The Cute Manifesto by James Kochalka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“…What is art not? Well, as I’ve described it, Art is not about communication. Art is not a way of conveying information. It’s a way of understanding information. That is, creating a work of art is a means we have of making sense of the world, focusing to make it clearer, not a way of communicating some understanding of the world we already hold.”
A really good book of essays about art. Probably most infamous is “Craft is the Enemy” in which artists pounced on James Kochalka for saying that budding artists should not wait until their techniques were perfect before creating art. To put it another way, the artist’s path isn’t
1. Learn art history.
2. Perfect all aspects of craft.
3. Begin creating art.
While I think there are lots of aspects of craft that are important, and while I think there is a lot that can help a new artist, I also think that one of the good things about art is that you can start engaging with it immediately. And for some of us, that’s how we learn. It’s not until we try to write a scene with 15 characters that we realize why it’s so hard to write a scene with 15 characters. Why those characters become objects you just have to keep moving around the room and checking in with, meanwhile your story is happening in another room. It’s like being a party host and there’s a stove in every room and a different part of the dinner simmering in every room, and you have to run from room to room to check on everything, and then you fuck up the dinner or you do it okay except there wasn’t one moment of joy in the whole thing because you ran around like an idiot the whole time.
I think artists were pissed off at Kochalka because they interpreted what he was saying as “Don’t learn craft.” But I think, if I may be so bold, that he was really saying craft is the enemy because it prevents people from producing any actual work too often. Also, I promise you this, you will get a lot more out of craft lessons if you know what to look for and which questions to ask. If you know that the problem with 15 characters isn’t the 15 characters but the way you’re story becomes subordinate to managing all the characters, then you’ll be able to ask the right questions of other people, look for the answers in writing you enjoy, and figure out some different ways you might go with it.
I do think craft is very important, and that care and concern for craft is likely to give you better results. But I also think that what’s great about art as opposed to something like astrophysics is that I can start doing it for myself right now. I don’t have to go through 8 years of higher ed before I can even begin to have an impact or explore for myself. Art is very inexpensive to explore as a self-starter and requires only time, and that’s what probably attracts a lot of young people to it, I suspect. It’s something you can do, actually do, right away. I can’t just start repairing cars because I don’t have the tools or the parts. I can’t decide I just want to play the stock market because I don’t have the money to get involved with that. I can’t do astrophysics because holy shit are telescopes expensive. Unless you just want the kind for looking in neighboring apartments. Although those are still surprisingly pricey. You’d think that the boom in internet pornography would have seen crappy telescope prices plummet, but what do I know.
As Kolchalka put it
“Resolve to put the skills you have to work NOW. And pick up more along the way.”