Knowing

The artist creates perceptions and impressions.

These will be accepted or rejected on face value, or, in certain individuals, they will become knowledge of things beyond appearances. Who genuinely perceives, views, listens?

For most, this will remain a mystery.

The Uncanny and the Avant-Garde

Assemble elements both predictable and popular and there is nothing unexpected.

Now strip away, by degrees, these elements. That which was recognizable evolves toward the unknown, taking on an alien aspect while remaining somewhat within the realm of experience.

This is the aesthetic beauty of the unexpected, outside the bland, dull order of shock and offense.

Bell in the Fog

One who recognizes objective reality and deals with it accordingly creates with visionary clarity.

The worst circumstances are nonetheless actionable to such an artist. Corruption, like every element of culture, increases until it exceeds its boundaries, and thus its possibilities, then grows weak and declines, sometimes precipitously.

Whenever possible, act; when action is not possible, gather strength.

Force and Limit

Engaged in the creative act, it is possible to maintain focus on the outcome.

Trace expression from aesthetic concept through emotional and intellectual evaluation, and what is significant is total effect.  All else reflects the cultural climate, regardless of the degree to which any personal, subjective, and objective forces combine in composition and execution of the work.

Grasp of Reality

Historically, art directs attention and reflects cultural direction.

Dictators and tyrants have always punished artists with whom they were in contention, but it is only since the twentieth century that such base, evil impulses have become pervasive in a general culture overseen by internationalist media promoting global conformity of thought.

And thus it is that the artist rebels against a new dark age.

To Rise Above

The artist chooses, and afterwards the only choice is forward.

This is transcendence: to rise beyond circumstance and obstacle, ridicule and contempt.

And this is expression, as opposed to pretension, which is defined by attachment.  Attachment to the self, to recognition, and to the lesser things, wealth and personal power. These have no significance beyond themselves.

The way of the artist is elevation.  Above, beyond.

Reality, Gesture, Object, Effect

Balance reason and the intuitive.

The creative act expresses synthesis of idea and media; it is in flux until it is complete.