a “creative.” Hopefully, this will not be the last you hear from this multitasking goal oriented young man….

Jeffrey Felner: Can you give us a sort of brief resume as to how you arrived at your present professional situation?

Chad Allen Ortiz: I began my training as a dancer in Temecula, California. My instructor, who happens to be my brother, and connected me to my first modeling agency at 16.  I booked multiple shows and as well as commercial and print jobs. When I was 20, I moved to Los Angeles and began as an apprentice for Nickerson - Rossi Dance under the direction of Michael Nickerson-Rossi. I was promoted to company dancer, then principal dancer, then to Educational Director of both NRD and the Palm Springs Dance Festival. Today, I am the Executive Director of NRD and of the International Dance Festival in Palm Springs.

I have taught dance at high schools, universities, worked with dance organizations such as the Princeton Ballet, New York Live Arts, Los Angeles Dance Festival, and Cape Cod Dance Festival... At present, I am in the process of developing the International Dance Festival, while also building numerous collaborations with magazines, blogs, and other marketing media.

YES!!! I still dance and continue to do so on a national and international level.

Simultaneously with my dance career, I reignited free-lance modeling in Los Angeles booking television commercials while working with startup fashion brands.

Lastly, I run my own branding and social marketing company known as Transparent Compositions; I am currently the Director of Development at the Institute of Dance Artistry. All these facets and aspects of my life build and support upon one another.

 JF: Let’s speak of social media: do you believe that social media is an asset and why, do you think that social media has diluted the professional aspect of creatives and redefined celebrity?   Explain

CAO: Yes…  The issue in the past was visibility; the issue of the moment is saturation or sometimes over saturation. Social media is an asset, but not the ultimate solution. Personal connections are a must; you must be possess the skillset to back up how you present yourself especially within my professional sphere ... a hot  body isn’t enough!

Social media offers a multitude of possibilities as to how one is perceived …“reality TV” or “real life.” All the lies, all the jealousy, or the slander that one might endure is a price you pay for ubiquity  It is our job as artists to understand what people are actually interested in, while staying true to ourselves. It’s all a choice… a very personal one that depends on your individual goal/s.

I had to Google the word “celebrity” …which is simply defined as fame or well- known. That is exactly what people on social media are doing. Many so called “stars” of social media are becoming recognizable figures through relatable, engaging, seductive, or shocking content but to what end?

 JF: If you could invite any 5 people to dinner who would they be and why?

CAO: Martha Graham - Founder of Modern Dance

Marlon Teixeria - Male Model 

Steve Jobs - Apple founder

Benjamin Franklin - Founding Father

Oprah Winfrey – Media entrepreneur 

To me, these people are larger than life. Whether in the field of dance, modeling, design, branding, or management... they all have found success in their lives and achieved multiple goals. I am inspired by their pioneering. I would appreciate their insight on how they approached life and business.

 JF: Can you speak to what you do as an artist and what sets your work apart from so much of what we see on social media? Do you see a downside from “putting yourself out there” with regard to the preconceived notions that are drawn from what you present?

CAO: I am a jack of all trades and I use them to enhance one another. I model, dance, photograph, video, market, manage, direct, educate, choreograph, create, design, and so on and on. I enjoy mixing the skills creating beautiful works no matter the medium. I enjoy access to a vast assortment of creatives and search for the links between us, whether as creatives or as business colleagues. It all comes together at some point.

Downside to “putting yourself out there.” … I wouldn’t exactly say there’s a downside. What one needs to expect is that people are going to perceive you in their own personal way. You may have specific intent, but what really matters is what others get out of the experience. We are complicated creatures with different emotional responses to all situations. I suppose the “downside” would be that there are the vindictive and malicious who want to tear you down. No one can control how they perceive you. All I can do is show your best self, all I can do is know who I am and what my goal is … and focus on that. Listen, apply, test, review and move on in that pattern to see what works and what doesn’t. 

 JF: Lastly, let’s speak of Chad Ortiz 5 years from now; major projects or if you could choose anyone as a collaborator, who what would it be and why?

CAO: 5 years from now I will be have had more world traveling done professionally or leisurely. All I really want is to see the world. I have surrounded myself in career choices that will enable this goal. I see the International Dance Festival in Palm Springs as a vehicle towards that ultimate end. I have big visions and I am on the road to get there. It isn’t easy, but it will be rewarding.

FOR FULL IMAGES ...  https://jeffybruce.blogspot.com/2019/06/meet-chad-allen-otiz-dancing-muti-tasker.html

 Instagram - @chadallenortiz ….  SPECIAL THANKS TO Frank Louis, Arhscana Images, Den Sweeney, Transparent Compositions, Andy Grant, Tommy Wu, Alex Budin Photography, Caff Photo, Brian Mengini, Naoyasu Mera Photography

[theparaminds]

  It is almost unimaginable how many musicians have been given a listen due to their album artwork. Being the first impression itself, the artwork obviously holds the same weight as the music in many cases. Back in the days of record stores, there was no 10-second preview; the artwork was all there was between the consumer and the artist. Though, it is now a digital age in which attention is the most valuable commodity, in which standing out is just as difficult as ever. Some believe that the artistry of an album has been lost and in a sense it is arguable that the lack of physicality within the medium has hindered the appreciation of the art form. But many on the other side of the scale believe that is completely wrong in every sense, many being the graphic designers themselves; one of which is pushing to retain the art form he built his base on. 

  Max Cohen is a Waterloo, Ontario born and raised creative director and designer who has established himself a major player in the hip hop scene; creating artwork for some of the hottest acts currently, which include: Killy, Pierre Bourne, Murda Beatz, Smokepurpp and of course many more. Max understands the importance of branding as well as the visuals themselves, hoping to share it with those unaware of its essentialness. Parmaind sat down and spoke to Max about his work and visions, the rap industry as well as his views on the future of music marketing. 

 Paramind: First question as always, how’s your day going?

Max: Good man, it was ok; school was school. I’m living bro, living good.

PM: So, why don’t you tell everyone who Max is?

 M: Oh god, my name is Max Cohen; I am a student, I am an artist, I make album covers and work on branding for a bunch of different artists and labels, just an overall creative.

PM: So of all those projects you’ve done, what are the three you’re most proud of?

 M: Oh, Killamonjaro for Killy, Bloody Hands…this is tough… oh the Fiji and Yachty one for sure. 

PM: It is seen in those projects that you work tightly in the hip hop community, but do you think that’s where you’re happy staying? Or would you want to expand and if so, where?

M: I mean I love all genres of music so I’ll do anyone I listen to and primarily listen to the people I work with. It’s nice to have that personal connection with the artists. But in general with rap its probably where I’ll stay, it’s what’s popular and what I enjoy the most; it’s the black renaissance coming into play and that will be prevalent as time goes on. Also I work more on an industry level than a Soundcloud one now as well. I’ve worked with Universal, Interscope, real label shit. It’s my niche and I’m enjoying it and once I continue to expand my range of talents it’ll just get better and I plan to stay prevalent and influential in the industry.

PM: So do you plan to move towards shooting concerts, live visuals, etc. as arguably album artwork is static as an art form?

M: Yeah it can be sometimes, but photography is so saturated right now that it’s hard to stand out at all because thousands of them exist, so there’s no real point. People have asked me to shoot or do video work and my friend who goes by the name Sogross basically just taught me to diversify my skillset and so if an artist wants me to go on tour for a couple months and do all the visuals and creatives I can do that.

PM: But you’re still doing album art, it is still your main focus; and there is now the question of why it’s relevant. Akon recently tweeted making fun of even caring about album artwork anymore...

M: Akon’s on bullshit man

PM: [Laughs] so then why is it relevant then in your mind?

M: It’s the most important thing towards marketing and building your brand and fan base. Off the top, cover art is an art form so it needs to be maintained. But that whole idea of branding is important, it’s like saying ‘why do we need advertisements for companies?’ It makes no sense. That is literally the equivalant. Its part of the marketing, and of course, its part of the vision.

PM: But what about album covers with no art? Like Yeezus?

M: Still art. Still branding. That’s totally art and expression and what the artist wanted to display. It was curated by Joe Perez , dude is so smart. But it’s a message against the music industry.

PM: Kanye called it the coffin or death of album covers, does he have a point?

 M: Kanye is a visionary but he’s also dramatic and sometimes stupid so take everything he says with a grain of salt.

PM: While on the topic of album covers, can you tell me some that have influenced you in some way?

M: Anything Bryan Rivera does, he does Post Malone’s stuff, I don’t have specific influence from one piece or it else my art wouldn’t be my own. So maybe not specific covers but more portfolios.

PM: Can you give any secrets or hints at album covers or work you have coming soon?

M: Geez, lot of Toronto work. I don’t like talking on my moves before I make them. No reason to flex a piece before it’s done. I can speak on the fact I’ll keep working with Murda Beatz if all goes good.

 PM: Nice, on top of working with musicians you’ve also worked with some other graphic designers like your friend Jeff and I know you’ve been shouted out in Justin Wilson’s interview with Untitled, so can you speak on your connections or your future in terms of collaboration?

M: The community is very tight knit. You have very industry based designers who only fuck with people in their circle and no one else. But that’s some drama LA shit. But in terms of the community, I’m in a lower tier but it’s so tight knit. I’m in group chats of about 40 different designers and creatives in the industry and everyone’s friends. The piece I recently did with Jeff for bloody hands was me just not being able to do the edits because I went out one night so I sent it to him and he got it done no problem.

 PM: So what would be the dream for you then? What is the end goal or place you’d be happy ending up at?

 M: I mean, I’m not going to university for graphic design; I’m going for creative industries, which is more the business behind everything I’m into. But if I could make graphic design my career I’d be the dream. Vision wise, I will realistically work with Ovo in the next 6-8 months and they’re the biggest Canadian entity and I already have work that’s been viewed millions of times by millions of people, which is unreal. I’m so happy where I am and I just enjoy being in the scene and reaping the benefits of working in music. I want to have a presence and make great work...

In the end, it comes down to the art not the clout.

PM: True, you’ve worked with some big artists such as Pierre Bourne and Killy as well as SmokePurpp. But you have to wonder who those out of reach people are for you that you desperately want to work with.

M: Migos. No doubt. Coach K and Quality Control are tight knit on what they do. But if I can work with them It’d be crazy. And anyone large and I respect. Even like on a lower scale, like Yellow days. That’d be lit. But I try not to be driven by who I’m working with and rather be driven by the quality of the art and how much money I’m making. [laughs]

PM: [laughs] Do you lose your artistic integrity in the pursuit of money or social media numbers?

M: When you work in a service industry, like I do, its not necessary sacrificing artistic integrity and instead doing what the customer wants and doing it the best I can. I will sometimes make a piece I don’t love but that my client will love because that’s what they wanted. So yeah that could be seen as losing integrity. It’s a hobby and I love it but it’s also a job, this is my part time job. Sometimes if someone does something I can’t support I’ll have to turn it down but that’s it

PM: So in those cases is it about them as a person or just not enjoying their music or vision?

M: That’s hard because so many rappers are fucking scumbags. There are so many bad people popular in rap right now, its difficult to find that line lately… actually lets stop that topic [laughs]

PM: [laughs] Yeah best to move on for now… going back to album art and design, how do you feel you’re making yourself stand out and why do you matter?

M: My shit’s hot man, my art’s sick and I can make anything anyone wants. Perfect example is Killamanjaro... Wait hold on let me pull out these texts…

[Max pulls out his phone and finds a conversation with Killy]

M: He gave me the vision of “crazy dystopian dark world art cover, needs to be crazy and memorable” and It was my job to make something sick and something worthwhile. And that’s what I want to keep having is the ability to see something in my head and then execute it to the highest degree, because that’s what makes me worthwhile and unique.

PM: For sure, thanks so much for your time man, anyone you want to shout out?

M: Shout out Liam, shout out Luke, shout out Tuti; Tuti’s my Brazilian homie who I’ve known for like 3 years and has been on this design shit forever. Also; Jeff, Dj, Trap, Zero, Jermane cause he’s putting me on right now, my parents, my sister, oh and my dog.

Paramind would like to thank Max for his time, as well as speaking his mind and giving us insight into his art and future.

Follow Max online:

Twitter: @Mxxchn

Instagram: @Mxxchn

Words and photos by Guy Mizrahi 

#art #music #album art #killy #asap mob #deisgn #toronto #graphic design #rap #soundcloud #hiphop #albumcovers

[irishcoffeeslushie]

Nobuta wo Produce review (excerpts) - I

Disclaimer: I didn’t write this, although I wish I had. Source.

High school.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of teenage angst, it was the season of puppy love; it was the spring of maturity, it was the winter of childhood; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…

God bless his soul, but Mr. Dickens must be turning in his grave this very minute knowing that his iconic opener from “A Tale of Two Cities” was hijacked by some slush-brained Jdorama fangirl, and then bastardized into a paean to the Universal High School Experience. Even worse, imagine his horror to find this piece to be just a pretext for a long and gushy tribute to a rather unsightly pair of Japanese teen idols — one scrawny and effeminate, the other looking perpetually lobotomized — who, by their performances in the drama that’s about to be dissected, have effectively clinched said fangirl’s undying affections (pure and, uh, otherwise). If our esteemed Victorian novelist only knew that his classic lines would later be co-opted into a rhapsody about a couple of Johnnies fer gawdssakes, he wouldn’t just be turning in his grave by now, but doing freakin’ somersaults while chewing on his elbows or something — or worse, gyrating furiously to the “Seishun Amigo” chorus. (Sacrilege!!! Is nothing sacred now? Not even Dickens???)

I know it may sound funny (and even counterintuitive), but “sacred” is exactly what I hold this drama to be. Admittedly, Nobuta wo Produce hardly looks impressive on the surface, and can be dismissed by the casual observer as just another idoru vehicle set against the disposable backdrop of high school — with the fluff, the stereotypes, the puerile laughs — only to be swallowed in a sea of other mass-produced Jdramas of the same teen-wanking formula… But no. This one is different. Because once in a while we drama fans are gifted with a viewing experience so transcendent in both style and substance, a triumphant synergy of directorial creativity, of writing deep and resonant, and of characters so heartbreakingly authentic.

Nobuta wo Produce is the Jdrama that is closest to my heart, the one that means the most to me out of all that I’ve watched (and re-watched). (And you thought it was something Kimura had starred in? Close, but no ciggy.) Although I cannot speak for all fans of this drama, I know that many, like myself, have come to love its three protagonists — Shuji, Akira, Nobuta — with a fierce allegiance, and can identify with their own feelings of disquiet and trepidation as they stand, inevitably, on the brink of adulthood. This is a deeply personal drama to watch — and that, for me, is what makes it sacred in no small way. Just as we all — whoever and wherever we are — inwardly uphold as sacrosanct the universal themes that this drama explores to rich, rewarding ends: the painful reality of growing up, the strange duality of alienation and friendship, and the “self-revelatory odyssey” of finding yourself as you make your way through life.

Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times had this to say about another seminal teen drama from the other side of the world that remains, in my opinion, the best of its kind to ever be spawned by Hollywood — and also, regrettably, one of the most underrated and short-lived. The title? My So-Called Life (ABC, 1994).

“Every so often in the collaborative art called television a little miracle happens. There is a meeting of minds, a confluence of vision, a gathering of particular talents. The planets align, the cards fall into place, and something is born whose worth is instantly apparent to all involved, not as a generator of revenue — at which it might fail completely — but as an ennobling refraction of some little bit of the Truth, of what it means, or could mean, to be alive. Each department pushes the others a little bit harder; excellence from one corner prompts ambition in another. What might have begun as just the next greenlighted project or available job becomes a sort of holy mission, even if none of the participants would ever dare call it that — this being, after all, only television.”

These words also captured all that I felt about Nobuta wo Produce and had hoped to articulate in my own inadequate way. And the stars did seem to align for myself and this drama: a few minutes into the first episode I knew that something extraordinary was unfolding on my TV screen. There was no way this would turn out to be just another teen drama. Nor did it feel like an “idol drama” in spite of its cast; I saw no idols playacting for the paycheck, but three regular high school kids in a coming-of-age story that was all at once funny, heartfelt and bittersweet. NwP isn’t an outstanding high school drama, but an outstanding drama, period.

Based on the novel by Shiraiwa Gen, the screenplay by Kizara Izumi serves as the backbone of the whole drama… and oh my goodness, how can I NOT gush about THE WRITING — it both warms and pierces the heart. And it’s so… HIGH SCHOOL, y’know? It gets it, as in it really gets what high school is all about, that different planet we’ve ALL been to, where the drama and the heightened emotions and the clique wars and the desire for validation and the puppy love and the tortured ruminations matter more than they ever will by the time we’re these Big Old Boring Grownups. Nobuta wo Produce is about Becoming and Belonging, and about finding fast and true friends who will help you along the way.

Everyone loves Shuji – from his teachers right down to his peers, from his coterie of “bye-byecycle” homeboys to their simpering, magazine-flipping counterparts, from the resident toughies to the nerds and outcasts. And he lives for their acceptance, he craves their admiration, he likes to be liked by everyone… Well, maybe not everyone, because if there is one person he simply cannot stand, the bane of his high school existence, it’s this boy, the Weirdest Human Being Shuji has ever met. There simply is nobody else on earth quite like… Kusano Akira (Yamashita Tomohisa).

If Pinocchio were a special child and had magic mushrooms for breakfast every bleeping day of his life… then add a few more embellishments like the bleached hair and rolled-up shirtsleeves, the baggy pants and wallet chain, the spacey giggling and face-pulling, the repertoire of funny voices and horribly infectious expressions — bakayaro! kon-kon! Shu-uuuji-kun! sukebe! – and a partiality to quoting Nietzsche while incongruously flailing his arms like a gooney bird… voila! Kusano Akira, Resident Freak of 2-B. And the worst thing about this little creep? Is that he seems to harbor an unhealthy liking for… Shuji. (Oh NOES!!!) (Ohhhh YESSS!!!! Hehehe)

So what on earth makes this unlikely twosome team up for a common cause? Shortly after the new girl’s arrival, Shuji and Akira chance upon a particularly nasty case of girl-on-girl bullying coming from inside the ladies’ room. The victim turns out to be that odd little transferee Kotani Nobuko (Horikita Maki). Reluctant to get involved, Shuji stays outside the washroom while Akira goes inside to try and reason with the bullies. With no image to protect, Akira has nothing to lose by sticking up for someone like Nobuta — even if it means getting hosed down himself. For all his flakiness and irrational fears, Akira is no coward.

I like how the writing gives the viewer a comprehensive crash course in product development, brand marketing and image management. I have no background in this field, but still found this stuff incredibly fascinating. And there’s a certain *wink, wink, nudge, nudge* aspect to this drama, given that Shuji and Akira’s marketing strategy parallels how the entertainment industry manufactures, packages and sells celebrities, be they TV/film stars or recording artists or — yes, teen idols. (I really do wonder if Messrs. Kamenashi and Yamashita ever realized how meta the whole “Producing Nobuta” story line was. Did they ever look up from the script during one of the read-throughs and go, “Huh? But this is US!” Heh heh.)

A crucial point for Shuji comes in the Valentine’s Day episode, where he must choose between showering Nobuta with flower petals, or dousing her with cold water. The first option will spell kryptonite for his Cool Guy status, while the second will undoubtedly break Nobuta’s heart. What to do, what to do? As much as I wanted to wring Shuji’s neck for vacillating through most of the episode, you understand how much it means to him to put his popularity on the line.

This episode builds with delicious suspense — will he, or won’t he? — and concludes with a most unexpected twist. Damn, but when Bando (as a last-minute substitution, as per Nobuta’s request) pulls the cord and those petals come raining down on Nobuta, I frickin’ cried my eyes out. What’s more touching is when Nobuta realizes that Shuji, after an agonizing night of soul-searching, had in fact played, and played, and played a random eeny-meeny-miney-mo game until he finally arrived at “flower” instead of “water.” (Awwww, Shu-uuuji-kun!)

97% of the drama’s humor emanates from this singular bundle of goofy laughs. And Akira’s screwiness is surpassed only by how bloody endearing he is. You come to not only tolerate his foibles, but embrace them — because as a viewer you can look past appearances to see his good, stout and true heart. He may be off the wall (actually WAAAY off the wall, lol), but Akira is the Real Deal. He is also the perfect voice for an entire generation of aimless, unmotivated youngsters trying to make sense of, well, everything. “I dunno what youth is all about,” he bleats to Shuji on the rooftop in Episode 1. “I don’t have anything I want to do, and I don’t want to do anything.” (To which Shuji replies: “Isn’t everyone like that?” Hmm, good point, Shuji.)

If Shuji and Nobuta’s personal bugbears are dishonesty and low self-esteem, respectively, for Akira it is growing up. In Episode 6 he promptly leaves home to escape his dad’s mounting insistence that he take over the family-run company someday; and for the boy this is a most horrifying prospect, a life that will not only saddle him with a staggering load of adult responsibilities, but also take him far, far away from what he most holds dear. He tells Shuji before drifting off to sleep (having crashed the Kiritani home after a violent disagreement with his dad) “I don’t wanna go back home. I like that tofu guy and I can drink ‘mame chichi’ and be with Shuji and Nobuta everyday…” (Oh, Akira.)

Akira has the best lines when he’s at his tortured, lovesick worst. When Shuji the Cynic asks him what his immediate plans are — “What are you going to do? Confess to her, and then go to the zoo on a date, or something?” — Akira mulls it over a second, then answers: “What I want to do the most is… MARRY HER!!!….. How embarrassing!” (Then Shuji dryly comments via voice-over, “His reality goes way beyond my imagination.” LMAO!!!! Man I love those boys. *tear*) So, you don’t wish to deny him his petty fits of jealousy, like attempting to throw away Shuji’s short film – with insanely funny repercussions: “Akira DOWN!!!” (Lol!!!) Then, “My heart hurts…” (Awwww…) But he can’t keep his wrongdoing a secret from Shu-uuji-kun, so he confesses right there on the video room floor: “I’m the worst guy. The WORST.” To which Shuji quietly replies, “I’m the worst, too.” (Man I really, really love those boys. *tear*)

Salinger’s angstily f*cked-up hero Holden Caulfield fears becoming one of those adult “phonies” whom he detests so much, and instead envisions himself a catcher standing on the edge of a cliff, intercepting little kids as they come through a field of rye. In Nobuta wo Produce, Shuji, Nobuta and (most of all) Akira grapple with similar feelings as they face the terrifying inevitability of growing up. In this sense, both “Catcher” and NwP run counter to conventional Bildungsroman lines because the characters try to resist this process of maturity. It is only later that they learn to accept, and embrace it as part of life.

NwP is chock-full of these soul-stirring vignettes, and I’d like to include a few here. One unforgettable moment is a shot of Shuji and Akira on their bikes, pausing in the middle of a tree-lined road and turning to watch the adult pedestrians, these working stiffs in suits, hurry past in the other direction. Shuji: “I thought about how we’re gonna become like those boring-looking people someday.”

And this obviously pushes That Button inside Akira, sending him into Spaz Mode: “I don’t wanna be like that! Don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna be like that!” (LOL oh Akiraaa)

#nobuta wo produce

[steidlxtua]

2016年11月10日 インタビュー　Interview

今回、展覧会に向けて学生たちと作業してどうでしたか？

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：無論、とても楽しみだったよ。初めてここに来てプランを立てていたとき、僕の話や指示に従うための集中力の高さに驚いた。そして2回目に訪れたとき、学生たちが展覧会の、そしてロバート・フランクが写真を撮っていたときの意図を完璧に理解していたことがわかった。結果的に、これは最高のコラボだったと言わざると得ないね。学生らしからずとてもプロフェッショナルで、同等のスキルを持った同僚と共に仕事をしているようだったよ。

とても光栄です。

ブックアワードの授賞式で日本の文化の特徴、そしてそれが選ばれた本の中に表れていたことについて話していましたが、今回の展示にそのようなことは感じましたか？）

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：そうだね、初めから日本人は紙や印刷技術を愛していることは知っていた。以前開催した他のRobert Frank: Books and Filmsの展覧会と比較して、今回のは単純に縦と横のロールがあるから進歩だよ。それに縦のロールにどう写真を並べればいいか最初見当もつかなかったけど、今回学生とコラボしていく中で模索することができた。あと、このような紙と写真と展示会場の壁とで実験的に展示を作るような展覧会は日本で始めるのが最適だったと思う。日本人は印刷や紙が好きすぎて、きっと血にインクが流れてるんじゃないかっていつも思うくらいだからね。

今までの展示では横のロール紙に中央揃えで写真が印刷されていましたが、縦のロール紙では写真が中央に配置されておらず、ちゃんと構成されていることに気づきましたが、これには何か目的があったのですか？

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：そうだね…横向きのロールに関しては、本を読むときと似ているんだ。ページをめくっていくときはある特殊な「リズム」がある。展示の構成もこのリズムに則っている。けど正直なところ、僕は日本人じゃないし縦書きの仕方がよくわからないから、縦のロールに関してはどう並べればいいのかあまり実感がわかなかった。横のものと同様にすると写真がただ中央揃いでつまらないし、とてもありきたりな見え方をしてしまう。これは写真集The Americansの、ひいては展示の意図とそぐわない。だから少しずつずらして、自分にとってより刺激的な、新しい「リズム」を見つけ出した。日本人の目と日本人の頭と日本人の展示経験にもハマるといいな。

そうですね。あとプロジェクターの投影をするのにもぴったりですよね、少し余白があったりして…

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：そう、それは幸運だった。どこにプロジェクターの投影をするか、あまりちゃんとしたプランが立てられなかったから、まあやってみてきっと上手いことできるだろうと思ってた。このレイアウトでとても助かったと思わない？

はい。ありがとうございます

フランクさんが私たちの新聞ポスターを見ている写真を拝見して、とても興奮しました。構成や展示什器など、何か展示について言っていましたか？

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：そう、彼に新聞を渡して見ていて、あと君たちが作った制作過程をまとめた雑��－（カタログを指して）そう、それ－を僕と一緒に二時間半かけて一ページずつじっくり見ていった。自分の展示にこれほどの手がかかっていることが信じられなかったみたいだよ。彼に構成や鉄骨の什器、そこに写真を掲出するというアイディアについて説明して、彼はそれは今までの展示になくてとても革新的だね、と言っていた。これは本当にそうで、僕も見たことない。そして結果を見る限り、最高だね。写真を撮ったから、来週ニューヨークでロバート・フランクに会ったときに見せるよ。

ありがとうございます。

ロバート・フランクのものだけでなく、普段展覧会を手がけるときに実現したい目標や理想などはありますか？

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：いや、特にないな。本を作るときの方針に沿ってやってる。さあ始めようというとき、ビジョンこそあれ、それ以上はなにも考えていない。だから実現へ向けての実質的な作業は、アイディアを次から次に思いついて進めていくんだ。あと僕は完全に直感主義だから、夜寝るときはただただ疲れていて寝たい一心で、次の日の準備はしなくて、朝起きるとその日が楽しみで、それからじゃあその日何ができるか見てみよう、という具合なんだ。それから人間の創造性というのは無限だと信じている。同僚や出版社、海外の友人やパートナーと協力することで、新たなコンセプトや展示を作るアイディアが溢れてくるんだ。

ずっと気になっていたのですが、過去の展示の写真を見ると紙が今回の展示のものより幾分か薄く見受けられるのですが、これには何か理由があるのですか？

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：そう。展示品は独自の新聞紙素材のロールに印刷されているよね。初期の展示はドイツの購読者に配達される南ドイツ新聞600,000部に毎日使われる通常の64gの紙に印刷されていた。けれど、壁に吊るすことでその紙がとても脆いということがわかったんだ。多くのロールがしわになってしまったり破れて台無しになってしまった。そこで、新聞社に別の紙があるか問い合わせたら、別冊に使われる80gのものと、通常の新聞には使われることはあまりないが、英国の女王が訪独するときの特別号やメルセデスベンツが新しい車を発売するときの宣伝ページに使われる高級紙があることを知ったんだ。この紙は115gで、僕たちはこれを使うことにした。特に今回は鉄骨の什器に掲出する上に、縦横や大きさも様々なものを扱うからちゃんと展示するのに最適だったと思うよ。それに例外のないルールなんてないからね。現在準備を進めているカルフォルニアのバークレー校での展示では必ずまた64gのものを使うつもりだよ。

ただ－もう一度はっきりさせておくと－通常の新聞紙と同じ紙ではあるんだ。ただ少しだけ新しい繊維が多い－新聞紙は100％再生紙だから－高級紙は新しい白いパルプが多く含まれていて、115gなんだ。けどそれ以外は通常の新聞印刷に使われている素材と全く同一のものだよ。

あと印刷の手法も新聞と一緒なんですか？

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：いや、印刷の手法は違う。新聞はオフセット印刷で、写真のロールはアクリルインクジェットで印刷されている。アクリルインクジェットはファインアートを印刷するのに最良最適な手法で、というのはインクがとても高い耐光性を有しているからなんだ。「ブルー・ウール・スケール」という、印刷に使われるインクの質を表す指標があるんだけど、アクリルインクジェットは－あとでネットで調べればわかると思うけど－スクリーン印刷のインクと同じ耐光性を持っている。例えば－まあ黒は置いておいて、マゼンタ、シアン、イエローは数日経つと褪せてしまう。オフセット印刷の写真に太陽光が当たっていたら、8日ほどで消えてしまうんだ。だから僕たちはこの紙にアクリルインクジェットで印刷することで、ロバート・フランクの写真へ敬意を表して、美的価値や技法的にはファインアートの印刷の質と同等にした。けど媒体は－再生新聞紙は－一ヶ月経てば捨てるもので耐久性の高い紙である必要はないから、質が低い。100年保つ必要は全くないからね。

今回僕たちが展覧会のプロジェクトに参加してとても貴重な経験ができました。これから日本の西の方でも展覧会をやるかもしれないという話を伺っていたり、あるいはブックアワードもこれから続いていくという話も伺っているので、これから展覧会やブックアワードに関わっていく学生たちに期待することや言葉があればお伺いしたいです

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：いい質問だね、あまり考えたことなかったよ。けど、シュタイデル社から日本に設営のために来日していたナディーンとモンティは二人とも今回の展覧会のチームは素晴らしい、日本で今後やるロバート・フランク展の設営には来てもらえるようにしたいと言っていた。君たちはもう一回経験していることだし、他の展覧会も一緒にやるのもいいと思わない？

最後に、質問ではないのですが来週ニューヨークでフランクさんに会いに行ったときに展示の最終形を見せたら、そのときの反応を教えていただけたら嬉しいです

ゲルハルト・シュタイデル：もちろん、感想を伝えるよ－それは僕の使命だと思う。

はい、ありがとうございます。

How did you feel working with us students for the exhibition?

Gerhard Steidl：Of course, I was very excited, and when I was here first time and were sitting together making the planning, I was surprised about the concentration which has been brought up to follow my talk and my instructions. And at the second visit I learned that the students understood perfectly what was the intention of the exhibition and Mr. Robert Frank when he did the photos. And at the end I have to say it was a perfect collaboration, very professional, not like a student, and a teacher or a professor working together, it was a more collaboration in between colleagues meeting at the same level of knowledge.

That’s a real privilege.

In the Book Award ceremony you talked about the characteristics of Japanese culture and how they were showing in the books you chose. Did you feel anything about that in this exhibition?

Gerhard Steidl：Yeah, I knew from the beginning that Japanese people love paper and printing technologies. And in comparison to the pop-up exhibitions of “Robert Frank: Books and Films” we had done before, this is an improvement because we simply have horizontal and vertical banners together. And I had no idea how to arrange the photos on vertical banners but I learned it within this collaboration with the students. And I think for this type of exhibition which is an experiment with paper and photography and walls of a gallery, Japan is the perfect country to start with, because I always think Japanese people must have ink in their blood because they love printing and paper so much.Definitely. Thank you very much.

For the vertical banners, we noticed that you hadn't placed the photos in the centre of the paper; you created a proper layout for them. Was there a particular aim?

Gerhard Steidl：Yeah… You see, on the horizontal banners, it is reading like in the book. You turn over the pages and there is a certain rhythm. The layout of the exhibition is following this rhythm. For the vertical banners, to tell you the truth, as I am not a Japanese, and I don't understand the writing of signs in the vertical method, I had not the real feeling how to arrange it. By doing it the same way as horizontal it was very boring because the photos were just centred and it was looking extremely conventional; what was not the intention of the book, “The Americans,” and it was not the intention of the exhibition. So I slighted it slightly off and found a new rhythm which was for me, more exciting. And I hope it will work for Japanese eyes and Japanese brains and Japanese exhibition experiences.

Yeah, I can see that. I mean it’s perfect for the projection as well, because there’re little spaces…

Gerhard Steidl：Yeah that was good luck, because I could not really make a plan where we will have the projections and I thought, ok, just try and we will find something. And this layout helps us a lot, no?

Yeah it did. Thank you.

We saw the photo where Mr. Frank was looking at our newspaper poster, which was really, really exhilarating. Did he say anything about the exhibition as a whole? Like the layout and the display frames…

Gerhard Steidl：Yeah, so I was giving to him the layout of the newspaper and he started it, and the magazine, the brochure you did about the cre… — (pointing to catalogue) exactly, this one — about the creating process and he was looking with me to every page for two and a half hours and he couldn't believe that so much care was taken for his exhibition. And he said — I explained to him the layout and the idea of the structures, of the metal structures, to hang the photo banners onto it, and he said that is very revolutionary that has never been made in an exhibition and it’s true. I never saw it. And looking to this result, it is brilliant. So I took some photos and when I’m next week in New York I will see Robert Frank again and I will show it to him.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

When you do exhibitions, not just Robert Frank’s but any exhibition, is there a particular aim or an ideal that you wish to realise?

Gerhard Steidl：No, not really. You know, I’m following the same principles as doing my books. When I start up, I have a vision, but not more. So all the physical realisation is a work step-by-step; one idea follows the other. And I believe 100 percent in intuition. So when I go to bed, I’m not preparing the next day. I’m simply tired and I want to sleep. And when I wake up, I’m excited, and then let’s have a look what the day is bringing to us. And I believe that human creativity is endless and by collaborating with my colleagues and the publishing house, or with friends and collaborators in other countries, we always have enough ideas to make new concepts and new exhibitions for the artist with whom we are working.

Ok. Thank you.

We were always wondering, looking through the photos of the previous exhibitions the paper seems to be a lot thinner than the ones we’ve used here. Was there a particular reason for that?

Gerhard Steidl：Yeah. So the exhibition is printed on rolls of original newspaper print materials. And the first exhibitions we did have been printed on a 64g paper so that’s the regular stuff which is used every day for the delivery of the 600,000 print copies of Suddeutche Zeitung to their subscribers in Germany. But by hanging it onto the walls, we learned it is very fragile. And a lot of these banners were crinkled and some were really ruined because they were teared. And I asked the newspaper company if there are other qualities and so I learned there is one paper which has 80g which is used for special print sections of the newspaper and one premium quality is rarely used for the newspaper but sometimes when the British queen is coming to Germany and they’re doing a special portfolio or there is a new release of a Mercedes Benz car and Mercedes is buying advertising space in the newspaper — this premium paper is used. This is 115g and so we decided to have this one onto the walls. Especially here, where we had these metal structures and we have to work with various sizes and verticals and horizontals I think it helps us a lot to get it up in a proper way. But you know, no rule without exception. I’m preparing at the moment for an exhibition at Berkley University in California and for this one we will for sure use the 64g again.

t is — just to say it once more clearly — it is the same paper as the regular newspaper. It has a little bit more fresh fibre — the newspaper is 100 percent recycling paper — the premium paper has more fresh, white pulp, and it is 115g. But otherwise it’s exactly the same material as used for the regular newspaper printing.

And the printing method is also the same as newsprint or is it…

Gerhard Steidl：No, the printing method is different. So the newspaper is printed in offset, and the photo banners are printed in acryl inkjet. Acryl inkjet is the finest and best printing technique for fine art, because the inks have a very high light resistance. There is a so called “Blue Wool Scale" as an indicator of the quality of the inks which are used for printing. And acryl inkjet — you can look it up in the internet — has the same light resistance as serigraphy screen printing inks. For example, for the — so the black is never an issue but for magenta, cyan, and yellow, they fade away within some days. If you have sunlight on offset printed photo banners, they are gone within eight days. So we decided to print in acryl inkjet to have really the quality of a fine art print, aesthetically and technically, on this paper in respect of the photography of Robert Frank, but the media is — the recycling paper, the newsprint — is just low quality because after one month, throw it away and there is no need to have a long-lifetime paper. It does not need to last for 100 years — simply not necessary.

I see. Thank you.

So you have an exhibition coming up in the west of Japan maybe, and also the Book Award might be an ongoing thing, and we wanted to know if you have anything to say to the students that might in the future be involved in those events.

Gerhard Steidl：That’s a good question, I had not thought about it. But Nadine and Monte, who had been coming from Steidl Publishers here to Japan for the set up, they both said that’s an excellent exhibition team and we should try to have them for the set up at the other shows of Robert Frank in Japan as well. And maybe it is a good idea because you’re all experts now, and why not do the other shows together.

(Laughs) Ok.

Lastly, this isn’t really a question but when you go and see Mr. Frank in New York next week and show him all the outcome of this whole exhibition, it’d be really exciting if we could know how he reacted.

Gerhard Steidl： Of course. I will give to you some feedback — that’s really my duty and my pleasure.

Ok, thank you very much.

[doomedandstoned]

Fallout Ritualist:

A Visit with Mikko Kääriäinen of Cardinals Folly

~By Billy Goate (Editor in Chief)~

Photographs by Jouni Parkku

There's something about that voice. Mikko Kääriäinen (best known as Count Karnstein) of the Finnish band CARDINALS FOLLY croons like a stern master with ice water for blood. Dare not knock on the door of his estate seeking shelter from the tempest. His singing incites shivers as he wails and thrashes about, bemoaning the wiles of the devil and the fate of foodhardy thrill seekers. Mikko joined our own Stephanie V. Cantu for her podcast Crypt of Despair last year and I was eager to get to get a proper interview with him in these pages. Come with me now, into the shadows to a domain where doom is law and riffs conjure soul-stealing specters. This is the twisted realm of Cardinals Folly...

You draw significant inspiration from mysticism and the occult. What are your own beliefs about the supernatural? And while we're on the subject, have you ever encountered something uncanny, unearthly, or otherwise unexplainable?

I guess it's mere curiosity that has brought this devious individual and many others on the brink of great things. Teenage rebellion is a pathway to many things you will be able to truly understand later on, to expand your consciousness to unnatural levels. I believe in the devil as an ideal collaborator in spiritual rebellion -- a dark power of nature, relentless illumination, self-deification, and resistance of the right-hand path. A cultivated inspiration and idol for individuals like us. Of course, The Master will always take care of its own, the truly initiated and dedicated, and therefore things will always happen. From everyday charms to weirder incidents. I don´t want to pick out anything special, for it´s not about bragging how weird your life has been. That´s the naturality or unnaturality of this kind of mind -- you just live it. Nothing is that strange anymore. That´s almost like a Biblical term to me, at this point. Reference based on the many, the majority, what they would think.

Interesting. I’m guessing you’re well read on the occult. For the novice, what tomes would you recommend for reading? I’m guessing Dennis Wheatley’s novels will be among them, given the band's name.

Well, for someone willing to get both a factual and fictional overall briefing about the western esoteric and occult practices, I recommend the following starters:

Stephen Flowers: 'Lords of the Left-Hand Path' (1997)

Dennis Wheatley: 'The Devil and All His Works' (1971)

Don Web: 'Overthrowing the Old Gods: Aleister Crowley and the Book of the Law' (2013)

Trevor Ravenscroft: 'The Spear of Destiny' (1972)

Anton LaVey: 'The Satanic Bible' (1969)

H.P Blavatsky: 'The Secret Doctrine' (1888)

Eliphas Levi: 'Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual' (1855)

Dennis Wheatley: 'The Devil Rides Out' (1950) or 'Strange Conflict' (1941)

How long have you been singing and playing bass? I'm curious about what lit the fire inside of you to get started with both.

I started everything with this band. I needed a vision of a band to make happen, to actually give a damn. Never been one of those bedroom metal musicians. Cardinals Folly and its early version symbolize my musical career. I simply started to play bass and sing when we started playing doom in 2004, without having any experience. To be honest, the more I see in this life, the more I like my choices. There´s a shitload of stagnated bands out there. Bands with members who can play, but are pretty clueless about anything else. I´m glad I had no specific pattern to start laboring when we started. I´ve learned it all myself along the way, which certainly suits me very well. I´m a person of my own. Our heaviest influence among traditional doom bands was Reverend Bizarre, when we started. Reverend Bizarre was emerging in Finland and it felt the closest thing to us. Of course, there are also typical old school legends like Saint Vitus, Pentagram, Cathedral, etc., but Reverend Bizarre was so present, especially in our early works. Now all that really remains from their influence is the cinematic gothickry, but that I love too much to ever let it go. Besides, it´s nothing that unusual in metal, generally. They just did it really well, I want to do it even better -- really combine the themes and the music.

Holocaust of Ecstasy & Freedom by Cardinals Folly

I admit I’m a little late to the game. The Coven was the original incarnation of Cardinal’s Folly, right?

You could say so. The idea didn´t change one bit and we simply continued with a new drummer and new moniker. Like I said, we were total newbies back then to everything regarding functioning as a band, so we made up a proper fitting name hastily in our excitement, without giving it too much thought. Our first drummer left and we got a new one, who was really into doom and very experienced with the underground. So we forged our visions stronger and had more artistic approach. I found the true name for us and we set the course to where we are today.

Around 2012-2013, there was a complete change of line-up. Was the future of Cardinals Folly in doubt at that point in time?

I´ve always been very demanding regarding people´s input in Cardinals Folly. I never chose to be the leader of the band. It came naturally, because of my level of ambition, temperament, and vision. Cardinals Folly is my baby, and I was never truly happy with the input of the previous members. Our guitar player had no time to really play in a band and since we took our name in 2007, our drummer had always had self-doubts about his playing and we always argued about many things. He´s a friend of mine still, and probably always will be, but we weren´t exactly the dream team, musically. I was always pushing forward and he was stalling.

With Juho joining in guitar around 2012 and Joni in drums 2014, we got the right dedicated members to push things forward. The future of Cardinals Folly has never truly been in doubt, as it´s always been a major creative outlet for me. But you can speculate if I had made it to this point without these guys. Probably not. The band would exist anyway, but you kind of need the lineup to truly make it something. After all, band life is about sharing our views, rehearsing, talking crap, playing live, doing records, drinking together -- that´s what it is to me.

So how did you come to meet your current partners, Juho and Joni? You’re the primary songwriter, naturally, so I’m curious how these two contribute to or otherwise enhance your musical ideas.

They both just answered the ads I had left. I really like that I didn´t take them into the band because of some guaranteed friendship. They weren´t old fishing buddies. That sort of thing is overrated, when it comes to band members. Also, if the band has ambition, it can fuck over the friendship or the friendship can fuck over the band, if you know what I mean. You need brutal honesty, sometimes. Making music like Cardinals Folly is about ambition and vision, so it doesn´t help one bit if you´re a great guy otherwise. Previous members were perfect examples of that.

Juho trained on a few songs on acoustic guitar over the weekend up north at his parents and returned early from his holiday to make it to the audition down south, where he nailed everything totally. Joni did the same, without missing a beat. The musical collaboration and understanding is on a very high level here. An exceptionally high level that even most pro musicians can´t reach with each other for different personal reasons. I´ve seen this. We can together spice up the original idea and structure for a song without changing the atmosphere or screwing anything over. We simply enrich it with good flavors. I or Juho come up with a few matching riffs and we complete the song usually as a group, throwing in riffs and fixing the arrangements for whole band. The original idea remains, but grows some muscle around itself.

Lyrics sometimes exist already before the song, but usually some interesting theme pops up after the feeling I get from the music and I finish the lyrics in a frenzy of inspiration from that. In my opinion, combining the music with the fitting and believable lyrics of a similar atmosphere is very important. If you fuck that up, you´re not in the game anymore. Our approach is similar and we talk the same “language,” because we´re not educated musicians, but three guys on a mission they all completely understand, both spiritually and musically. I feel we´re a real band -- a three-piece unit. We work everything together, despite of who wrote the original ideas. Nothing is ever personal. We understand our art and wish to push it forward. That is the priority in Cardinals Folly for us all, despite also being friends. It's very easy for me to say this, since it´s nothing, but a transcription of what happens in the world of Cardinals Folly nowadays.

You balk at trendiness in music, “laughing at stoner/retro trends as Cardinals Folly since 2007.” In “Hyperborean,” there is the declamatory “No Trends!” in the chorus. Obviously it’s an important sentiment to you.

It feels very natural to me, that a metal band not only plays hard, but also views hard. With my current understanding of the music I´m doing, I certainly wouldn't settle for less, in any way. This is my chosen lifestyle. Metal music in general is dominated by trends, which is understandable, but spoils the danger and excitement levels of this kinda music completely. I´ll be honest with you, I rarely even listen to new doom anymore. I do still get excited when I hear something totally ass-ripping, like the new Caskets Open album, for an example, but mostly you can predict the moves of the bands, even their behavior. The whole thing is just like my mom making a metal band, and as much as I love my mom, she´s not cut out for this. I feel I need to look elsewhere if I want inspiration. I´m over 30, but I´m still a rebel. I just don´t feel it enough.

Are you coming across many acts that are going their own way, perhaps even a little misunderstood? We’d love to know about bands in Finland, in particular, that have earned your respect and patronage.

Well, just to make it short by recommending some Finnish bands you might not know about: Caskets Open, Seremonia, Kohti Tuhoa, Vinum Sabbatum, Slave Hands, Chestburster and why don´t you also check out the Lithuanian band Hellhookah, because so far Arnas is the only one staying up and downing vodka later than I do! Great people, great band.

Coalition of the Anathematized by Cardinals Folly / Church of Void / Acolytes of Moros

Cardinals Folly has been prolific, releasing a new full-length every two years. Last year, you brought us virtually two albums worth of songs, if you include that fantastic split with Church of Void and Acolytes of Moros. Are you tapped out or do you have more songs in the works for us? If so, it would be amazing if you could give us a hint about the material you’re toying with.

Well, I would never consider us being “tapped out” at this point, regardless of the song situation, since we´re hungry and nasty bastards, one of the few bands actually living the shit! Every week we do something, be it rehearsal, studio, a live gig, or just sitting at a bar together, getting nutty ideas.

And to back this up, I will humbly say that our fourth album, Deranged Pagan Sons, which will wipe the floor with all our previous works, will be released in the fall of 2017 on CD via Nine Records and LP via Topillo Records. Fresh start with couple of up-and-coming Euro labels and the very finest we can offer. Eight tracks and 48 minutes of brutal, barbaric, heavy, in-your-face doom metal. The songs are the best, the sound is the best, and for the first fucking time ever, I don´t really even hate my vocals.

That’s awesome news! I think I speak for many when I say I can't wait to give the new record a spin. As we wrap up the conversation, anything you'd like to share with fans, or at least those who by now are becoming curious?

Later this year, you gotta face our new album in all its power. Join the doom metal cult Cardinals Folly and its ventures. Ride with the doomed ones! Retreating from it doesn´t do good for your metal credibility, so I suggest you open yourselves to it. Dance with the devil. It can´t be ignored anymore. We are going to blow off some steam and live to win, even if some boring jerks keep saying it´s a sin.

Thank you for spending time with me and the Doomed & Stoned readers!

The pleasure was all mine, and will be.

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

#D&S Interviews #Cardinals Folly #Mikko Kääriäinen #Helsinki #Finland #Doom #Metal #Horror #Doomed & Stoned

[noiseartists]

SICAYDA (CANADA): THE SHOEGAZING BUTTERFLIES OF TORONTO

Sicayda is a band from Toronto, which sound mixes the energy of Post-Punk and the Sound Palette of Shoegaze. You may detect in their music some hints of early Teenage Fanclub and other excellent influences.

The Four-Imaginary-Bugs are:

Kevin Tipan: Guitar & Vocals

Marcos Villar: Guitar & Synths

Ian Fragomeni: Drums

Zachary Clarke: Bass

SICAYDA’S MUSIC

Sicayda’s music work to date was released in 2019 and includes one EP (Sown) and 3 singles (Caught in the rain, It changes and Go on)

A lot of our music comes from our life experiences and our feelings towards a lot of issues we face being POC and just being musicians and people that lived in impoverished and lower class families in general.

With that in mind we tend to write lyrics more cryptically and try to keep it as "universal" as possible so our fans can not only understand what we're saying but since everyone has different experiences, relate to the songs, make them personal.

An example is our most popular song "Two's" which is a song about Kevin (singer/guitarist) meeting his girlfriend of seven years. The song doesn’t sound specific but specific at the same time. Their is a story being told and a person being talked to but it also sounds like any person with flaws talking about their feelings for someone and there’s a sense of real love which anyone can represent in their own way. Another very personal song is "Only Worried" which is essentially a song about having to work everyday, being tired, depressed when you know that's not where you want to be in life. There's also a bit of self-reflection in the chorus "Only you can tell, only you can say, don't worry" which is a mantra to yourself that you can get through the situation with your own will, the "you" means yourself - at the same time the "you" can be someone else that motivates you and makes you feel driven, that makes you feel that you don't have to worry, that is the "universal" idea that we usually try our best to convey in our music.

SICAYDA’S HISTORY AND INTERVIEW

Sicayda was formed by Kevin Tipan and Marcos Villar in July of 2017. They recruited Zachary Clarke (bass) and Ian fragomeni(drums) around the same time to fill out the rythm section.

Kevin and Marcos have been friends and collaborators for over a decade, playing together in other bands and duo groups writing and growing their sound. The main sound and sonic vision was crafted by the duo over many years and many influences helping create something unique in the "gaze" world. When they formed what would become Sicayda they had ads out looking for a drummer and a bassist. Ian was recruited through Facebook, he sent a message to Marcos about trying out for the band, a short time later he showed up and we asked him to play anything and he blew us away with his playing making our crummy cheap drum set left by and old member sound amazing. Zach messaged us through kajiji asking if he could record us because he was starting his engineering business. He ultimately decided why not try out and see if he likes the vibe and he did and we were surprised with how quickly he learned the songs we were rehearsing and that’s how we became Sicayda

How did you come up with the name?

Sicayda comes from a few things. One is our Hispanic background Marcos, Kevin and Ian have latino parents or parent and we wanted to some way reflect that heritage in our music so we were thinking of names in Spanish. I (Kevin) liked the idea of "We fall" turning into a phrase "if you fall" or in Spanish "Si tu caida", which is incorrect Spanish but it would be "si te cais" but it gave us an idea by looking at it. "SITUCAIDA" It reminded us about the bug Cicada and previously we'd been named humbug in another band and liked the bug theme so Sicayda stuck and we really enjoy explaining our backgrounds and the origin of the name.

What are your goals?

Our goal really is to be able to play, write and tour our music comfortably without worrying about being broke when we get back to our families. We want to create a new art and push shoegaze and alternative rock in a different direction. We want to be able to make a living through our music at the basic level. Kevin and Marcos being the main components of the band were never well off and lived just above poverty a lot of their lives and know how it is to watch your family struggle through financial problems. They want to be able to be comfortable and provide for their families if fame comes then that's a major plus and we hope that is possible in our future.

Why do you think you make this music?

Kevin and Marcos created this music through their life experiences through their hardship and struggle and need to be creative. It is environment and it inside of us. We realized shortly after high school that we were talented and very badly needed to be creative to be happy and since we are hard working we wanted to push ourselves to achieve it.

What do you do to make your music, do you experiment etc…?

We have a lot of influences stemming from the mid 80's synth, alternative, goth to today very much all in the alternative rock scene. Where we started to really change our music is when we found shoegaze. Shoegaze is an amazing genre but we felt it stagnated into more of a mood then a genre and it stubbornly didn’t want to progress. We didn’t do it inherently but we just added different elements to our writing and realized a lot of the sonics were shoegaze influenced but nothing like shoegaze. Now a days we have a very good idea of what we're trying to do especially with an LP in the works already.

Your pallet of sound?

I would say we are a few major things Alternative rock, shoegaze, noise-pop, metal, ambient, and more so now a days hardcore and punk influenced.

If you could guest on an album with who and what would you play?

Kevin - Id love to play on a Sonic youth record as a guitarist and singer because i feel most of my need to be creative and try different things comes from sonic youths tendency to push boundaries and sounds and an My Bloody Valentine’s record as the same.

What musical skills would you like to acquire or get better at?

Kevin: I’d still love to improve my guitar playing and singing to have a bigger pallet of experience. And id love to learn the drums cause I’ve always loved that idea

Marcos: get better at piano, enhance my singing and improve my guitar playing even further

Is there a band that if they didn’t exist you wouldn’t be making the music you are?

For sure, if we never found the cure, sonic youth, Radiohead or MBV we would never be playing the music we are now.

You are from Canada what are the advantages and inconveniences?

A big advantage to being in Toronto Canada is, its a major music hub so our love for music has always been quenched by a lively scene, that we are around a lot of resources and accepting and helping people and of course everything that comes from being in a prosperous western country.

The inconveniences are how small that music hub is. There are a lot of people in Toronto but the music scene is very tight lipped and exclusive, its very difficult to get any traction especially for those not able to be socially active at such a high level.

The music here favors the rich and the socially active which is a shame cause there have been a lot of good bands that break up because of disillusionment.

What are some places around the world that you want to play at?

Definitely Greece at the acropolis. Travel all across Europe really

When the next project coming out?

Our single will be out on jan 29th and our 2nd EP is set for july or august of this year

Which artist do you recommend?

Listen to Senegal Astroturf, Fourthway, Losers, Bathouse, Hesitate, Daze, Koza, Eddyevvy, Roach,

Anything else you want your fans to know?

All that we love all our fans and really appreciate all the support we have and a big thank you to anyone who streamed, bought our merch or music online, we really do appreciate everything we get and hope you all continue to support us and we have big plans this year with a lot of great music coming soon.

WHERE TO FIND THE BAND AND THEIR MUSIC

Bandcamp (you can download their music free of charge but please leave a euro/dollar of two. Every little bit helps)

Facebook

Band’s web site (with merch, tour dates, …) YouTube channel (with very good 2 live videos)

#Sicayda #Canada #Shoegaze

[networkingdefinition]

Art Quotes

Official Website: Art Quotes

• A Good artist has less time than ideas. – Martin Kippenberger • A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires. – Hedy Lamarr • A good sketch is better than a long speech. – Napoleon Bonaparte • A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession. – Albert Camus • A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. – Albert Camus • A picture is a work of art, not because it is ‘modern,’ nor because it is ‘ancient,’ but because it is a sincere expression of human feeling. – John F. Carlson • A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. – Oscar Wilde • A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. – Jorge Luis Borges • Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. – Al Capp • All art is autobiographical. – Federico Fellini • All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography. – Federico Fellini • All art is but imitation of nature. – Seneca the Younger • Almost every work of art is an analogy. When I make a representation of something, this too is an analogy to what exists; I make an effort to get a grip on the thing by depicting it. I prefer to steer clear of anything aesthetic, so as not to set obstacles in my own way and not to have the problem of people saying: ‘Ah, yes, that’s how he sees the world, that’s his interpretation.’ – Gerhard Richter • An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all. – Paul Cezanne • An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all… feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique – all these are in the middle. – Paul Cezanne • An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. – James Whistler • An artist should have more than two eyes. – Alphonse de Lamartine • And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves ‘It’s pretty, but is it Art?’ – Rudyard Kipling • Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes. – Khalil Gibran • Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. – Alfred North Whitehead • Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. – Thomas Merton • Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist. – Rene Magritte • Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus. – David Hockney • Art hurts. Art urges voyages – and it is easier to stay at home. – Gwendolyn Brooks • Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. – Andre Gide • Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother’s womb. – Hans Arp • Art is a jealous mistress. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Art is a jealous mistress; and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man. – Michelangelo • Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feeling. – Leo Tolstoy • Art is a passion or it is nothing. – Robert Fry • Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another. – Seth Godin • Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers… What we call art is a game. – Octavio Paz • Art is as heavy as sorrow, as light as a breeze, as bright as an idea, as pretty as a picture, as funny as money, and as fugitive as fraud! – Barbara Kruger • Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence. – Friedrich Nietzsche • Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life. – Jean Paul • Art is like singing. Some do it better than others, but everyone can and should be doing it for their soul. – Barbara Mason • Art is literacy of the heart – Elliot W. Eisner • Art is long, and Time is fleeting. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Art is made by the alone for the alone. – Luis Barragan • Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor. – Henry A. Kissinger • Art is never finished, only abandoned. – Leonardo da Vinci • Art is not a substitute religion: it is a religion (in the true sense of the word: ‘binding back’, ‘binding’ to the unknowable, transcending reason, transcendent being). But the church is no longer adequate as a means of affording experience of the transcendental, and of making religion real – and so art has been transformed from a means into the sole provider of religion: which means religion itself. – Gerhard Richter • Art is not a thing; it is a way. – Elbert Hubbard • Art is not an object, but a trigger for experience. – Brian Eno • Art is not in the …eye of the beholder. It’s in the soul of the artist. – Seth Godin • Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in. – Amy Lowell • Art is the elimination of the unnecessary. – Pablo Picasso • Art is the highest form of hope. – Gerhard Richter • Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth. – Pablo Picasso • Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. – Oscar Wilde • Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature. – Susanne Katherina Langer • Art is the objectification of feeling. – Herman Melville • Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. – Twyla Tharp • Art is the proper task of life. – Friedrich Nietzsche • Art is the pure realization of religious feeling, capacity for faith, longing for God. … The ability to believe is our outstanding quality, and only art adequately translates it into reality. But when we assuage our need for faith with an ideology we court disaster. – Gerhard Richter • Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world. – Leonardo da Vinci • Art is the signature of civilizations. – Beverly Sills • Art is the window to man’s soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within. – Lady Bird Johnson • Art is too serious to be taken seriously. – Ad Reinhardt • Art is whatever you can get away with. – John Cage • Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing. – Marc Chagall • Art must take reality by surprise. – Francoise Sagan • Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it. – Flannery O’Connor • Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time. – Jean Cocteau • Art remains the one way possible of speaking truth. – Robert Browning • Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue. – Henri Matisse • Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. – Banksy • Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. – Pablo Picasso • Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag. – Laurie Halse Anderson • Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. – Stephen Sondheim • Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Artists must be sacrificed to their art. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • As all Nature’s thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art’s wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Art', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_art').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_art img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Cookery is naturally the most ancient of the arts, as of all arts it is the most important. – George Ellwanger • Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams • Creativity is not simply a property of exceptional people but an exceptional property of all people. – Ron Carter • Creativity is often blocked by trying to be perfect. Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Tony Robbins • Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. – Henry Ward Beecher • Every artist was first an amateur. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Every artist writes his own autobiography. – Havelock Ellis • Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. – Pablo Picasso • Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art. – Miguel Angel Ruiz • God and other artists are always a little obscure. – Oscar Wilde • Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness. – George Jean Nathan • Great art picks up where nature ends. – Marc Chagall • I am an artist… I am here to live out loud. – Emile Zola • I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart. – Vincent Van Gogh • I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it. – Federico Fellini • I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing. – Francis Ford Coppola • I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. “Labor,” he in effect said, “is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art.” Turning then to another–“And you,” I inquired, “what do you consider as the great force in art?” “Love,” he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth. – Christian Nestell Bovee • I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. – Vincent Van Gogh • I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say “he feels deeply, he feels tenderly”. – Vincent Van Gogh • I would like to try to understand what is. We know very little, and I am trying to do it by creating analogies. Almost every work of art is an analogy. – Gerhard Richter • If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing. – Marc Chagall • Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do. – Elizabeth Bowen • In art as in love, instinct is enough. – Anatole France • In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • In its most limited sense, modern, art would seem to concern itself only with the technical innovations of the period. – Edward Hopper • In whatever one does there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart. – Henri Cartier-Bresson • It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize, And to be swift is less than to be wise. – Homer • It is only through Art and through Art only that we can realize our perfection; Through Art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence. – Oscar Wilde • It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. – Albert Einstein • It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection. – Oscar Wilde • It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. – Pablo Picasso • Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. – Igor Stravinsky • Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. – Stella Adler • Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life. – Oscar Wilde • Life is the art of drawing without an eraser. – John W. Gardner • Love isn’t an emotion or an instinct – it’s an art. – Mae West • Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art. – Constantin Stanislavski • Man, there’s no boundary line to art! – Charlie Parker • Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw. – Simon Munnery • Nature is the art of God. – Dante Alighieri • No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. – Oscar Wilde • Of all lies, art is the least untrue. – Gustave Flaubert • One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. – Oscar Wilde • Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. – Don Marquis • Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim. – John Ruskin • Rules and models destroy genius and art. – William Hazlitt • Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing. – Oscar Wilde • Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art. – Tom Stoppard • The act of painting is about one heart telling another heart where he found salvation. – Francisco Goya • The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle • The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions. – Paul Klee • The artist begins with a vision – a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage. – Henri Matisse • The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist. – Novalis • The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. – Emile Zola • The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor. – Paul Getty • The big art is our life. – Mary Caroline Richards • The desire to be loved is really death when it comes to art. – David Cronenberg • The highest art is artlessness. – Francis Alexander Durivage • The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. – Francis Bacon • The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you’re an artist. – David Hockney • The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract. – Ellen Key • The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others. – Vincent Van Gogh • The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. – Albert Einstein • The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable. – Robert Henri • The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity. – Alberto Giacometti • The object of Art is to give life a shape. – William Shakespeare • The object of art is to give life shape. – Jean Anouilh • The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.- Elie Wiesel • The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts. Illusion on a ground of truth,–that is the secret of the fine arts. – Joseph Joubert • The perfection of an art consists in the employment of a comprehensive system of laws, commensurate to every purpose within its scope, but concealed from the eye of the spectator; and in the production of effects that seem to flow forth spontaneously, as though uncontrolled by their influence, and which are equally excellent, whether regarded individually, or in reference to the proposed result. – John Mason Good • The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel. – Piet Mondrian • The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. – Jerzy Kosinski • The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. – T. S. Eliot • The secret of life is in art. – Oscar Wilde • The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. – Michelangelo • The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books. – Charlie Chaplin • There is no must in art because art is free. – Wassily Kandinsky • There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • There is one thing one has to have either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge. – Friedrich Nietzsche • There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain. – Georges Braque • To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there’s no such thing as perfect. – Alexander Calder • To be an artist is to believe in life. – Henry Moore • To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream. – Giorgio de Chirico • To me, art is the glorification of the human spirit. – Hans Hofmann • To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it. – Kurt Vonnegut • Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first. – Arthur Schopenhauer • True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist. – Albert Einstein • True art lies in a reality that is felt. – Odilon Redon • Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. – Fran Lebowitz • Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible. – Jonathan Swift • We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies. – Pablo Picasso • We have art in order not to die of life. – Albert Camus • We work in the dark – we do what we can – we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. – Henry James • What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit. – John Updike • What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. – Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother – Hokusai • When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art. – Paul Cezanne • Wherever art appears, life disappears. – Robert Motherwell • Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. – George Bernard Shaw • Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others. – Albert Camus • You don’t make art, you find it – Pablo Picasso • You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. – George Bernard Shaw

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[equitiesstocks]

Art Quotes

Official Website: Art Quotes

• A Good artist has less time than ideas. – Martin Kippenberger • A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires. – Hedy Lamarr • A good sketch is better than a long speech. – Napoleon Bonaparte • A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession. – Albert Camus • A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. – Albert Camus • A picture is a work of art, not because it is ‘modern,’ nor because it is ‘ancient,’ but because it is a sincere expression of human feeling. – John F. Carlson • A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. – Oscar Wilde • A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. – Jorge Luis Borges • Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. – Al Capp • All art is autobiographical. – Federico Fellini • All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography. – Federico Fellini • All art is but imitation of nature. – Seneca the Younger • Almost every work of art is an analogy. When I make a representation of something, this too is an analogy to what exists; I make an effort to get a grip on the thing by depicting it. I prefer to steer clear of anything aesthetic, so as not to set obstacles in my own way and not to have the problem of people saying: ‘Ah, yes, that’s how he sees the world, that’s his interpretation.’ – Gerhard Richter • An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all. – Paul Cezanne • An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all… feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique – all these are in the middle. – Paul Cezanne • An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. – James Whistler • An artist should have more than two eyes. – Alphonse de Lamartine • And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves ‘It’s pretty, but is it Art?’ – Rudyard Kipling • Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes. – Khalil Gibran • Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. – Alfred North Whitehead • Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. – Thomas Merton • Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist. – Rene Magritte • Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus. – David Hockney • Art hurts. Art urges voyages – and it is easier to stay at home. – Gwendolyn Brooks • Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. – Andre Gide • Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother’s womb. – Hans Arp • Art is a jealous mistress. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Art is a jealous mistress; and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man. – Michelangelo • Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feeling. – Leo Tolstoy • Art is a passion or it is nothing. – Robert Fry • Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another. – Seth Godin • Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers… What we call art is a game. – Octavio Paz • Art is as heavy as sorrow, as light as a breeze, as bright as an idea, as pretty as a picture, as funny as money, and as fugitive as fraud! – Barbara Kruger • Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence. – Friedrich Nietzsche • Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life. – Jean Paul • Art is like singing. Some do it better than others, but everyone can and should be doing it for their soul. – Barbara Mason • Art is literacy of the heart – Elliot W. Eisner • Art is long, and Time is fleeting. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Art is made by the alone for the alone. – Luis Barragan • Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor. – Henry A. Kissinger • Art is never finished, only abandoned. – Leonardo da Vinci • Art is not a substitute religion: it is a religion (in the true sense of the word: ‘binding back’, ‘binding’ to the unknowable, transcending reason, transcendent being). But the church is no longer adequate as a means of affording experience of the transcendental, and of making religion real – and so art has been transformed from a means into the sole provider of religion: which means religion itself. – Gerhard Richter • Art is not a thing; it is a way. – Elbert Hubbard • Art is not an object, but a trigger for experience. – Brian Eno • Art is not in the …eye of the beholder. It’s in the soul of the artist. – Seth Godin • Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in. – Amy Lowell • Art is the elimination of the unnecessary. – Pablo Picasso • Art is the highest form of hope. – Gerhard Richter • Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth. – Pablo Picasso • Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. – Oscar Wilde • Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature. – Susanne Katherina Langer • Art is the objectification of feeling. – Herman Melville • Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. – Twyla Tharp • Art is the proper task of life. – Friedrich Nietzsche • Art is the pure realization of religious feeling, capacity for faith, longing for God. … The ability to believe is our outstanding quality, and only art adequately translates it into reality. But when we assuage our need for faith with an ideology we court disaster. – Gerhard Richter • Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world. – Leonardo da Vinci • Art is the signature of civilizations. – Beverly Sills • Art is the window to man’s soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within. – Lady Bird Johnson • Art is too serious to be taken seriously. – Ad Reinhardt • Art is whatever you can get away with. – John Cage • Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing. – Marc Chagall • Art must take reality by surprise. – Francoise Sagan • Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it. – Flannery O’Connor • Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time. – Jean Cocteau • Art remains the one way possible of speaking truth. – Robert Browning • Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue. – Henri Matisse • Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. – Banksy • Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. – Pablo Picasso • Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag. – Laurie Halse Anderson • Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. – Stephen Sondheim • Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Artists must be sacrificed to their art. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • As all Nature’s thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art’s wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Art', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_art').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_art img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Cookery is naturally the most ancient of the arts, as of all arts it is the most important. – George Ellwanger • Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams • Creativity is not simply a property of exceptional people but an exceptional property of all people. – Ron Carter • Creativity is often blocked by trying to be perfect. Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Tony Robbins • Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. – Henry Ward Beecher • Every artist was first an amateur. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Every artist writes his own autobiography. – Havelock Ellis • Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. – Pablo Picasso • Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art. – Miguel Angel Ruiz • God and other artists are always a little obscure. – Oscar Wilde • Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness. – George Jean Nathan • Great art picks up where nature ends. – Marc Chagall • I am an artist… I am here to live out loud. – Emile Zola • I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart. – Vincent Van Gogh • I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it. – Federico Fellini • I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing. – Francis Ford Coppola • I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. “Labor,” he in effect said, “is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art.” Turning then to another–“And you,” I inquired, “what do you consider as the great force in art?” “Love,” he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth. – Christian Nestell Bovee • I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. – Vincent Van Gogh • I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say “he feels deeply, he feels tenderly”. – Vincent Van Gogh • I would like to try to understand what is. We know very little, and I am trying to do it by creating analogies. Almost every work of art is an analogy. – Gerhard Richter • If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing. – Marc Chagall • Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do. – Elizabeth Bowen • In art as in love, instinct is enough. – Anatole France • In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • In its most limited sense, modern, art would seem to concern itself only with the technical innovations of the period. – Edward Hopper • In whatever one does there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart. – Henri Cartier-Bresson • It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize, And to be swift is less than to be wise. – Homer • It is only through Art and through Art only that we can realize our perfection; Through Art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence. – Oscar Wilde • It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. – Albert Einstein • It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection. – Oscar Wilde • It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. – Pablo Picasso • Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. – Igor Stravinsky • Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. – Stella Adler • Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life. – Oscar Wilde • Life is the art of drawing without an eraser. – John W. Gardner • Love isn’t an emotion or an instinct – it’s an art. – Mae West • Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art. – Constantin Stanislavski • Man, there’s no boundary line to art! – Charlie Parker • Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw. – Simon Munnery • Nature is the art of God. – Dante Alighieri • No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. – Oscar Wilde • Of all lies, art is the least untrue. – Gustave Flaubert • One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. – Oscar Wilde • Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. – Don Marquis • Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim. – John Ruskin • Rules and models destroy genius and art. – William Hazlitt • Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing. – Oscar Wilde • Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art. – Tom Stoppard • The act of painting is about one heart telling another heart where he found salvation. – Francisco Goya • The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle • The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions. – Paul Klee • The artist begins with a vision – a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage. – Henri Matisse • The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist. – Novalis • The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. – Emile Zola • The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor. – Paul Getty • The big art is our life. – Mary Caroline Richards • The desire to be loved is really death when it comes to art. – David Cronenberg • The highest art is artlessness. – Francis Alexander Durivage • The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. – Francis Bacon • The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you’re an artist. – David Hockney • The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract. – Ellen Key • The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others. – Vincent Van Gogh • The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. – Albert Einstein • The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable. – Robert Henri • The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity. – Alberto Giacometti • The object of Art is to give life a shape. – William Shakespeare • The object of art is to give life shape. – Jean Anouilh • The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.- Elie Wiesel • The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts. Illusion on a ground of truth,–that is the secret of the fine arts. – Joseph Joubert • The perfection of an art consists in the employment of a comprehensive system of laws, commensurate to every purpose within its scope, but concealed from the eye of the spectator; and in the production of effects that seem to flow forth spontaneously, as though uncontrolled by their influence, and which are equally excellent, whether regarded individually, or in reference to the proposed result. – John Mason Good • The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel. – Piet Mondrian • The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. – Jerzy Kosinski • The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. – T. S. Eliot • The secret of life is in art. – Oscar Wilde • The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. – Michelangelo • The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books. – Charlie Chaplin • There is no must in art because art is free. – Wassily Kandinsky • There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • There is one thing one has to have either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge. – Friedrich Nietzsche • There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain. – Georges Braque • To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there’s no such thing as perfect. – Alexander Calder • To be an artist is to believe in life. – Henry Moore • To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream. – Giorgio de Chirico • To me, art is the glorification of the human spirit. – Hans Hofmann • To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it. – Kurt Vonnegut • Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first. – Arthur Schopenhauer • True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist. – Albert Einstein • True art lies in a reality that is felt. – Odilon Redon • Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. – Fran Lebowitz • Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible. – Jonathan Swift • We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies. – Pablo Picasso • We have art in order not to die of life. – Albert Camus • We work in the dark – we do what we can – we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. – Henry James • What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit. – John Updike • What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. – Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother – Hokusai • When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art. – Paul Cezanne • Wherever art appears, life disappears. – Robert Motherwell • Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. – George Bernard Shaw • Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others. – Albert Camus • You don’t make art, you find it – Pablo Picasso • You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. – George Bernard Shaw

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[jamiekturner]

Inspirational art quotes from artists and famous people

Art quotes inspire us to do our very best, working with renewed vigor.  When you read quotes about art, you may feel uplifted and motivated to do your very best.

Artists have experience in the field and understand what it takes to stimulate creativity.

We’ve put together a collection of inspirational art quotes to uplift, motivate and encourage you.

As an added bonus we’ve also added some funny quotes about art, simply just to make you laugh.

Quotes about the arts:

“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” Jean Dubuffet

“If you hear a voice within you saying, ‘You are not a painter,’ then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent van Gogh

“I can’t understand how anyone is able to paint without optimism. Despite the general pessimistic attitude in the world today, I am nothing but an optimist.”  Hans Hofmann

“A picture is a poem without words”Horace

“I just decided, when someone says you can’t do something. DO MORE OF IT.” Faith Ringgold

“I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.” Jackson Pollock

“A really good picture looks as if it’s happened at once. It’s an immediate image. For my own work, when a picture looks labored and overworked… I usually throw these out, though I think very often it takes ten of those over-labored efforts to produce one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute” Helen Frankenthaler

“The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke” Jerzy Kosinski

“As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance”Calvin & Hobbes

“If you are not skillful enough to sketch a man jumping out of a window in the time it takes him to fall from the fourth story to the ground, you will never be able to produce great works.” Eugène Delacroix

“The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.” Rene Magritte

“Art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness.” Anni Albers

“I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”  Frida Kahlo

“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.” Wassily Kandinsky

“I didn’t expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I’m living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it.” Henri Matisse

“Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations.”  Paul Cézanne

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it” Ansel Adams

“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works: if from the head, almost nothing.” Marc Chagall

“Every good composition is above all a work of abstraction. All good painters know this. But the painter cannot dispense with subjects altogether without his work suffering impoverishment.”  Diego Rivera

“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” Piet Mondrian

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” Salvador Dali

“ In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”  Francis Bacon

“What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.” – Eugene Delacroix

“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” Marc Chagall

“Don’t be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.” Paul Cezanne

“Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.” Rene Magritte

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” – John W. Gardner

“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” – Robert Henri

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” Edgar Degas

“To create one’s own world takes courage.” Georgia O’Keeffe

“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” Alberto Giacometti

“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” – Andre Gide

“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” Auguste Rodin

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” Vincent van Gogh

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” Henry Ward Beecher

“It is important to express oneself…provided the feelings are real and are taken from you own experience.”  Berthe Morisot

“A Good artist has less time than ideas.” Martin Kippenberger

“To be an artist is to believe in life.” Henry Moore

“Every good painter paints what he is.” Jackson Pollock

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Edgar Degas

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done.  Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it.  While they are deciding, make even more art.” Andy Warhol

“I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” Frida Kahlo

“I paint for myself. I don’t know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.”  Francis Bacon

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” Vincent van Gogh

“Creativity takes courage.” Henri Matisse

“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Edward Hopper

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Andy Warhol

“What I am seeking is not the real and not the unreal but rather the unconscious, the mystery of the instinctive in the human race.” Amadeo Modigliani

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso

“Great art picks up where nature ends.”  Marc Chagall

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” Paul Cezanne

“Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye.. it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.”  Edvard Munch

“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” Charles Horton Cooley

“There’s no retirement for an artist, it’s your way of living so there’s no end to it.” Henry Moore

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” Leonardo da Vinci

“An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.” Paul Valéry

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Aristotle

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” Oscar Wilde

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing.  Making your unknown known is the important thing.” Georgia O’Keeffe

“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” Pablo Picasso

“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” Stella Adler

“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.”  Schumann

“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.’” Vincent Van Gogh

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way–things I had no words for.” Georgia O’Keeffe

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” Pablo Picasso

“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.”  Auguste Rodin

“Painting is a means of self-enlightenment.” John Olsen

“The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” Vincent Van Gogh

“If I were called upon to define briefly the word Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses preceive in nature, seen through the veil of the soul.” Paul Cezanne

“If you always do what you always did – you’ll always get what you always got.” Unknown

“I don’t say everything, but I paint everything.” Pablo Picasso

“The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.” Vincent Van Gogh

“The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.” Banksy

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” Twyla Tharp

“Art is the stored honey of the human soul.” Theodore Dreiser

“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” James McNeill Whistler

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent Van Gogh

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” Scott Adams

“Inspiration does exist but it must find you working.” Pablo Picasso

“The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” Vincent Van Gogh

“The artist’s world is limitless.  It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away.  It is always on his doorstep.” Paul Strand

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Henry David Thoreau

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” DrSuess

“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.” Pablo Picasso

“It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.” Vincent Van Gogh

“If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.”  Albrecht Durer

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Pablo Picasso

“I wish they would only take me as I am.” Vincent Van Gogh

“Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.” Rembrandt

“Art is never finished, only abandoned” Leonardo Da Vinci

“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” Kurt Vonnegut

“It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.” Mark Rothko

“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” Salvador Dali

“The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.” Lucian Freud

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” Leonardo da Vinci

“Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” Pablo Picasso

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free” Michelangelo

“For me, painting is a way to forget life.  It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.” Georges Rouault

“There is no must in art because art is free.”  Wassily Kandinsky

“Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” Leonardo da Vinci

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” Michelangelo

“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” Claude Monet

“Art, Undeniably, is conductive to happiness.” unknown

“Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.” Vincent Van Gogh

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Pablo Picasso

“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.” Andy Warhol

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.” Robert Hughes

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” Émile Zola

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” Vincent Van Gogh

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.” Paul Gardner

“A great artist is always before his time or behind it.” George Moore

“As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward.” Vincent van Gogh

“Do not fear mistakes – there are none.” Miles David

“A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.” Michelangelo

“In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new; they see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves; novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only; making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.” Henri de Toulouse Lautrec

“You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat.” Pierre Auguste Renoir

Did you enjoy these art quotes?

We hope you found inspiration amongst these art quotes.  As Joseph Beuys explained, every human being is an artist.  We hope the wise words found in these art quotes will inspire your creativity.

Famous art quotes can motivate you to work from the soul, do your best and to keep trying until you reach your creative goals.  These quotes about the arts are sure to inspire and motivate you to keep striving to do your best.  Remember to share your favorite art quotes on social media.

If you liked this article about art quotes, you should check out these as well:

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The post Inspirational art quotes from artists and famous people appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing https://www.designyourway.net/blog/inspiration/art-quotes/

[krisrowland]

Promises for this year and reflections on last year

 A few activities that I’m trying to have a positive impact my life in 2019

Reading (so many books I haven’t read on my shelf)

Drawing in my Adam J Curtis book

Writing Kasper pieces

Spend time figuring out a vague shape for Kasper so far.

Organise Skype sessions with friends, Helena, Steph/Archie, Tina/Aine, Rosie, Lauren,

Research artistic meetups

Find time to meditate

Find time to be silly/rehearse monologues

Singing in the shower

Practising monologues

Writing thought pieces

Practical things to work on in 2019

Get a credit card and spend     £50 each month

Buy all birthday cards and     presents for sister, mum, dad, matt, Archie, Sophie, Jonny and Rich and Helena. + any  other major birthdays

Organise birthday party in August

Organise China trip in August

Things I promise to be this year

Being a better uncle to     Archie

Everyone is a little bit racist as they say. I want to be less so.  I want to understand more and go to talks, plays, listen to activists that have a BAME voice . And figure out how else I can be an ally.

Always be willing to learn

Reflections on 2018

January 

I met Chris at Paul's birthday party which was amazing it was so fun and an overwhelm of lust and play.  I stopped doing the Landmark Education introduction Leader Programme after  4 months of emotional, frustrating and enlivening phone calls. I couldn't deal with the pressure I was putting myself under. My grand visions of social justice and my own creative practise were in severe conflict with reality and I needed to reassess what I was saying to myself. I think Landmark has undoubtedly changed my life it has made me really respect myself and find ways of being more flexible on a day to day with others. I now have the best relationship with my Dad, Mum and work I have ever had. I also started counselling for the first of three times this year to clear up some irrational thought patterns, which has continued my personal development journey and understanding of myself. Katharine and I continued our obsession with Stacey Makishi @ The Yard Theatre. Paul and I watched an earthshattering theatrical version of Network at The National theatre.

February started with Rosies hen do and a rekindling of the Notts college crew. I had a two week break to hang round London see shows and art galleries. I had my first rehearsals for Kasper, a performance piece I have wanted to do for ages and invited Chris k to collaborate. I also partied hard with Kayleigh Foulkes for the first time in a number of years in Camden and G.A.Y. The broom dancing team were on form (minus Heather)

March Rosie and Bob's wedding was another wonderful reminder of the awesome people that are in Nottingham, god I love our college crew there is so much I have to thank you for. Catching up with Jake was great, though we only met up three times this year, a culture vulture with a big heart and the best company. Kris R's party was a messy fun night with glitter et al at G.A.Y. And another messy night to welcome Gurdeep to his new Stratford home.

April Discovering the cruisey vibes of Bloc bar with Bryan was amazing. It felt like I was at a gay trance night in the 90's. Pulsating music, guys and telling the time by the number of topless men you could see. April was also Jamie's birthday with a terrific karaoke and Chinese evening. I went to Nestas people powered health conference which made me want to do a service design ma in the new year and had a number of wines for the road with my director and manager.

May was an eventful month starting the new job, Eurovision being a messy evening to say the least in a fabulous location.  I saw Hamilton with Jamie which was an honour and a pleasure it was the best musical I'd seen in ages, intelligent, mainstream, modern and political, never mind catchy. The amount of times I listened to the soundtrack  Spotify created me my own Hamilton playlist as if it was a genre.

In June I did my first stint drinking no alcohol at house parties with support from Helena as she was trying to cut down as well. I joined the Grapes quiz team and won a number of times throughout the rest of the year with them. Helena and I went to Phobiarama which was a political and race based ghost train. Followed by a very iffy messy night at XXL. It was Jonny and Rich's 40th and Sophie's 30th. We said goodbye to the first care leavers peer support group and partied at Chris's caravan to say goodbye to Chris and Helena on their next adventures.

 The start of July was Helenas leaving party :( This years London pride felt like the first time I really understood why we still celebrate. A space in which you can be anything you want to be and feel comfortable being who you are. Years and Years were epic at the Roundhouse showing off their new album with much pizazz. Grindr the Opera was a weridly touching patische that was both hialrious and heartwarming. Helena was back in London and had a brief visit to see Gary in his new pad with Lindsey on the Henley part of the river Thames.

August was my first holiday with my dad in a beautiful air bnb in the New Forest. I had a joint birthday with Chris K starting with a picnic in Green park and ending in the beautiful Set You Free at The Chateau for pure 90s pop #messy. Kayleigh came to London again and we saw Britney at the O2 and went to Jonny woo' club The Glory.

 September I headed off to see Helena and explore Estonian culture in Talinn. I managed to do my best time on a half marathon. 1hour 54 minutes.

 October

Not much happened in October.Cabaret night with Phil Will and Kris. Halloween twas

November I met a really nice guy on Tinder but just didn't get the spark. I started Kasper rehearsals again, trying to figure out what the hell you do in a devised rehearsal space. Fantastic Beasts was a disappointment.

December started off with a fab racalette and wine evening with Chris Will and Phil. We had two Team away days on the same day which I helped organise. The Xmas party was at one my fav craft beer places. I had the gayest of Secret Santa's with unicorn Christmas decorations, a apron with a fake cock attached to it and a very fluffy rainbow pen. I finally went to see The Inheritance. A beautiful bittersweet depiction of modern gay life and the debt we owe older gay men.

Throughout the year I have been volunteering at a care leavers peer support group in Thurrock. It has been a challenging experience with the young people but also being able to find our place in the group. I wrote a blog about my experience here. I am continuing this into next year and won't be continuing after June.

It was a bit of a shock in May to hear that Helena (my closest and best friend) would be moving to China. We have really gone through thick and thin together and with each other over the last two years. Meeting at Landmark on a course and then developing a social impact concept together. Whilst the CCA's output may have left much to be desired. We created some unbelievable friendships ourselves and with other people including Gary, Kris , Annie and Papola. July was the month when she departed to go to Estonia for a few months before leaping over to Bejing to be a lecturer. Looking back over the year it strikes me how much of an impact she has had on me. Getting me off my seriousness addiction, pushing me when I didn't think I could give much more. She is one in million a real open, honest, not afraid to share her thoughts, willing to give anything a go and also a mysterious multitasker that you don't realise is doing so much brilliant stuff.  She has opened my eyes to the EU migrant experience in Britain, Estonia's vibrant culture, my own biases, helped me celebrate myself and so so so much more. Helena I frigging love you and miss you, no one can ever take your place.

At work it was an up and down year. A department restructure and consultation had been taking place since September 2017. After six months we had the finalised structure, my line manager was leaving which was a blessing and a curse. (In some ways he was an amazing line manager giving me space to explore with him what I wanted to develop in the role but he was also not great at following up and holding me to account plus our meetings could go on for hours.) Then looking at the final paper I saw that my job had been deleted. So I had to interview for a new position which mostly matched my previous role, though it was the grade above which softened the blow. We welcomed Jane to the peer support team and many others into the unit and it felt we had new found energy and ambition.  Two colleagues and myself started the LGBTIQ+ workshop which has been an amazing 6 months of creating events, learning, creating structures and trying to see how we are best placed in the organisation.  At the Xmas party we even had someone congratulating us on sustaining the group and seeing us as a steering group for the organisation. I also travelled to Birmingham and Swansea for Influence and Participation (I&P) events, helped create an animation and will be facilitating a session next year for a new set of videos explaining the benefits of I & P to people on their recovery journey. The success of our staff forum pay paper meant in April  that all staff got a pay rise, with further Brexit/ economic developments this will be a key focus in the coming years to see how we can support staff within our capacity as a charity. I was recently made the staff forum chairperson as Zadie leaves after having helped us navigate a consultation that asked major questions of our internal structures and leadership and form a project plan. Things now seem more on track with my role with a clear steer that my efforts to troubleshoot and problem solve is a positive contribution to the units and department as a whole. We will see what happens in the new year.

Jamie was another of Paul's friends who I instantly hit it off with. An amazing creative/ animator who has enthusiasm for all things culture with a labyrinth of music, film, TV shows and merch surrounding his almost iconic living room.  We created a film club watching films we had never seen before it was a zany mix of animation, black comedy, surreal adventures and classics that you are suppose to have seen. After a bit of persuasion Jamie created an amazing puppet lipsynch to Robyn's here. Talent screaming out, can't wait to see what next year brings for this phenomenal guy.

Chris what to say about Chris. Well he has given me some of the best nights of the year pub quizzes, theatre, drinks, nights in, films, banter, Karaoke, clubbing, a picnic. His smile is inffectious. He made me value the small things. We dated and that came to an end but he became a solid friend. There is so much going for him I just wish he would see how great he really is.

Big love