Distance Between

The measure of a work of art is the distance between the physical fact and psychological effect,

“Art is revelation instead of information, expression instead of description, creation instead of imitation or repetition. Art is concerned with the HOW, not the WHAT; not with literal content, but with the performance of the factual content. The performance – how it is done – that is the content of art.” Josef Albers

“The aim of art is a constant, and a continuous job to reveal visually the attitude of our mentality. And the less we disturb the influence of our mentality the more I believe we come close to the truth.” Josef Albers

Intentions, Motivations, Goals

Intentions, motivations, goals:

An off the cuff difference between intention and motivation is that intention is a course of action that one intends to follow, while motivation is the arousal of action by the giving of purpose. It’s a willingness to action.

Goals are specific, achievement focused, destinations. Goals aren’t actions, they are descriptive of a situation, a person arrives at their goal, they achieve a situation.

Intentions are lived each day and are independent of achieving the goal. (A person can have an intention without realizing a goal, but they could not realize a goal without the intention to do so.) Goals are external achievements. Intentions are about your relationship with yourself and to the world.
Goals are defined as the “state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve”. Goals are what a person wants to do, achieve, or become. …

Motivation is what arouses and sustains action toward a desired goal. It gives purpose and direction to behavior.

Is a Flower a Flower

A flower is a flower, despite whether or not that it realizes that it’s a flower. It grows, it buds, it blooms, all while never knowing that it’s a flower. Does a flower become any more or less beautiful with its own self-realization of the label it’s been given?

Does an artist need to know that they are an artist to be an artist? Do they need to be called an artist by someone else?

Jealousy

My jealousy is easily one of the most specific and most distinctive of my felt emotions.

It’s a deep body feeling, a somatic state that creates a emotion that’s been attached to sadness, loneliness, petty anger, resentment, and shame.

It’s a feeling that vividly highlights my vulnerability to being emotionally hurt by another person, most often triggered by other’s inadvertent acts of innocent omission, occasionally declarations of denial.

Somehow it’s that aspect, that it’s an inadvertent act, that makes it hurt much more than if it was intentional. It’s the feeling of being so easily forgotten or overlooked that wounds so deeply.

I’m triggered by seeing others appear to receive the attention, acceptance, and sincere connection that I wanted and needed, but continually felt excluded from.

Saying these things out loud helps me recognize a notable aspect of myself that I’m not comfortable with, still, I know fully well that this is an experience that I’m not alone in. 

Withstanding a Need for Meaning

An artists suffering isn’t relating to the stereotype of the pain of hunger, rather it’s the attempting to ascribe meaning and significance to the experience of making Art that is the source for their suffering.

I keep telling myself, what’s being made doesn’t need to infer anything specific, the primary need that needs to be addressed through any given work is for the work to provide itself as an object of focus. An object to slow down an active mind. An object that pulls the participant inward. It doesn’t need to be made any more complicated than that.