IN SEARCH OF THE ORDINARY

DO WE LIVE OUR LIVES IN THE DETAIL OF EVERYDAY OR DO WE LOOK UP AND SEE BEYOND? 

Georgia O'Keeffe's Flowers                                  from google image for education only

Zen would tell us to focus on one act, to perfect it so well that it becomes a spiritual act in itself. But most of us are just trying to go to work, but groceries, feed the kids, get the car fixed, go to the dentist, or decide if we want paper or plastic at the check out counter.  The details of life can overwhelm us, mesmerize us, so we just go on in an kind of survival mode. 

Picasso's Bull Sculpture made from a bicycle seat and handle bars

 But we have those moments when we look up, we look beyond, and we imagine.  Sometimes these moments come out of the blue, as an epiphany, and other times it is one of life's dramas that awaken us: the illness or death of a loved one, a major illness of our own, a world event of war or natural calamity and the like.  I can point to my moments as you can yours, but they stop us in our tracks and slap us awake.  

La Momma Morta from Philadelphia Story

as Tom Hanks character faces his own death

due to the aids virus devastating effects

Sometime it is an aha moment and sometimes it is an oh no moment. Which ever it is, we see and think differently..we are almost hyper aware.  This is where the arts step in..where art is created, where imaginations are enlivened, where music scores are written and opera scores sung.   It is where inventions come to life and visionaries see the future. 

Edward Hopper's Nighthawks                           from Google image for education only

How do we translate the ordinary into another language…how do artists find another vision…how do some people see the same thing so differently?  

                     Andy Goldsworthy, Environmental Artist

That is what we are exploring now.  Lets look at a few more artists elevating the ordinary to a fine art!

Andy Warhol's Marilyn

JUST GET IT DONE, MAKE ART

"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    Pop Art Marilyn Monroe     from google image for educational purposes

Pop Art

Pop Art

Popular Art

The definition below is from Wikapedia. I think it is interesting that icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis keep being rediscovered from one generation to the next. If we step back from the world we live in daily and view it from afar or even with a different eye as Warhol did and many of the Pop Artist it helps us to understand culture in a way we might not. I think that is one of the functions of the artist. Jung called it "artist as shaman". The artist can interpret or translate the world we live in with an almost spiritual intellectual view.

There are times when the average person does not understand what an artist, or art movement is conveying. At times it seems not to make sense and with that frustration people will reject or ridicule the art or artist. But as with Warhol and the Pop artists we begin to see the what the influence of mass culture and commercialization had on us as individuals and as a society.

"Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States.^[1] Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art. Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation.^[1][2] The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.^[2]

Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.^[3] And due to its utilization offound objects and images it is similar to Dada. Pop art is aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony.^[2] It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques.

Much of pop art is considered incongruent, as the conceptual practices that are often used make it difficult for some to readily comprehend. Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of Postmodern Art themselves.^[4]

Pop art often takes as its imagery that which is currently in use in advertising.^[5] Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, like in the Campbell's Soup Cans labels, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the shipping carton containing retail items has been used as subject matter in pop art, for example in Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box 1964, (pictured below), or his Brillo Soap Box sculptures."

The statement below gives us insight into what Warhol was thinking and his meaning in creating Marilyn.

It makes one think what will be the next art movement and what will it tell us about our own mass culture now. Who will be the shaman artist that reveals that to us? It is exciting to me to ponder.

"Warhol is a pop artist, meaning he takes images from popular culture, commercial products and advertisements and recontextualizes them within the framework of the art world. By using a familiar image like Marilyn Monroe, he flattens the image of her to show our shallow understand of her. She has become an icon of pop culture, and no longer a person with depth and character. Her iconographic portrait is a symbol for beauty and fame, and no longer for the person she is/was." W.C. Chatton

The Eyes Have It!

"Eyes are the Windows to Our Souls"

This famous quote has a mysterious origin, but one person that has been thought to have coined it is Leonardo Da Vinci. Many artists use they eye as a symbol, as do various cultures. The evil eye in the middle east protects you. The eyes on the temples of Katmandu are God watching over you. The hand in the middle of the palm can be found in the earliest of art going back to ancient Egyptian times as a symbol of protection against perceived evil.

I like to use eyes as a symbol in my work. I feel comfortable in the world of Surrealism and the use of symbology. I like the idea of concept, visual poetry and hidden subtle images triggering meaning. The photo below is a detail from my latest work for the Dali Museum Event, Liquid Desires. The name of the art work is "Wet Dreams". The work is now in the collection of an Orlando Physician and shares its space with a Chihuly! It is partly a reflection of what the eye sees, as Dali portrayed in several of his pieces.

In the detail of Alternate Universe you can see how I used eyes again as a symbol in my work. On the far left are the eyes of Galileo, in the center are the eyes of the Mona Lisa, and on the far right are the eyes of Einstein. The rusted metal strip with multiple transfers, glass and mirrors is as a sentence to a paragraph. The paragraph being the larger section of the art work.

Some eyes are so identifiable that they are iconic. When using popular icons one can not help but think of Andy Warhol and his Pop Art portraiture. Elvis peers out at you in the top photo while a young Leonardo looks out at us in the last photo.