11/23/08 9:01 am Sunday morning. We're on our way to Janet's. They actually are getting together at Susan's for Thanksgiving, but Janet didn't call till last week. We're always last on their list. So, she invited us out today. Because we are going to Mike's on Thanksgiving.
11/23/08 I've been meaning to write about these articles I've been reading online either by or about David Galenson. He's an economist at the University of Chicago, but he also has an interest in art. He began looking at artists and the prices for their artwork and quantifying his results.
11/23/08 He found that some artists did their best work when young, but others did their best work when much older. He also looked at poets and writers, but I was more interested in the visual artists. He coined two terms for these separate groups.
11/23/08 He calls the Prodigies Conceptual Innovators. They do their genius work when young. They also work conceptually, meaning they start with a clear idea of what they want to do and they do it. This is NOT me. I am the Anti-Prodigy!
11/23/08 He calls the other group Experimental Innovators. AKA Late Bloomers. When I read the descriptions of these artists, I though: that's me! Their work is tentative and incremental. They repeat themselves, working the same subject over and over, gradually changing -
11/23/08 - in an experimental process of trial and error. They rarely make preparatory sketches. They rarely plan out their work. They build their skills gradually over the course of their careers. They improve their work slowly over long periods of time.
11/23/08 They are also perfectionists plagued by frustration. Frustrated at their inability to reach their goal. Cezanne was notorious for slashing up canvases. And the Late Bloomers resemble failures until they finally hit on something that works.
11/23/08 Also, we tend to think of Late Bloomers as late starters, like they never picked up a paint brush till their 50s and realized they're a genius painter. But that's not the case. They just weren't very good throughout their early career and worked on it for decades.
11/23/08 Most of this info is paraphrased from an article in The New Yorker. But there was an article in Wired where Galenson took the writer on a tour in the Art Institute and pointed out an early painting by Jackson Pollock. He said it was a really bad ptg, and was only there because Pollock did it.
11/23/08 Then he explained one of his drip ptgs, the balance and unity in the image. Then he said - Seurat died at 31 - and if Pollock had died at 31, we never would have heard of him. / I think that I have been trying to work conceptually, and failing miserably because it goes against my tendencies.
11/23/08 It's like in Grad School when Maritza looked at a drg I did and immediately asked, "Where are your anatomical sketches and studies?" as if that were the only way to do artwork. Art schools definitely try to wedge students into the conceptual mode.
11/23/08 But often I feel that if I already have such a clear idea of the finished work, then what is the point of executing it? And I keep trying to plan, even though I hate that. But I don't have enough self confidence to just start working and see what happens. [I'm afraid I'll mess it up.]
11/23/08 8:38 pm Frak! No time for drg tonight! [Due to frosting cookies. More later on that fiasco.]
Galenson New Yorker Article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
Galenson Wired Article: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html?pg=1&topic=genius&topic_set=
