Toby says that telling myself I need to dream will cause me to dream more. Dreams are fantastic source materials for artwork because dreams aren't limited to what we think are acceptable. They are limitless and bizarre...
New Museum, Yayoi Kusama retrospective. I didn't realize how much of her work is actually painting. So many dots...
Artists do not usually express their own psychological complexes directly, but I use my complexes and fears as subjects. I am terrified by just the thought of something long and ugly like a phallus entering me, and that is why I make so many of them. The thought of continually eating something like macaroni, spat out by machinery, fills me with fear and revulsion, so I make macaroni sculptures. I make them and make them and then keep on making them, until I bury myself in the process. I call this 'obliteration'. - Yayoi KusamaI watched: God's Architects. http://www.godsarchitects.com/
A lot of reactions I noticed from people were along the lines of:
- It's a shame they devote so much of their lives to something that's not real
- It would be interested if it wasn't in the name of God
- What weirdos
Well, regardless of the reason they are doing something, they are doing something grand. It's greater than anything I could every possibly imagine doing with my bare hands.
Leonard Knight | Niland, CaliforniaLeonard Knight works on Salvation Mountain in the desert of southern California. In 1984, Leonard Knight's homemade hot air balloon crashed in the desert. When he couldn't repair it, he resolved to fulfill his promise to God to spread the message 'God is Love' by painting the side of a nearby mountain. Since then, Leonard has painted and constructed a mountainside 'environment' depicting his vision of God's love, which includes a three-story igloo-like structure made of adobe covered hay bales and peaceful visions of birds, waterfalls, and wheels within wheels.
He paints MOUNTAINS! There's another couple guys who lay brick by brick by hand by themselves to create CASTLES.
I need to get moving on this art stuff.
Here's a funny picture of a stingray:
You're right Ive never thought about how the association between Salvation Mountain and Yayoi Kusamo's work is really interesting. It's also interesting how you point out how easy it is for some people to belittle an artist like Leonard Knight because they feel alienated by his beliefs but both he and Kusamo are in one way or another facing overwhelming unconscious drives directly and working back and forth between ideas of world-building and self-annihilation. I would encourage you to continue exploring the similarities you find between these artists in writing and in your studio. JB
ReplyDelete