SCOPING THE AUDIENCE:Doing art for yourself can be a good thing. It can help you release stress, express yourself, free you from boredome, and so on. But one can only get so far doing art for yourself. Finding an audience can help you become a better artist more than doing art for yourself. As an artist, i create things that interest me and only effect me and sometimes i get bored with that and lose interest in the piece. Doing art for a different audience would make me focus more on art that people can learn from, indentfy with, or be consumed in. Focusing on ways to make art relate to other people would keep my ideas fresh and constantly changing and i wouldn't get so bored so easily.
SOURCING INSPIRATION:The book defines inspiration as something that sparks "a significant beginning, particularly one laden with risks and exhileration." I find this to be completely true. Something that inspires me has some kind of significance to me allowing me to get away from the norms of life and take risks in order to produce something exhilarating. Something that inspires me is skateboarding. I love everything about it from the lifestyles to physically riding my skateboard and doing things that will probably get me hurt or killed. There is just something that lures me into this counterculture, meaning that its not in the norm, and that is the risk; but the reward is when you do something you never imagined you could do and that is exhilarating to me. So for one sculpture project i had to find something that is no longer used for its original purpose and make a sculpture out of it. I ended up making a lounge chair out of broken skateboards, keeping skateboarding as my source for inspiration. This let me stay focused and not get bored with art because i had something to inspire me.
CRAFTING AN ARTISTIC SELF:Have you ever had someone tell you "Why aren't you acting like yourself"? I have plenty of times. The thing is that depending on your mood, or any situation for that matter, people act differently than normal depending on the situation or mood. It is the same way with art. An atist can have any identity through their work. They may be an angry person, a social person, an arrogant one, etc. As a person you change and that is the bottom line. As an artist you change as well and you can have many different "faces" and still be the same person. That is why i think style has alot to do with establishing your artistic "self" Self is how people identify you, and with yourself constantly changing, you need to find a way to let people know it is still you so i would develop my own personal style. That could be through clothing, the way you hold yourself, the music you listen to, or whatever. As an artist your style could be using the same medium for everything, or using the same technique, or the same concept. You may change but your style will set you apart and let people know who you are.
EXPRESSING AN ARTISTIC ATTITUDE:What is attitude? To me attitude is something that creates interest. Attitude is also contaigous. I hate listening to people who are monotonous or reading something that has no pulse or meaning behind it. Art is the same way. If it has no emotion or meaning, it is hard to enjoy. It may be pleasing to the eye but thats it. If i put some thought into what i do it makes it interesting to make, as well as creates interest in a public setting. I like coming up with a concept, drawing it or making it, and letting people in the dorm tell me what they think. The ones that have meaning to it, people seem to like more because they can tell it is different and they like trying to make their own connections to it. I think developoing an artistic attitude is something an artist needs to do to stay fresh and keep people, and maybe himself, interested.
