Thinking/Obsessing/Overly Interested in Artists

After this trip to California and thinking back on all the interesting things we saw and did, I have become “overly interested” or fascinated by artists and why they produce what they produce. Are they more crazy than the rest of us or are they just using art to channel their craziness or the creativity trapped inside of them? Are we all that creative and just don’t know how to express it? Why do they chose to express it in the ways that they express it?

In particular, the work of Louise Bourgeois and Martin Kippenberger who both have HUGE exhibits at LAMOCA was completely blowing my mind. They both used so many different formats or mediums to express their art and they were so strange and diverse in their subject matters.

Sidenote: And here’s another thing about why I’m so fascinated by art: BECAUSE I AM COMPLETELY IGNORANT about it! I really don’t understand all the forms and the words that you should use to describe it. I only know that I like the way it makes me think and the way it makes me feel. I really should try to study it some more so that perhaps I can appreciate it from a different perspective. But maybe my appreciation is just a more real or raw appreciation b/c I really don’t know what is good or what is bad about art…particularly when you are comparing various contemporary or modern artists. Most of their stuff is so wild and OUT THERE and how can you say which of these artists really have talent or skill?

Bourgeois could paint, sculpt, draw, create (went to sidenote above and came back to this thought b/c I had limited vocabulary to describe her work) mobiles, collages, sew, etc. Kippenberger was a performance artist, could draw, paint, sculpt, create “structures”, etc. They had this wide variety of methods in common and many of it was very strange and hard for me to understand. I only kept thinking that these people must have been truly crazy or bonkers to just create this stuff all day b/c it seemed with the enormous amount of stuff they created, then it must’ve been ALL they ever did.

Another sidenote: I learned a new word….ouevre (The sum of the lifework of an artist, writer, or composer.).

I am motivated to study or learn more about these two particular artists. I want to know more about their lives and to understand more about what motivated them to create their work. I think I wish that I could create something interesting….maybe sort of like why I am motivated to write more in my journal these days….this is MY ART form!?!?