Words Matter (or do they?)

Words matter…or do they?
 
Last October I started a “correspondence” course with a well-respected painting school in London and already it has been an eye opener in many ways. Of course, the thing with corresponding is that is it pretty much just words: I send some images in and a written review of my work and my mentor sends a written review in reply. 

I can’t pretend that the first response I received went well. Nothing wrong with what was said about my painting work, but I responded badly to his words and this has given me lots of insight into the reasons which stop me from moving forward. Actually, I was so discombobulated that I ran away and took some locum work for a few months.

So, what happened? Well, the first thing that started me off was how he talked about his own work. Now it’s his work, his words and feelings, so it shouldn’t have been of any concern to me, but I think it set my brain up, well, my listening up in a bad way. My prejudices about “art language” came surging to the surface. Grayson Perry has an acronym for it, something like LOMA (Language of Modern Art) and I bet you know exactly what I mean by just reading that! That thing where you read several paragraphs and realise you haven’t found out anything and couldn’t say what they were about, except that you know lots of words were used!

My prejudices and reactions come from various “sore” places including growing up in a middle-class area, going to a posh school but realising that my family was working class, not wealthy and I just was different to my peers. My school friends went on foreign holidays and had new cars – we camped and my dads car turned its own ignition off when it went round corners! My mum disliked posh peoples voices and words and it would seem that some of that rubbed off on me. The art world, the art language, the words used and how I perceive people in it, show my insecurities up in technicolour.  

I just don’t feel I belong. I wrote to my mentor “I don’t have the right clothes, voice, background, friends…I just don’t fit in and I don’t know how to get in!” All of that bubbled up from him writing a few words about his own work… that’s the power of words for you!

And the use and uselessness of words came up again in my review. Paint, ink, charcoal are all media used to communicate ideas, feelings etc, that we call art or an image of some kind. Yet we try to use words to describe and explain this visual stuff! The whole point of painting is that isn’t words!

One of the main “areas for development” I have identified, is that I need to learn to write and talk about my painting. This is not easy for the above reasons but also because I want to say things like:
  • I put this frog in it because it looked nice
  • I put some red here as a bit of an accident
  • I spilt some turps and it made a nice swirl
  • I fancied using my new orange paint so I did…
This types of “honest” but basic comments don’t really fit the art world. They don’t mystify or intrigue or provoke questions. They don’t allude to something other than what is or was.  You can see my problem and another source of my alienation from the “art world”. What I am realising is how much this alienation and insecurity of mine, has prevented me from moving forward…

So, what do I do now? I feel I need some coaching to tackle this deep-seated block…

Watch this space!
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