Workshop Activity – Week 2

Premise – I know the main point of this exercise is to research someone and then work out what you like about them and how that influences your work, however I already know a ridiculous amount on my chosen artist. So instead I will discuss (in short) what I like about them, how they influence me as well as what I want to take from them and how that will translate into this course.

 

Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh has been a main source of inspiration for me for possibly ten years, now. I think he slipped into my life when I had just started high school art class, in which we jumped from neon paints to studying form and the masters. I adore his skill of creating harmony in colour which always makes me feel calm. However I think the key source of his influence in my life is just as much his words as his art. For someone to feel so terribly lost in their own consciousness and so isolated from others, but to wake up choosing to be brave, courageous and create something beautiful almost every day is just flooring. Now I’m sure he wasn’t the best human in the world (we all have bad days, sometimes weeks) and I’m not even sure if we’d even get along if he were to spontaneously appear, but he is a consent reminder to keep creating and to not let the unpleasantness of existence weight to heavily.

I already know that what I really want to do within “Experiment. Screen. Sensation.” is to stitch together photography, words and sound to create pieces (and micro-pieces) that are honest, bittersweet but forever hopeful, which will follow themes of love, life, loss, death, health, travel and identity. I’ve picked out key quotes and pieces from Van Gogh which I feel will help centre the core (hopeful) mood for my writing, as he reminds me to love endlessly while always being grateful for the small things.

 

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”

“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”

“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”

“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.”

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”

“The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.”

“In spite of everything, I shall rise again; I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.”

“Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.”