Becoming an 'artist'

[The_Traveler]

People at the very top of their profession are often referred to as 'artists', implying that they are somehow above the technical issues of other craftsmen.

I have always been interested in this designation and it has occurred to me that, since the appellation of 'artist' is usually conferred by other people and much of the time those other people don't know much, that there are things each of us can do to speed up or optimize our path to 'artist-hood'.

I have done some investigating and these are my suggested 5 steps to being an artist.

1) external appearance is really important so, to be taken seriously, one's external appearance is crucial. Thus dress in sombre clothes, blacks greys or dark greens, even mismatching shoes are a plus.
Never carry too much equipment, after all you are not a craftsman but an artist.
And, most of all, de-emphasize your equipment but make it clear that you are one with your tools.
To show just how modest you are, cover all names with black tape.
Use a non-standard lens strap (because, again, you are one with your equipment and a discarding a manufacturer's strap implies something (I'm not certain what).

Never carry a camera bag, that implies either indecision about what you are going to need or a reliance on craftman's tool.
If you must carry a bag, use a disheveled messenger bag or a small knapsack, preferably dirty or mended with tape.

2) Affect. Never be cheerful or smile.
If you must smile, affect only a rueful quick flash of a grin and then return to being serious.
If you are naturally cheerful, external means might be necessary to banish that smile. I have found that nipple clamps or tight rubber bands work marvels.

3) Your pictures. First they are not pictures they are always 'images.' You do not take picture.
In the aggregate, these images are referred to as one's body of work and they have been 'created' or 'conceived of' never 'taken' or 'made'. If you can manage a French pronunciation, you can refer to them as 'my oeuvre' or carrying self-awareness a little farther 'mon oeuvre, as it were.'
If someone approaches you about your 'pictures', take a breath, let a second or two go by and then reply in as flat a tone as you can muster, 'yes, these images (emphasis on images) blah blah blah.

4) Technical issues.
Convert everything to B&W.
Serious people never use color.
Children playing with puppies, circus clowns with balloons, no matter the subject, every image is more meaningful in B&W.

Don't get anxious about technical issues.
If someone in your audience mentions that they see some technical defects, have a good answer is along the lines of, "I don't really concern myself too, too much with technical issues, I believe that the meaning transcends any of these kinds of limitations. I leave technical nit-picking to pixel-peepers. I don't shoot for those who can see only technical issues."

If someone has the effrontery to bring the subject up again, a short 'I already dealt with that,' and pointing to someone else with a more appropriate question works well.

5) Artist's statement
If you have successfully handled all the previous steps, eventually you may worm into a show and you will need an artist's statement.
Most artist's statements read, to me, like French poetry in that I can read the individual words but I can't winkle out the meaning so the meaning obviously can't be too important. I have found that I a customized artist's statement generated for my tastes works great.

Here is my latest artist statement (generated at 500 Letters - Generate your artist biography
I think it really works.

Lew Lorton (°1949, United States) makes conceptual artworks and photos. By demonstrating the omnipresent lingering of a ‘corporate world’, Lorton tries to create works in which the actual event still has to take place or just has ended: moments evocative of atmosphere and suspense that are not part of a narrative thread. The drama unfolds elsewhere while the build-up of tension is frozen to become the memory of an event that will never take place.

His conceptual artworks are on the one hand touchingly beautiful, on the other hand painfully attractive. Again and again, the artist leaves us orphaned with a mix of conflicting feelings and thoughts. By putting the viewer on the wrong track, his works references post-colonial theory as well as the avant-garde or the post-modern and the left-wing democratic movement as a form of resistance against the logic of the capitalist market system.

His works demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction over the latter half of the twentieth century. It challenges the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between our own ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ selves. By manipulating the viewer to create confusion, he often creates several practically identical works, upon which thoughts that have apparently just been developed are manifested: notes are made and then crossed out again, ‘mistakes’ are repeated.

His works are given improper functions: significations are inversed and form and content merge. Shapes are dissociated from their original meaning, by which the system in which they normally function is exposed. Initially unambiguous meanings are shattered and disseminate endlessly. Lew Lorton currently lives and works in Baltimore.

Now, that you have the blueprint for success, go ahead out these and be an artist.

 

[qleak]

Hmm I'm sure I'll take some flak for this, i debrand my cameras. But that's about as close to an artist as i am.

I just don't like looking at the logos all the time and don't like being a walking advertisement.

I'm not really convinced that it gives me any other advantage

 

[tirediron]

Hmm I'm sure I'll take some flak for this, i debrand my cameras. But that's about as close to an artist as i am.

I just don't like looking at the logos all the time and don't like being a walking advertisement.

I'm not really convinced that it gives me any other advantage

I will admit to using after-market straps, but that's mainly a comfort think. NIkon's straps (IMO) are miserable. That said, I still have the OEM gold-thread original on my F5 just because that strap is so garrish that taking it off would be a crime.

 

[Fred Berg]

Ah, but it's all hopeless unless you use film. Artist is a term that is exclusively analogue (note the spelling).

 

[The_Traveler]

Clearly you two have wandered from the true path.
I bet you smile occasionally also.

How disappointing.

In regards, using film.
It is not the actual using of film that is important but the appearance of using film.
So, if you are going to be in an area populated by cognoscenti, you could sling a little light vintage camera around your neck along with your digital, then beat the hell out of any resulting digital images with PS, add a fake film border and you have the advantages of seeming to use film but really doing it the easy way.

 

[bribrius]

people are just in general so full of chit i find them amusing..

 

[The_Traveler]

I don't mind their being full of it so much but when they underestimate me by thinking that I'll buy their line of crap, that does irritate.

 

[pgriz]

But Lew, you know that many people inhabit a fictional world of their own creation. These people spend a lot of time trying to convince the rest that "their" version or reality is the "correct" one.

 

[JustJazzie]

So what you're saying is, I was a true artist in high school, and then I somehow lost my way?

How sad. I really thought I was getting somewhere in life only to open this thread and discovered I've backtracked. :-/

Doesn't this just top off my week! ;-)

 

[bribrius]

I don't mind their being full of it so much but when they underestimate me by thinking that I'll buy their line of crap, that does irritate.

but that is how i feel about you lew with these long blogs and diatribes.












make me want to come up with my own pile of chit just to irritate back

 

[fjrabon]

I hate the default straps for the most part, mostly because I hate the traditional sort of strap that goes around your neck and puts the camera on your chest. Typically, I will either use a wrist strap or a black rapids strap that puts the camera off your hip and crosses your body like a messenger bag.

I have camera backpacks and wheelie bags, for when I need to cart around the entire system, but in general if I'm just going out shooting I'll put my camera in a regular old small-ish canvas messenger bag.

Being picky about calling things images seems just as weird to me about noticing if somebody calls them images.

I do personally find technical things boring, but I get that newer people need that discussion. But If I'm looking at a picture that tirediron posted, for example, I'm not going to say "you underexposed this" I'm going to ask "why did you think a darker exposure worked here?" They're both addressing the same issue, but one is based on an assumption of technical lack of knowledge, the other based on an assumption of artistic choice.

Why the heck would I care one way or the other if somebody covered their camera up with gaffers tape? It does give better grip than most anything else. People may not like paying thousands of dollars to be a walking advertisement? People may want to be more inconspicuous, where most logos are by design made to draw attention.

 

[rexbobcat]

You forgot to put that you have exhibited internationally (IE: You displayed prints at an art festival in Barcelona, once, along with 300 other people)

EDIT: Also Lew, your last line is much too coherent. It needs to be more vague; gotta keep the reader guessing.

 

[fjrabon]

You forgot to put that you have exhibited internationally (IE: You displayed prints at an art festival in Barcelona, once, along with 300 other people)

well, people from all over the world view TPF, so posting stuff in the forums here could be called having work exhibited internationally.

 

[Fred Berg]

PS, add a fake film border and you have the advantages of seeming to use film but really doing it the easy way.

Mon Dieu, thé man is a genius!

 

[minicoop1985]

I think you forgot the part about contracting a mental illness. All TRUE artists need to be somewhat crazy and unpredictable. Thankfully I have that covered. The rest though... Wow, I fail at being an artist. My boss does always wear black though. Not sure if it's just his style, or if he's just that odd. Smiles way too much to be an artist though.