17 June 2007

Hello? Who's out there?

Jeannette Langmead Illustration Sketchblog

Drawing comes easy to me. I always find it diffucult to explain myself.

I consider myself an illustrator. Ive found my way here because of my affinity for comics and pens. Also, Ive never liked the elitism of fine arts. My art is just as valid when photocopied/scanned and distributed to the public. I do not want it displayed in a room with white walls, entrance fees, and folks with plenty of leisure time. I want to make everyday, everybody art.

I do not want to blanket myself in faux-depth.

Fine Art is like religion in that way.

Youre faking having an "experience" of feeling something more than what is there in front of you. Or maybe you really do think you feel something, cause youre supposed to, and everyone else around you does.

With technology zipping pixels across continents in zero-point-zero seconds the old need for visiting paintings is gone. We are pretending! (How impressed can you really be at a van Eyck painting anyway, when you're reading this through a lit up box in your fucking office!)

Painters are like priests, we allow them to have mystical powers and insights. And the art community, the disciples, and these writers and critics formulate all sorts of arguments to exalt these paintings to a higher, spiritual plain. There is a whole economy and society that depend on us believing in them. Paychecks depend on it, art is really really real.

Not true.

30 comments:

esillustration said...

i understand how you feel. i will always love going to art museums (even if the people that made the art think there's some monumental reasoning behind it). :-)

awesome drawing by the way!!!! i was there when you drew it!!!!!!!

Jonathan said...

nicely put.

Jeannetto said...

Yeah Liz, I guess I just hate everything.

esillustration said...

i can name 10 things you DONT hate!
1. drawing
2. comic books
3. burritos
4. mixed drinks
5. me and jon
6. maps
7. road trips while using maps
8. nerds
9. astronomy
10. owl skunk

biteyourowntail said...

I like art, love visiting galleries, but I agree with you totally about the equal validity of illustration- and I get a real buzz from a good illustration - it takes a different kind of thinking to make it work.

° said...

nice concept and drawing also like the toons u have been doing. I paint and go thru the motions of having to deal with what ur talking bout here. i find it at best a pain in the ass but then if u wanna have ur art out there u gotta go thru the motions and jump thru thier hoops. wish there was a way to get my work out in front of a lot of ppl quickly that would appreciate it and give honest feed back at times. oh and i can relate to a good burrito and long road trips just because u can.

Ruinedworld said...

Yay for nerds! But ranked number 8 on the list? That’s kind of low! What about all the subdivisions of nerds? That is a pretty broad classification....

I like what you did with this concept… It is a great illustration.....

awwww art geeks art that bad… just depends on the kind you hang around with.... yes there are snobby s.o.b’s in every profession, and then there are the groups that better fit your niche.

franhilz said...

well ... like anything else ...
but, never put every thing in the same bag - there is art and art, artists and artists ... like anything else ...

Jeannetto said...

no that's not what i mean at all

josh pincus is crying said...

say it, sister!

ghost said...

i'm a working artist entering shows and competitions. you have a point. some of these people can put waaaaay too much import into something you paint. i just say if they want some spiritual thing out of my work, they can find it. it they just want pretty coors, they can have it. youre right. it is religion.

baggelboy said...

11. Sexy Bunnies

Most of what we call fine art is now just corporate art made for the offices of bankers, lawyers, politicians and the other movers and shakers in this society.
I've met a lot of people like this and the one thing they have in common is they are all a bit dull and unimaginative. So the art they buy reflects there life.

Being at the bottom is a lot more risky but a lot more fun.

So I think we should put all this big high fine art stuff into the same bag. Tie up the top and hit the fuck out of it with a big fuck off stick.

Then

12. Dance around the dead and be happy.

Anonymous said...

yes yes yes! that's what i meant!

i love you baggelboy you make me want to keep living.

i wasnt commenting on the actual art but how we as people look at it and treat it.

Brine Blank said...

That's too deep for me to try and synthesize at this moment...but I really like the drawing and your contrasting use of color...keep the chin up...remember...you have capabilities that not everyone has...

janie said...

You're right there's a lot of bullshit talked when it comes to Art, Emperor's new clothes syndrome.Down with Saatchi that's what I say.

Jonathan said...

It's the audience that keeps on encouraging some 'artists' to continue making 'art'. I can only watch so many videos of vagina pictures rotating around to UFO music before i start to wonder what the artist meant in saying 'this piece is a meditation between the typical masculine sexuality associated with the clitoris and one that is not so typical'.

Alexiev said...

Very good work...

Best regards...

Saludos desde Buenos Aires...

Steve said...

Yes BB. It used to be called 'Outsider Art', but even that stuff now hangs in the big corporate offices.

steve said...

Great post and drawing. I've always felt kind of stuck in the middle with these matters. Where I live, the "scene" is depressing and horrible--lots of very wealthy women who take painting classes and do oils depicting scenes of fox chases and horses in the meadow, all made to hang nice in a $500,000 Macmansion. The two good galleries in town unfortunately didn't last long--ones that displayed all types of work from more "outsider" types, young and old. Again, there wasn't a market for them here, so they disappeared. The last town "gallery walk" I attended simply justified my theories about the "scene" here, and deepened my disgust. Yet, at the same time, I have a deep respect for painting--oils, acrylics, watercolors. And I've been deeply moved, when nobody else was around, mind you, by modern art in galleries--installation pieces, etc, to what some might call a spiritual level (perhaps it--art, compensates for my lack of religion, in a more accepted, traditional sense). So, really, I think it's not as black and white a matter, but more a very gray area, at least for me. In the end, it's all a matter of opinion, and people's opinions are shaped by very individual experiences.

Jeannetto said...

I like a lot of contemporary art. I can hardly stand going to traditional western art museums (with a little 'art of the orient' section included) anymore, but I like seeing what artists are doing today, blurring lines between this-and-that.

Most the time I'll stumble across something that stimulates my mind and inspires me. I'm a big fan of Duchamp, Beuys, Georg Baselitz, and POP art and Gerhard Richter and Kiki Smith (but more of Clowes, Crumb, Tomine and Brunetti). I LIKE ART, a TON!

Look: i even have this website covered in it.

But I dont but into the idea that fine arts are more valid than graffiti, or what some of my fellow bloggers are doing (and maybe you reading this agree, but Im not talking to you, Im talking to people who'll never look at this illustrator's sketchblog).

And the idea of "showing" your art. I saw a show in Montreal a few months ago where a guy drew little comics on napkins about being at a diner. The show was pretty small scale but, if youre going as far as to draw on napkins, WHY ARE YOU STILL HANGING THEM ON THE WALL? And drinking cocktails and letting your friends ogle at your genius. As if the wall validates your work.

Again, it's not the art. I am ranting ridiculously about the false awe we give to work that has been accepted by the art industry.

I dont think everyone needs to leave a comment defending themselves.

Scientifically: art is eye-candy, brain-food.

Am I making any sense? No? Ok, forget it. No more talking for Jeannette.

esillustration said...

the other day i saw a contemporary artist on the news. he paints with french fries and ketchup. just thought i'd throw that in there.

Jeannetto said...

oh man, i wonder what he's trying to say with that.

liz! now im hungry!

jenna said...

So, just burn me at the stake if I am being to obvious here, but I think this problem (the hierarchy of fine art vs. illustration, lowbrow,etc.) stems from peoples desire to put things into categories, define them. When really art in general is indefinite. Many, many artists out create work for press, which I guess you consider illustration and work for galleries. Sometimes, these artists will even use psuedonyms so they can continue working in both fields. I think the whole art world needs to stop kidding themselves and look back to Leonardo, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh (the so called fine artists) and realize their paintings are basically the definition of illustrations. There is not much difference between the two. Those who consider themselves "fine artists" just have inflated egos. That's pretty much all it comes down to.

steve said...

Oh yeah, I agree, with the napkin thing and all, and yet many of our fellow artist bloggers are content (or maybe not) to simply show their work via the internet. I recall reading something by Julia Cameron (Artist's Way fame) who said something to the extent that many artists simply have the audacity to have their work displayed in a gallery. I have to admit, the physicality of seeing a work "in the flesh" is more satisfying, and I guess for many, it's more satisfying to have their work hanging in a gallery. Anyhow, despite the crap scene in some places, I do go to traditional western galleries like the National Gallery, the Hirshhorn, the Women's gallery, the Sackler-Freer and the American Gallery of Art, all in DC, representng all the movements you mentioned, including the ancient Asian, of which is my favorite and of which moves me in a "spiriitual" sense. For me, it is church, and I walk away each time, with inspiration and rejuvenated energy. Still, perhaps all spirituality is, scientifically, all in our heads. Anyhow, I see where you're coming from, being put off by the snobbery and general bullshit associated with the art world and yes, just because something's hanging on a wall doesn't mean we have to like it. Anyhow, if you like graffiti, I reccomend checking out an excellent dvd set called Style Wars, documenting the early graffiti scene, with an extra disc showcasing current street art and artists.

josh pincus is crying said...

Okay, I'll elaborate.
Let me start out by saying I basically hate people as a whole. The major population of this country is a bunch of uneducated, Wal-Mart-shopping, American-Idol-watching, McDonald's-eating morons who do what they are told. They misread the newspaper and misunderstand current events, so that information has to be presented in bite-size pieces that they will STILL misconstrue. It is because of the these masses that we are so fucked up as a society. We are told what to like, what not to like, what should be popular and what you should ignore. When I see a girl, singing in a subway station, with a voice that can evoke tears and then I see the popularity of Kelly Clarkson it makes we scratch my head in wonder. Unfortunately, this trend has been around longer that you and I and it will continue. People are basically stupid. Society has lowered their standards. We, as artists, must feel that our doodles on napkins are just as valid as art as anything Rembrandt produced. Why not? If a self-proclaimed artist produces it, it is art and fuck anyone who says otherwise!

Anonymous said...

I can't remember the last time I've actually been to an art show. I can't say that I'd really want to go either. That kind of forum doesn't really do much for me.
Now walking down the street and stumbling upon a masterpiece on some wall or in an alley blows me away. T-shirt art is also a fav of mine.

Dan Nolan said...

can I skip the art theory and say that I like your drawings?

d said...

art is everywhere and nowhere. if i call something art then it is. just because it hangs in a museum does not make it more so, it just tells other, less independent souls, to know that it should be considered art.

bleh. people suck.

mordenti said...

Dear Jeanette,

Your blog is amazing! I just found it as i was searching for drawings of cell phones and this picture showed up. Im from Ft Lauderdale too! Although now i live around San Francisco. Listen, I am looking for an image for a flyer I want to make about a game where a bunch of people take pictures with their phone and then send it to a website as a means of getting people to look at their environment from other peoples perspectives. See the directions on my blog (address below this greeting). Anyway, all of this is to say, may i use this cell phone image on the flyer? I understand if not. But just thought i would ask. Or perhaps you would be interested in drawing a different image after you read about the thing itself? As if you're not busy enough as it is, right. Anyway, greetings Jeannette, im glad i found your blog.

mordenti
http://entrepreneurialcity.blogspot.com/

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