Lucid Waking

Archive for the ‘Nonfiction’ Category

Newsflash: Value of Shock Value

Dear Professional Photographers (and other artists),
        This letter is not to tell you how to do your craft; I don’t know anything about techniques or how to determine composition through a camera lens. But I do know the value of art and its relationship to shock value and I would like to teach you a bit about differentiating the two.
        Now, this is mostly aimed at the fashion industry and their methods to get their product stuck in the minds of consumers, but I think I make some points that can be worth noting for anyone in a visual, art community. (I have yet to learn of a music composer who addressed these issues. They are too busy convincing the public that any ol’ sound is music).
        First of all, themes of domestic violence, rape, or slavery are distasteful. But, worse than that, they’re insulting because you are not using them to represent anything. What exactly are you trying to say? Good art may use these themes, but for a greater purpose. The shock value is meant to get the viewer to reflect on their lives and their society in order to change it. The picture looks wrong because it is wrong. It looks disturbing because the artist wants you to think the value it represents is disturbing and then keep the image in your mind for the next time you can do something about the issue. Sometimes this action to fix the world is small, but the important thing here is that the artist is trying to say something, even if they aren’t trying to pressure the viewer into doing something drastic about it.
        But what are you trying to say? You’re selling a product and nothing else. So what does violence have to do with this? Nothing. If you want to argue against me, I point to your flippant remarks regarding said issues or descriptions accompanying your photographs. You aren’t making a point to stop domestic violence, for example (though if you are, you’re doing a bum job of proving that), you’re using it to get people to have an emotional reaction so that they remember the name of your product. However, this backfires as people now have a negative reaction when they think of your name and won’t shop there. So fine, you succeeded in getting your name out there, but I don’t think you’ve encouraged them to shop, so what’s the point?
        There is an inherent problem of objectification in the industry that I would love to address but I know is pointless. But I ask you to try and keep things in mind when you’re designing a photo shoot. Of course, your point might be too racy or banned for reasons you disagree with, but if you want substance in your photos, then make sure there is substance, not just playing with a touchy subject. The world is bad enough without us encouraging people to hurt each other. So please, keep that in mind next time. Controversy might be good advertisement, but it sucks for business.

        Sincerely, your friend,
                B.N.

Lucid Waking Turns 5

Five years ago today, I sat down at my shiny, new web-address and wrote an introductory post describing my creative writing blog endeavors. At that point, this website was going to replace my former blog that I had continued alongside my own stationary site called Brianna’s World. In the next half a decade, Lucid Waking would become the corner for my musings and creativity. It kept me practicing my writing and motivated me to continue my drawing. It showcased both of my self-hidden talents. For what it’s worth, I am glad to have this space where I can let people to see what I can do while hiding behind the anonymity of a computer screen.

Despite my daily struggles, this personal project of mine has kept going-at some times speeding along and others puttering to exhaustion-and I intend to keep it going, even at a snail’s pace if need be. I’ve always had somewhat unrealistic goals for myself and sometimes they keep me motivated to be better while sometimes they make me feel guilty and accomplish nothing. I have been writing recently, and I have two stories somewhat in the works as both are in the difficult planning stage. And, in honor of five years still going, I’m working on a new theme. For the next 5 years, I’ll rotate through all the old ones, but for now, a sneak preview of designs that didn’t quite make it towards the final banner.

Thank you for reading and waiting for posts for the last 5 years. Enjoy the day and have a little piece of cake on me!

Newsflash: Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due?

        Ah, the age-old question: what is art? It’s a hotly debated point mainly because there is no answer, but if I learned anything from my modernism and postmodernism art history class, it’s that art is defined by our intentions and perceptions. This definition has problems, I’m aware, but I want to put this to the test in this little article about a 4-year-old girl named Aelita, who has her own gallery show.
        Angela di Bello, who is the Angora Gallery director that hosted Aelita’s works, stated that

“She [Aelita] is special in that she really knows what she’s doing. In that, she really understands color, composition, texture. If you look at her paintings, you’ll see that they’re balanced. Also, she’s consistent. … So, she’s already developed a style that is hers.”

and she also goes on to claim that Aelia’s artwork is surrealist in addition to abstract expressionist for her use of objects. For those of you who are non-visual artists in the community, Surrealism is Dali and his melting clocks, while Abstract Expressionism is Jackson Pollock. Not being an art expert myself, I thought I might only be seeing the bare bones of surrealism and therefore didn’t understand that surrealism can include the random placement of objects within a wash of color. But after consulting the Merriam-Webster dictionary (which defined “surrealism” as “the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations”), I’m still not sure how her use of pipe cleaners, pom-poms, and masks are a demonstration of surrealism.
        Is this show an ironic demonstration of the typical high art community snobbery? We all know the jokes; one of my favorites being a short improv sketch one of my friends made up where a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign was critiqued as high art and the janitor who put it there regarded as a genius. I know the temptation in dismissing postmodern art as something anyone can do, and in a certain way anyone can. Anyone can have these ideas and anyone can pull them off well. In many modern works, it’s these ideas that make them appealing to me, not necessarily the work itself. But because I base my opinion on modern art from the artist’s creativity and ideas, I can’t give much value to this girl’s work. I do see something very mature in her artwork when looking at it, but when I listen to her talk about her paintings—during and after the process—I can’t see a mature artist taking her works seriously. Obviously, because she’s 4 years old and that would be giving her too much credit. Maybe she has an innate sense of color and placement that she can’t explain, but for us to say that she understands what she’s doing, that’s a bit of a leap.
        So can we say that this is art? If we stick purely to my definition, we have to take it’s perception into account, so, yes. I will agree, however, that it is a bit ambiguous. But who am I to belittle her accomplishments just because she is four. If someone wants to spend several thousand dollars on something like this just because a gallery moderator says her works have a mature continuity, then that is the buyer’s prerogative. Me, I want to see what she comes up with when she’s older. If she’s going along like other child protegees, then there should be some amazing works of art.

Best of the Blog 2010

Good morning and happy new year! Winners of the Best of the Blog contest are:

• First Date
• The Pond
• Reflections on a Girl

Thanks for voting and see you next year!

2010 in Review

After reviewing the last couple year’s reviews, I realized that at the end of the year, I usually feel remiss and lament how much I didn’t get done and this year is no exception. For the first time in four years, I have had two months where I posted nothing at all, not even a single update on how busy my life was. I have been ashamed at having started projects that I can’t find motivation to finish and I have not written merely as much as I wanted to.

But I can’t beat myself up about it. I have always been busy and it is hard to be consistent without deadlines. Even though the end of the year was empty, I managed to produce 30 more posts than last year (61 in all). For the first three months of the year, I wrote more than I have ever written for January, February, and March.

Today is not just the end of a year, however, but also the end of a decade. I didn’t realize this until I read some other people’s end of year reviews and seeing 2011 seemed a sobering fact that we are at the end of a long period of time. I have only been blogging for 5 years-half of the difficult decade of “oughts.” In that time, I’ve written 402 prose and poetry posts. I have made improvement. The first post I ever wrote was just a paragraph of confusing prose that I wish I had written more of the story to resolve it. Eventually, I was publishing pages, and went from one idea to the next. In the future, I hope to continue my 10-minute stories, Once Upon a Time, and even B’s Reviews (remember those?). Even though I haven’t been 100% consistent, I have kept going and that’s what counts.

The fact that I have maintained the blog so well up until now is a good testament to my dedication. I will continue writing and I am glad to have this blog to keep me motivated to keep writing.

I hope everyone has a fantastic 2011 as we start a new year, a new decade, and a new page.

Numbering Discrepancy

Another update for y’all : ) As you probably don’t know, I take various records on the number of posts I do in a month and how many in a year. I keep track of these numbers and compare them to previous months and years. Why? I don’t know, but there is some interesting data. However, when I added up how many posts I had written so far according to my monthly numbers data bank and compared it to my numbering system per post, I came up short. My calculator said I had 396 and my post numbering said 399. So, I went to work combing the archives and recounting how many posts I had. There were some mistakes made in my counting and now that I unarguably have all the numbers right, I added it up again and got…402. The problem was at the beginning; when I started counting I started at post 338 when it should have been post 341. I can’t go back in time and add a 400 post special where it should have been so I will just let bygones be bygones, start the numbering for next year’s post at 403 and add the interlude after I finish “Secrets of the Blue House.” So, I missed the opportunity, but it isn’t such a great loss and I’ll just fix it and keep writing. Hopefully I’ll catch post 500 : )

House Cleaning, Reminders, and Harpist

I’m not going to lament time passed, so I’ve been fixing and updating things.  There will be no posts (except maybe the 400th) until the new year because you need to vote on the Best of the Blog 2010! There isn’t much there, so no excuses! Voting will be from now until midnight on Dec. 31. I’ll publish the results on Jan. 1.

In other news: I’ve updated “Secrets of the Blue House” completely. You can read everything I’ve published on the page on the sidebar. Sorry, it will be finished next year, but the ending is in progress.

Third:

I finished this a while ago but didn’t publish it, so I decided now was as good a time as any. To see more information/larger version–>click on the picture. For information on prints and the like–> click here.

Don’t forget to vote: Best of the Blog 2010

To an Empty Room

Hello? Anyone there?

Despite the title, I do hope that no one abandoned me and my site. I will make this short because I don’t really have time: I am writing, just not publishing. I have a million ideas in my head and most of them don’t get put down on paper. I really do want to come back but I can’t say when right now. And I’m very sorry I haven’t written anything since August. Extremely sorry; I feel so guilty about it. To say I’ve been busy would be an understatement, but it shouldn’t be an excuse. Well, wish me luck in getting through my to-do list and back into publishing.

Newsflash: The Art of Conning

Technically, this isn’t a “newsflash” because I did not hear about this article in a newspaper, but I think it’s necessary to share. The article in question was written in May of this year, but seems to have just caught the attention of the artist community. A supposedly well-established game designer describes his controversial strategies for securing an artist to draw for flash games. Mainly, he suggests hiring unexperienced artists who believe their work is worth less than it is and to press impossible deadlines on the artist in order to get their work in a timely manner.

 I will admit, I’m a bit torn by this article. On the one hand, he clearly describes ways to manipulate others into getting something for nothing. Anything worth having should be worth paying for and it seems unjust to purposefully keep people in the dark in order to get them to estimate a price much lower than it should be just because s/he is inexperienced in terms of pricing. You (the supposed game developer) are deliberately scamming the artist to give you something of high quality much less than its worth; in fact, I’d even go so far to say that you are conning them.

 I also feel that it isn’t right to suggest techniques to pressure the artist into doing something fast. Although it is a job, by picking amateur artists, you are guaranteed people who do art, in certain respects, as a hobby. Although he suggests hiring artists who are18+, the notion that they will have more free time and less “IRL things come up that they can’t control” because of their age is bull s**t. I should know, being an 18+ with a very chaotic lifestyle once the colder seasons start up. Personally, I would have very little time to devote to a job, especially one with purposefully impossible deadlines.

Yet, I can see where he is coming from with some of his recommendations. If you are managing a large project with limited funds, budgeting is important and hiring an artist for less money might save you from going bankrupt. Also having deadlines with the artist will make sure that you end up with the work in the end and not waiting years before a trickle of art starts appearing. Paying an artist after the work is done also makes sure that you get your money’s worth. If budgeting is most important, all these things can save a project from failure.

Most importantly, though, is that the article has gotten enough attention that the author added an addendum and apologized to all parties who were offended. To me, the worst offense was his tone, but I can’t hold anything against someone who revises their argument and then apologizes. While I don’t approve of his original article, I am not going to outright flame him, especially since he has some valid points that were explained extremely poorly. Poorly enough to get a large art community extremely angry.

My motives for sharing my thoughts and this article are two-fold: 1) I think people should be a little more cautious about receiving commissions and conducting business and 2) I think those on the hiring end should be a little more cautious about sharing your needs to those you are hiring. I feel that passing along this article will help people make better decisions about the commissions they accept. I am not asking anyone to read this article and ban the author nor to leave nasty, unhelpful comments, but I think it’s important to know that people like him are out there and with that knowledge, it should be easier to make better decisions for both parties.

Birth of a Nymph

Larger size/more information –> click on the picture