Crutch Alert

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa. So we'll blame it on the weather. I haven't written at this blog since December 9th, and guess what? The weather is exactly the same, only more of it. My husband got a new snowblower for his Christmas present. What a stroke of genius that was!

But let's get back to the title subject. I have been reading a book chock full of thought provoking stuff: Conversation In Paint, by Charles Dunn. I wrote an article on my other blog about artist's crutches, and have been mentally adding to the list ever since.

Can I quote a whole paragraph? Here, try this one on for size:

"You don't have to draw well to produce pretty good art. The invention of the camera did away with the need for traditional academic drawing. Looking at the mature work of Klee, Miro, Pollack, and Chagall, I don't see much in the way of traditional academic drawing skills. Like many artists with the skills to work anywhere on the concept-related/image-related continuum, these artists deliberately chose to work at the simpler, concept-related end. If you don't have much confidence in your drawing skill, work closer to the concept-related end of the scale."

Wow! Crutch alert! Artists that can't draw? And why not? Are they taking the easy road? Are they lazy? Is drawing not important?

Oh this is definitely going to take further investigation. And while you're waiting, please note that everything in paragraph four is in quotation marks. That means I shared someone else's thoughts and words. I am not yet persuaded to be in agreement :) Stay tuned for possible answers to some of those questions up there in paragraph five!

Later, Cooper