What I love about Schoenherr is just the images, the pure visual energy of his work. If I can create one image that makes me feel the way I feel about Schoenherr's art, then I'll be happy. The rest is just vanity.

But once in a while I run across a John Schoenherr, and it breaks that spell. I realize it doesn't matter if I'm making art in a sketchbook, or on a canvas, or on a tablet. It doesn't matter if I put it on a wall, or in a blog, or in a zine.

And I love Yoshitaka Amano. So I think: OK, does that mean I should be painting dreamy large-scale character scenes, chasing mood and mystery?

And I love George Bellows and Edward Hopper. Does that mean I'm actually a fine artist at heart, and I should try painting with oils?

Like, I love the art of Mike Mignola and Eddie Campbell.

But I still think, in my insecure moments, what does that mean? Does it mean I should be telling some kind of story, creating a character, scripting a graphic novel? (Does it need to have the word "Hell" in the title?)

OK, so I'll talk about what being an artist sometimes feels like.

There are lots of artists I love and admire. But for whatever reason, I am always conscious of who they are, what role they're playing, what path they're on. This always affects how I relate to their work.

So many stark, surreal, colossally gorgeous images. The scratchboard, the subjects in motion, the compositions weaving abstraction and surrealism. I feel wholly devoured by this body of work.

Dropping the term “art,” I think I can say confidently, this odd something I find in common among all my most deeply felt experiences…

They all seem protective, somehow, of some inaccessible dimension, that beckons to me as it withdraws

#philosophy #aesthetics

Challenge 3: I’m not really connected with any community that would work as an audience for this. This is a similar problem I’m currently having with writing poetry. Lack of oxygen, metaphorically speaking, is a hazardous condition for any creative practice.

Challenge 2: I want it to feel like a poetic exploration, not a term paper. So what’s the output mode for this? Does it want to be a book, a zine, an essay? I’m still waiting for the vortex of ideas to find a form.

Challenge 1: Scope creep. I’m getting the urge to draw on every philosopher I’ve been interested in lately… Heidegger, Harman, McLuhan, Blanchot, Bachelard

Art as … something you stand before, with a sort of reverence, but always experiencing it as an undisclosed interior.

And perhaps, in this way, not simply a binary (is this art? Or isn’t it?)

More like a quality imbued in things as a by-product of human intention

#philosophy #aesthetics

My instinct is that a work of art would not reveal everything, regardless of those factors. … that holding something back is a necessary part of the artwork’s structure and higher function.

You *consume* an episode of Teen Titans…

But art is different. With art, you can’t just devour it. It’s more of a standing-before.

These two (“consuming” and “standing before”) can mingle and coexist, but they are distinctive movements.

#philosophy #aesthetics

I know, for generations, we’ve been trying to collapse art and popular culture, high and low brow… every popular style finding its place as high culture…

But isn’t it a different thing,encountering a piece of art, versus consuming a piece of popular media?

#philosophy #aesthetics

What does a work of art hold back?

From its audience…

From its scholars, its devotees, its historians…

Even from its creator?

(The revealing moment of concealment)

#philosophy #aesthetics