Kathy Maves on thu 21 mar 02
Snail et. all,
You're right about this book. Here's a roughly cut
quote from the first chapter:
....
the prevailing view of artmaking today--namely, that
art rests fundamentally upon talent, and that talent
is a gift randomly built into some people and not into
others. In common parlance, either you have it or you
don't--great art is a product of genius, good art a
product of near genius (Which Nabokov likened to
near-Bear), and so on down the line to pulp romances
and paint-by-the-numbers. This view is inherently
fatalistic--even if it's true, it's fatalistic--and
offers no useful encouragement to those who would make
art. Personally, we'll side with Conrad's view of
fatalism: namely, that it is a species of fear--the
fear that your fate is in your own hands, but that
your hands are weak.
...
pp. 2
Art & Fear; Observations On the Perils (and Rewards)
of Artmaking. David Bayles and Ted Orland. Capra
Press: Santa Barbara CA, 1993.
ISBN: 0-88496-379-9
Conrad wrote prolifically in English, his fourth
language.
Thanks,
Kathy
kathymaves@yahoo.com
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Patrice Murtha on thu 21 mar 02
Mel- I completely agree with you. I read this book in the
Mid-nineties while I was finishing up an MA. This book actually
changed my life and the way I approached the rest of school;
finished the degree in photography, took a clay class and never
looked back.
That particular part of the book you cited was the one thing that
stayed with me--that it really is about quantity/doing it versus
theory/thinking about it.
It's definitely worth the read.
--
Patrice Murtha
Ryerson and Burnham Libraries
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60603
312-443-3671
Snail Scott on thu 21 mar 02
It's perhaps the only 'self-improvement' book
that I ever found worth reading, and I re-read
it, too. No crap, no mumbo-jumbo 'inspiration',
just liberating, refreshing good sense.
-Snail
iandol on sat 23 mar 02
Dear Kathy
You say <>
May we assume you are speaking of he who wrote Almayer's Folly and other =
novels. Please would you give the full reference so others may follow =
through the obvers of Mel's thinking here.
Regards,
Ivor.
Kathy Maves on sun 24 mar 02
Dear Ivor,
Joseph Conrad penned Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The
Secret Agent (also known as The Secret Sharer?),
Youth, Victory, plus a couple collections of short
stories and a slew of other novels (and posthumously
published letters?) whose names I can't recall. He did
write Almayer's Folly, though I've not read it.
The four language quote is sourced from the doctoral
thesis of a professor I had at university. Born Josef
Korzeniowski in Poland in 1857, Conrad traveled a
great deal and sourced his nautical tales from real
life seafaring. Unfortunately, this thesis is
unpublished. That's about all my absentminded brain
can retrieve. For strong circumstantial evidence
for the quote, you can find a chronology of his life
at <<
http://gutenberg.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/gutenb/autoren/conrad.htm
>>
I didn't mean to disagree with mel. I didn't even
know that I was! Oopps. Only, Conrad always struck me
as a doer first, a thinker second--part of why I am
inspired by his work. Now here's a guy who must have
known how to deal with fear and self-doubt.
Hope this helps,
Kathy
Barronett, WI
kathymaves@yahoo.com
--- iandol wrote:
> Dear Kathy
>
> You say <> fourth language.>>
>
> May we assume you are speaking of he who wrote
> Almayer's Folly and other novels. Please would you
> give the full reference so others may follow through
> the obvers of Mel's thinking here.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ivor.
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