Art is Human-Doing
What art is & isn't (one artist's view)
John Ruskin: “In art you must not talk before you do.”1
Art is art because it is made by an artist.
Therefore, what machines make is not art.
Art is a human-thing.
What is inside a human being is brought into the world by that human’s labour. That labour is art. What is inside the human being (the thinking & feeling); how it is made manifest (the work of craft); and then lastly the thing that has been shaped (the piece of art); all of that is art.
Art is a process, not a product. The outcome— the result— what others see— is not the entirety of art. It’s a by-product of the process of art. In a sense, it’s not the point. I think of the way a game of Go, say, requires both players to try to win. Aiming to win is what makes the game unfold; but holding onto winning too tightly will make you lose. Winning is not the point of Go— the game is.2
To say that ‘art’— the outcome of art— is the point of art is to profoundly misunderstand what art-making is. Art-making is digestion. The art itself is shit. I mean that in the best way. Rightly the shit becomes compost, fertiliser for new growth, new art. The shit is the bit others see, but the human body, with its invisible powers of digestion, is the source.
If you want a less visceral metaphor, we could say artworks are like footprints.3 The artist’s walking leaves a trail of footprints. The artist’s task is to keep walking.
I still think the shit metaphor is better, though, because it implies cyclicality rather than linearity. Compost, rotting, microbes, soil... Art feeds on art.
It is difficult to make logical arguments about art. I think this is because art is by its nature a subjective pursuit. Art questions are qualitatively different from logic questions.4
Mostly I can tell at a glance whether a piece of art is good or not. This judgement happens in a micro-second. (It’s also true that sometimes I will later change my mind; sometimes decades later, when I have become a different person, able to understand differently.)
This ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ of the art is not the same thing as whether or not I personally like the art. I can see if something’s good even if I don’t like it. I also love a lot of ‘good-bad’ art: that is, not necessarily sophisticated or highly skilled, but imbued with power. (Sometimes it is this very rawness that gives work its power.)5
All of this would seem to suggest that art is alive, or that it is the vessel of some kind of magic or spirit.
I do think that art is alive; or at least, that art is the record or trace of life. If it made by an individual person, it is the record or trace of that individual person’s life. If the work is made collectively, it carries a trace of collective life. This is why what a machine makes is not art.
Here is the etmyology of the word ART: in the thirteenth century, it was skill as a result of learning or practice… From the Latin artem / ars, meaning work of art; practical skill; a business, craft… From the Proto-Indo-European *ar(ə)-ti-, meaning to fit together.)
“The meaning ‘human workmanship’ (as opposed to nature) is from late 14c. The meaning ‘system of rules and traditions for performing certain actions’ is from late 15c… The meaning ‘skill in creative arts’ is recorded by 1610s; especially of painting, sculpture, etc., from 1660s.”
Very well then. But here is the etymology of the word CRAFT, which approaches more closely this inherent power I’m trying to describe: Old English cræft, meaning skill, dexterity; art, science, talent; also power, physical strength, might… From the Proto-Germanic *krab-/*kraf-, which also gives us German and Norse words meaning strength, skill, virtue. (CRÆFT is also a word historically associated with MAGIC; consummate knowledge or skill can appear unearthly.)6 But “The ultimate etymology [of craft] is uncertain.”
Art is skill. Craft is power.
That is what art is: the doing. Skill is use of skill. Why do we (artists) do what we do? We do what we do because we do what we do. Art is a stone dropped in water. We engage in an ongoing conversation with the mystery because it is fascinating to do so. That ongoing conversation is art.
An idea is not art. When someone tells you about their idea for a novel, that idea is not a book. A book is a physical object in the world, made of work. The labour of writing is what makes a book. (Or not. At least if you try you will understand things you didn’t before.)
Unless you do art— unless you yourself engage in an ongoing creative practice over a number of years minimum7— unless you get down in the mud & wrestle with the angel— frankly, you have no right to speak on what art is or is not. You are a consumer of art but you are not an artist. To think that what a machine makes is equivalent to what a person makes is the viewpoint of a consumer, not a maker.
Art is the record of time. Art is the fruit of labour.
The labour of art is often mystified or framed as a special kind of labour; the labour of art is often seen as exempt from the rewards that apply to other kinds of work (such as proper remuneration). Artists are often disrespected, our authority disregarded.
Why? Aside from the mistaken idea that art-making is a pleasant & enjoyable pursuit & thus not real work, it seems to me that there is something going on here around visibility vs. invisibility. The artwork is visible but the art work is invisible, or only partially visible. Maybe that invisibility— the hidden, interior aspect of art-making, which can look like idleness to an outsider— is the cause of widespread misunderstanding regarding the nature of art. (This misunderstanding is presently exacerbated by tech-induced passive consumerism.)
Art is consumable, but it has a triple life. It is for others in general; it is for other artists in particular; & it is for for the artist. This makes me think of the children of immigrants— people who straddle two cultures. There is the language they speak at home; the language they speak in the world; and— themself the bridge, one foot in each world— the language they use inside their head, the architecture of their interior self.
In my own practice(s) I have often been attracted to simple & / or minimal forms. Hand sewing. Ink drawing. Unaccompanied singing. There’s an obvious practical reason for this choice: these forms require less gear & less space— that is, they are cheaper. But there’s a deeper reason too. I think I choose these forms because of their translucency. In simplicity there’s nowhere to hide. Minimalism of form is difficult, a narrow channel of challenge.8 It’s a game I’m playing with myself. It’s a tightrope walk, focussing my consciousness to the stroke under my hand, the note in my mouth. Only this.
An observer sees the simplicity of a piece. But any mastery of simplicity can only be approached by (at least) a decade’s walking.9
Another way of putting it: in art, I admire simple forms (which I sometimes think of as conducive to elegance, in the hacker sense of the word— fitted cunning) because the process is visible at every stage. For instance, in an ink drawing, unlike in an oil painting, there are no overlayers; there is no correction of mistakes. Every stroke is visible. In unaccompanied singing, there are no instruments to clothe & ornament the voice. The sung word hangs naked in the air. So these forms are close to the body— they are direct expressions of the hand & voice.
That handmadeness is important to me. I can appreciate virtuosic, lush, large, bold, brave, complex art: but I bow before humble honest craft. The truth is that simplicity & imperfection move me— & that’s what I need most from art.
In my cosmology of art, therefore, machines, lacking bodies, cannot make art. Also,10 the mistake of a machine lacks the power to move me. A human mistake is moving in its revelation of the human condition— error, wear, frailty, brevity. Striving, persistence, trying again. A machine’s mistake (too many fingers, say, or garbled wordlike forms on the page of a fake book) is deeply unsettling in its revelation of an alien intelligence. I understand that some people like that & find it fascinating, but I find it disgusting and even blasphemous, anti-sacred: an insult to life itself.11
Art is a gift. It is given us; therefore it must be freely given in turn. Stealing freely given art & turning it into a travesty of itself for profit is a particularly despicable class of theft. To feed off someone’s life’s work, wrought in sweat from their heart’s blood, sprung from their long learning, is the act of a parasite.
It is our job as artists to respond to the moment. My instinct is that the parasitic nature of this moment necessitates the safeguarding of the invisible work. Interiority can be a place of refuge. Work occult, underground, in the dark. Responding to the now also means being ahead of the game. It means being cunning like Coyote, which also means being stupid. Dumb-smart. Make art like you make shit.12
Work of the hand, the basis of art, is ancient, simple, & universal. Using your mind and hand to converse with the mystery is a deeply radical act— yet anyone can do it.
Machines don’t have hands, they don’t have breath. They don’t have blood, they don’t have ancestors. They cannot think or feel. They are not actually part of the story of art.
It’s a fool’s error to mistake the skin of the fruit for the tree. Human makers are the seed, the roots, the sap, the xylem & phloem, the bark, the new growth, the bud, the blossom, the cone, the leaf, the needle. And we’re the forest & the garden to each other, we’re lichen, moss, epiphytes, fungal mycelium; bees, bats, birds with our faces covered in each other’s pollen; a web of conviviality.13
Art is a human birthright. It is your ancestral inheritance. Yes, you! I’m talking to you! The smallest child can make art as soon as they can hold a drawing tool, yet art is fathomless depth to occupy a genius for a lifetime. Art is a mighty force, uncontainable, uncontrollable. Yet art is free for everyone. If you have five minutes a day spare, you can make art. If you have a stick & a bit of dirt to scratch in, you can make art. Then you can show someone. If you want. But you don’t have to. The doing is the point.
Today is Dear Magician’s second birthday. It can walk & talk! I’m very grateful for the support, correspondence, camaraderie, & inspiration that I’ve received along the way. Thank you, friends, strangers, Magicians! I offer you this virtual four-leaf clover— please touch it for luck! (And please do let us know of any subsequent wild luck / synchronicity / long shots / blessings / windfalls that come your way...)
From Ruskin’s lecture Of Wisdom & Folly in Art, part of his lecture series The Eagle’s Nest, delivered in 1872
I used to say chess. But art is more Go than chess.
In sand. In mud. In water. On stone. On concrete. In grass. In snow.
They’re a different species of animal, say one is a tiger & one is an octopus. On this point I recommend Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift, which helped me to understand why & how the world of art & the world of commerce follow different rules.
Sometimes this kind of art is called outsider art, or Art Brut (‘raw art’); but really, art is art.
Tip of the Wizard hat to Alexander Langlands, whose fascinating book Cræft alerted me to the deeper meanings of this word.
And I would very much like you to do that! I encourage you to begin (or revive or continue) whichever art practice seems most alive to you, please— for you & for the world!
This makes me think of Csikszentmihalyi’s diagram of flow:
The banks of the river of Flow are ‘too easy’— Boredom— or ‘too hard’— Anxiety; Challenge must steadily increase as Skill increases in order for the artist to access Flow.
See also: Ten Thousand Hours theory, which I find both questionable & interesting.
Consequently?
Hayao Miyazaki
In the stories, Coyote often takes advice from his own shit
Tip of the Wizard hat to Maddy Trigg for conviviality
Yes to all of this! And most fondly this image - ‘our faces covered in each other’s pollen; a web of conviviality’.
Magic! I’ve just emerged from a flower with my face covered.
I just realized the invisible labour that goes into an artist's product is similar to the invisible labour that goes into being a therapist. Both more feminine forms of labour and so in danger of being ignored but for some reason society recognizes the latter: the subtle and back breaking work therapists do working with their inner worlds. It's not just the hour of therapy they're getting paid for - it's on an obvious level their years of study and self-therapy, and more subtly, paying for everything they've survived in their life that makes them who they are, because who they are gives you therapy you can't get anywhere or anywhen else on earth. Same as who the artist is gives you shit you can't get anywhere or anywhen else.