The art/beauty thing is a tough one. Sometimes I wonder if I should make the stories and messages behind my art more obvious, because I'm scared that people will just think they're pretty pictures, but on the other hand, sometimes I don't want people to get the references, because they'll see too far into me and/or possibly find out things I don't want them to know...

It's something I've thought about a lot since my high school art teacher had a discussion with us about aesthetics one day. We were studying his (and now mine also) favourite artist, Brett Whiteley. In the '60s, Whiteley had a whole show based on serial killer and rapist John Christie (you can see some ofthe images here -- http://www.hunglonggallery.com/?id=artist&name=Brett%20Whiteley ). Our teacher pointed out that what made the series so extraordinary was that Whiteley had managed to portray this foul and horrific history in paintings that were were beautiful in every other way. For a long time I felt repulsed that I liked the series, but then I realised that seeing those technically beautiful paintings was the only way I could actually address the issues -- who wants to look at paintings that are ugly as well as depressing?

Anyway, enough rambling from me. My art teacher rocked (and indeed still rocks).

I really love your blog. I read your comments on art and studying art and I understand all the issues and questions you have. I loved your thoughts on the artist/model relationship, talked about it over dinner and mulled it in my head for days. Art and beauty and concept, it's strange how they are all connected. Like drawing, I was taught to draw lots of different ways, contour line, just using shading or light, ot drawing what you see, and the other day I noticed I was using 3 different ways of looking at/drawing an object to get the shape. It was like something had finally clicked in the way I see things. I spent last summer working in a Contemporary Art museum. It was a mind blowing experience that is still shaping my ideas about art and what it can and should be. I agree that good craftsmanship is important because you want people to see the art, not the making right? Unless that IS the art and here we are back to the start of the debate!

Awesome entry, Jodi. :) Lots to think about... I haven't been doing much artwork lately, which is a sorry state of affairs. It seems much of the time when I do paint, I make the best work when I focus on just making a satisfying product, and have faith that the ideas will emerge later. This made for interesting artist statements when I had to write such things in college, since it usually took me 2 or 3 years to figure out what anything was really about. ;)

Hi Jodi,
I really enjoy reading your blog, and today I am called out of the shadows with a hearty wish to agree with you. I've graduated from the visual arts program at York University, (printmaker) and I during my years there I was bombarded with people who couldn’t wrap their heads around the craftsmanship versus concept idea you were talking about. Most would align themselves with one issue or another. I shudder remembering critiques that started “I JUST wanted to make a pretty picture.” (Most of these people JUST wanted to be art teachers and didn’t consider themselves artists at all. It is possible to be an artist as well as a teacher but I digress.) It broke my heart when someone would present a “beautiful” etching and not have cleaned their edges, and used the inks straight out of the can. Its so unfortunate when the details of a peice aren't given the consideration they deserve. One of my great friends in this program did a series on the Kantian sublime which is both beautiful and ugly. This project solidified ideas I had since highschool that beauty had depth that pretty didn't, sometimes even an aspect of ugly in it.
We had an artist talk with a painter (don’t remember her name as I was so underwhelmed) who explained that since she started using projectors in her painting she doesn’t need to draw anymore and no longer has any skill. Quite a concerning direction if you ask me.

Anytime you want to complain about art school you have a captivated audience.
Good luck in Athens and I really look forward to seeing your new work.

Hey baby...

Just a point of clarification. I did get to teach English, grade 11 and grade 12. Just not very often.

Craft(smanship) is very important - it is something that I want to show in my work on a more sophisticated level. "Piss Christ" is beautiful. I struggle with making something that is accessable to a wider range of viewers, without looking shallow and empty on the conceptual side. It's not working yet. I am probably too young or something.

Caroline, I don't think it's that you're too young. I think it's a problem we all face, unless we are elitist dweebs who want to remain obscure and only connect to an educated few. I'll let you figure out if I'm referring to anyone we know ;)

Just came here from knitty.com (thinking of making the Hot Tamale skirt). To get your meaning across, you need to lure the viewer in with something, and shock value wears thin far more quickly than beauty does.

Beauty applied to a grim subject can also have a shock value of its own - I recall an aftermath-of-battle scene in Elizabeth, which drew much of its power to chill from the great formal beauty of its composition.

It seems entirely mis-informed to assume that an unsuccessful concept is any worse than unsuccessful aesthetics. A brick hanging from the ceiling is hardly an example of conceptual artwork.

No, an unsuccessful concept is not worse than unsuccessful aesthetics; both are bad. However, in the case of the artist who claimed that concept was more important than aesthetics (the "craftsmanship doesn't matter" person) I think it IS worse, because she's making that claim based on conceptually weak work.

As for the brick, I was making an offhand reference to someone in particular, and I'll admit it's not a good example of conceptual art, but I was looking for a bad example. Because I'm certainly not trying to say that conceptual art is not valid. It's just that I view art-making as a form of communication just like writing and music, and this artist was so caught up in his in-jokes and oblique references and playing to an elite in-crowd that any sense of communication was lost. Perhaps he only wished to communicate with his friends, but then why make art? I'm not trying to say that art should not be challenging or subtle, but I found this particular artist's work unsuccessful because viewers were shut out from any sort of dialogue with the work. This seems to me more like self-important wank than any sort of artistic exchange of ideas.

Did my comment disappear? I said something to the likes of assuming that a bad concept is any worse than bad aesthetics is completely mis-informed, and that a brick hanging from a ceiling is hardly an example of conceptual work. I think what you tried to clarify in your e-mail is not clarified in this post. This post makes blanket statements that take the important conceptual work that has been happening for the last ten years now, and completely disregards it. Beauty may be a kind of self absorbant thing for an artist to ask their audience to look for. I think that artwork that craves for beauty alone is artwork like Anne Geddes or maybe William Wegman. James Joyce said in a Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man that artist's make work in three stages, first about themselves, then about how they relate to the world and then about the world. Perhaps artwork that craves beauty is most comfortable in that first stage of art making or maybe somewhere in the impressionist era. Mel Chin, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Maurizio Cattelan, Andrew Johnson, Tim Rollins maybe even Roni Horn are making beautifully conceptual artwork. The work they are producing is just too important to disregard.

I found my first comment. Sorry for the repeat.

I am not saying that beauty is all-important to the exclusion of idea; this is what the professor I spoke to was saying, and I was arguing against that. Maybe you misread me because I then went on to bitch about the university I attended which held a view exactly opposite that of Prof. D., but I see both positions as deeply flawed. Or perhaps I wasn't entirely clear, but like I said, if I could communicate well in words I'd be a different kind of artist. I'm not trying to dismiss any artist's work; this is what I felt Prof. D. was doing when he spoke of his conceptual-artist friend who "produces almost no work", as if a physical product is the only gauge of an artist's worth. Admittedly I did go on to speak dismissively of "hanging a brick from a ceiling", but that was meant to be my example of an artist who is too far in the other direction from what Prof. D. would like to see, and I'm becoming increasing uncomfortable about using that example because it's someone I know, who could well become my colleague in the future. So I'd prefer not to discuss that piece anymore, so as not to appear to be flaming that artist. At any rate, I was not trying to disregard conceptual art, but rather to argue against Prof. D.'s disregard for it. Conceptual work IS beautiful, in the sense that I was using the word beauty; I think maybe the problem is that I'm not explaining my interpretation of "beauty" very well.

When I used the word beauty, it was because that was the word that Prof. D. used, and it kept coming up in our conversation. I prefer the word craft, because I certainly don't mean that I think a work must be "beautiful" in the sense that most people would employ the word. But I also don't mean domestic craft, and I suppose that my use of the word craft in place of the word beauty could be confusing too, given the importance of domestic craft in my own work. When I say beauty, or craft, I mean well crafted, with as much care taken with aesthetic concerns as with conceptual ones; it must be compelling. Perhaps compelling would have been a better word to use right from the get-go. But of course I'm not saying that a work must be pretty to look at. And obviously work that is based around performance, or intervention, also has aesthetic value as well as conceptual, and can be well crafted or poorly crafted even though there may be no physical manifestation to the work; I'm not talking about only physical things when I say "well crafted". I'm not trying to discount any work except for the work of those who think only of the aesthetic OR only of the conceptual. I think that to be successful a work needs both.

I feel like I am spending quite a lot of time explaining myself. Obviously a blog post is something that is tossed off much more quickly than an artist's statement or an essay, but I think maybe I need to spend more time editing to be sure that I'm really saying what I mean to say. I'm afraid to edit TOO much, to try to make each post perfectly well crafted. I should show you the statement I wrote for UGA, you might think it's all bullshit.

I'm going to once more post my response in the comments as well as e-mailing you, because this is a good debate that I'd like to keep public. I hope Harper will let you spend a little more time on the computer so we can keep it going.