Category: Discussions/Essays

Self-Portrait (after a bar fight). Many of Lucian Freud’s paintings can be so real as to be haunting or disturbing. But what all his paintings have in common is their vulnerability and attention to truth. It’s what makes him one of the greatest, most unique painters of our time.

“I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having the look of the sitter, being them.” — Lucian Freud

All art is personal.

It’s what differentiates the arts from the other, seemingly more noble studies, such as math or science. Numbers can’t connect like words, sounds or images can.

Only art can help us dive into the world outside ourselves, yet feel intimately connected to both.

Self-Portrait. The work of Francis Bacon is renowned for capturing the tortured psychological depths of human existence. His voice is so completely unique, with an interpretation of the world around him and his own tortured battles so intense, that they both entice and frighten the viewer.

In a conversation between creative giants Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, it was noted that surrealism is a word that’s been misinterpreted or even hijacked by the likes of the “Surrealists” such as Salvador Dalí or René Magritte, fellow artistic giants whose heavy, dream-like distortions of reality came to claim the word for their own and likely forever. Surrealism has since come to define a modern art movement concerned with reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience. But originally, surreal actually meant something that is “even more real than real” like when someone reacts to something so unbelievably intense as to say “that’s surreal!” — it comes from expressing the most direct, most complete feelings through the artist’s interpretation of the subject.

Yet all great art does this. This by default places art, and creativity for that matter, as the only vehicle that comes so honestly close to matching or even surpassing nature in order, beauty and wonder.

The Embrace. An artist’s work often reveals his views and relations with other people. This painting, by Gustav Klimt protégé Egon Schiele,  expresses the artistic and marital problems confronted by the artist at that particular juncture in his life.

Now, one might be inclined to say that working in animation (or any other commercial art form) that artists today have very few occasions to personalize their work. But they’re wrong — there is far more opportunity out there than they think — they only need to keep their minds wide open. All too often, we think of the work we do in the industry as overwhelmingly commercial, and at times it is, especially with regards to story and intent.

This fantastic Lion King logo, done for Disney’s musical based on the movie, is by Hans Bacher – a master of design and composition. When I met with Hans, who has been in the industry over 40 years, he was still as passionate and devoted to his craft as ever, always creating and always willing to share.

But there is a vast amount of art in the production of the behemoth that is animation — even if much of it remains unseen or misunderstood by the broader public. Each artist has the opportunity to find his say, to sneak in something that is true to himself and unique to his experiences. It can be found in the small crevices of a story sequence, or a beautiful play of color in the shadows observed and recollected from a morning walk. Animators have a bounty of opportunity to relay personal, social and emotional experience into an acting performance. After all, only work that is personal has any chance of really connecting with people. And all art, commercial or otherwise, is required to connect in order to make an impact. This justifies its existence (even if that audience is limited).

Secret message or hoax? Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper is as famous for its artistry as it is for the controversial interpretation of its message.  Renaissance artists were “stuck” with painting regal or religious imagery — royalty and churches were often the paying client — but that didn’t always stop them from using their imaginations and telling their own stories.

Every writer knows it’s a battle to say what he sees and feels in words. Truth is inherently difficult to capture. The painter’s fight is with his brush and palette never quite capturing exactly that essence which drives the work in the first place. He simply does his best to give into it all. Completely committed. Completely vulnerable.

“In finding this one object, I find a world. I think a great painting is a painting that funnels itself in and then funnels out, spreads out. I enter in a very focused way and then I go through it and way beyond it.” — Andrew Wyeth

Rejected by the modernist movement at the time, Andrew Wyeth’s realism has a haunting and durable quality to them. His paintings of his neighbor, Helga Testorff, were done over a period of 15 years forming a visual diary of transience and personal connection.

Sometimes art is the only way we have of relating to things and to each other, and that’s why it continues to be the best bet in finding out more about our ourselves and the universe. Art forces us to act, to live via observation, exploration and ultimately, creation. Or to quote Arnold Weinstein, from his wonderful New York Times article:

“Art and literature are tried on. Reading a book, seeing a painting or a play or a film: Such encounters are fueled by affect as well as intelligence. Much “fleshing out” happens here: We invest the art with our own feelings, but the art comes to live inside us, adding to our own repertoire. Art obliges us to “first-personalize” the world. Our commerce with art makes us fellow travelers: to other cultures, other values, other selves.”

Few artists have had the impact Orson Welles has on the medium of film. The vocabulary of his adaptation of William Skakespeare’s  Othello, is both thematically and visually stunning. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1952.

Numbers, calculations and graphs are imperatively objective – they need to be to have validity. They are meant to satisfy the logical left brain, to ensure a sense of security in the findings. The non-objective nature of art is chaotic and abstract, even nonsensical at times. It teases your emotions and puts the obsessive overthinking into a fit of confusion. The measurable attributes of science and math gives us stability and assurance, while the immeasurable qualities of art give us joy and grant us liberation. As a modern day human being, it’s a fine line getting the two to work well together so that we can have some sort of balance between order and freedom in our lives, and also find meaning to our existence. The choice of where that line meets is up to the artist himself. This is the beauty of art. One can draw inspiration from so many different places, and yet, only the individual can offer the final say and make that ultimate, all encompassing expression. This is the choice we make when we create.

So, don’t take “you” out of your work. The world needs your contribution even if it doesn’t know it yet.

“I have always said, or at least thought, that literary poetry in a painter is something special, and is neither illustration nor the translation of writing by form… sometimes people accuse me of being incomprehensible only because they look for an explicative side to my pictures which is not there.” — Paul Gauguin

Stanley Kubrick was an uncompromising filmmaker who did things his own way and he’s arguably the 20th century’s greatest pioneer of the medium because of it.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” — Edgar Allan Poe

They say curiosity killed the cat. That dreamers are idiot savants, with no grasp on reality. Yet it’s always the curious dreamer who dares to conceive of the “inconceivable” that changes the world.

In our current socioeconomic paradigm of “always make a profit,”risk is something to be limited at all costs. Yet history has shown that without risk, nothing new or worthwhile is ever discovered or created.

Time and time again, the most incredible, most impactful changes we’ve experienced come from listening, observing and responding to own inner voices and the needs of the world around you. In other words, change almost never occurs until it needs to.

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.” — Henry David Thoreau

Nikola Tesla dared to dream – from alternating electrical currents to the wireless telegraph — he worked to create a better world. He may have dropped out of college, but he never gave up living courageously or his servitude to humanity. Portrait by Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy.

On a personal level, it’s not uncommon to find instinctual choices outperform cunningly calculated solutions. Meaningful acts derive from a dive into the pool of the unknown without life jackets. Every act of growth requires a leap of faith and doing something that clearly has the potential to be wrong, disapproved by others or interpreted as failure. We mustn’t listen to the doubters for they’ve been proven to be wrong time and time again.

Fact is, failure is necessary. Only through experimentation and mistakes do we truly learn the most about our world and about ourselves.

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” — Oscar Wilde

So what do we make of the dreamer? The artist? The individual whom society both treasures and ostracizes.  Despite helping people find beauty, joy and meaning, the artist’s unorthodox way of both seeing and doing things, implies a sort of disarray and strangeness that invites illogical fear and judgement.

For every artist out there, it takes great courage and an almost “unreasonable” approach to find new ways of seeing, listening and doing.  Yet this seemingly illogical approach of going against the grain (which almost always entails enduring public mockery and, even more horribly, imprisonment) has permitted not only the most unpredictable and incredible advances in the sciences and arts but also elevates our humanity. It has given us the seed to break new moral and creative grounds on how to live and what living means.

Poet Walt Whitman believed that man’s most noble expression results from following one’s intuition.

Here’s a very brief list of some of recent history’s most daring people, their struggles and their amazing discoveries — ones that altered the path of humanity. May the memory of them and their contributions remind you of the need for you to be the very best YOU the world needs you to be:

Albert Einstein — Nick named Schweinhund (“pig-dog”), for barking and snorting in class. He was unable to speak fluently until age 12. Kicked out of academia, pursued life as a musician and stand up comic before becoming the scientific genius we know today for the Theory of Relativity and E = mc ².

Steve Jobs — Never finished college. Laughed off the block promoting his (and Steve Wozniak’s) invention, the Apple I — the world’s first personal computer. Was fired from his first stint at Apple, the company he founded. Came back to Apple and took the company from a $4/share stock to a global empire easily worth over $700 billion today.  Also founded Pixar, the world’s top animation studio.

Mickey Mouse makes his iconic 1928 debut in Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie.

Walt Disney — Fired for having “no creativity” at his newspaper job. His first animation company was bankrupted.  Had his first creation, Oswald the Rabbit, stolen from him by Universal Studios and was told that his new creation, Mickey Mouse (being a giant oversized rodent) would fail miserably and terrify women. Now famous for founding Walt Disney Studios,  and the iconic theme park Disneyland, he still holds the record for the most Oscars won ever at 32, including 59 nominations.

Walt Whitman — Lived within modest means. His most famous work, Leaves of Grass, was viewed as obscene and disgraceful and was widely rejected and ignored. It took till the century after his life that his work was seen as that which revolutionized poetry in his use of free verse and his unique focus on the subject of humanity and universal brotherhood.

Moby Dick, Herman Melville’s pioneering classic about the battle between man and nature wasn’t well received in his time, but it’s required reading now.

The Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright — Bicycle mechanics without even a high school diploma. Discounted and rejected by their contemporaries for attempting to teach the world how to fly. On Dec 17, 1903 made man’s first flight into the skies, changing the world of transportation forever.

The Impressionists (Monet, Degas, Pissaro, Renoir, Sisley, Manet, Gauguin, etc) — Painters rejected by the art establishment and unable to either sell or show their work, created their own gallery for presentation. Opened up the freshness of color to painting and took to capturing the world around them, working at the scene of their subjects (“plein air” painting) instead of inside the studio. Their paintings are now the most widely admired and collected works in the world.

Paintings like this one by Edouard Manet exhibited at the Salon, a gallery that showcased a new wave of pioneering artists now known as the impressionists — artists who were not accepted by the art communities of their time.

From inventor Leonardo Da Vinci (born illegitimate) to poet Emily Dickinson (rarely published in her lifetime), the list goes on and on. Individuals who dared to dream, and participate actively to pursue their curiosities and enriching the world as a result.

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” — Nikola Tesla

As an artist your growth only comes from new experience.  Which means taking risks. Moving, oftentimes blindly and uncomfortably, towards making those initial steps — those first brush strokes or written words — makes it real. That’s something that you can build on. That’s living. Life is funnest, most eye-opening and exciting only when you don’t know what’s going to happen next. After all, who prefers to watch a ball game where the results are a foregone conclusion? Why write or paint anything that offered no surprises or deviations from the original idea? People commonly misunderstand the reason behind having goals or visions — they’re merely a starting point. Navigating the unknown IS the destination. It also happens to be the funnest part of the entire exercise of creating and living.