William Rossoto, Artist, Author, Residential Designer, Photgrapher,

Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Scratcher Thoughts


 










Scratcher
I still like to make marks
like the fur weavers of Lascaux
Scratching a patch of hard rock
or coloring with ochre
I'm not a hunter, but......
sighting beauty aim with barb
Every mark and stroke
paid attention like G-d
This path chosen?
To scrawl and scratch
conjuring the unseen magic
Manifesting desire invisible
imitating ancestors drive
Leaving mark like dog
on fire hydrant.....
My saber tooth calls for knowing
somehow remembered, though.....
Scarcely can I say why

               William Rossoto 4/25/13

Working in the studio today on a new abstract series....more explorations than anything serious. I use the word serious because it is quite the opposite of what I'm experiencing as I do these explorations. I'm having so much fun I'm thinking that this couldn't be serious art.....whatever that is. So much of the time I carry with me the belief (how ever erroneous it may be) that a work of art can not be simple, that it requires enormous effort and if it does not then I haven't made something worthwhile....does anyone else feel the same way. Well, silly musings for the day........

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Keeping Sketchbooks

Recently I pulled out my dusty old sketchbooks and few of the newer ones to trace my footsteps through the world of academics to my present state of being as an artist and writer. With over thirty years of sketches, poetry and short story writing to wade through I felt excited and yet overwhelmed by the prospect of excavating my past. It's like inserting myself into a time capsule, reliving things that might be better forgotten in the fog of faulty cellular memory. At the same time I might discover some possible elucidating and beautiful moments in time. Surrendering to the unknown I opened the oldest book first containing yellowed, cracked and torn pages of figure drawings, writings of a youthful exuberant and tumultuous young mind and some things I simply can't mention here. 

Often I thought of simply throwing these books out because if anyone else ever read this stuff or saw some of the rather provocative drawings, I might be accussed as being in need of medical attention which would feel pretty embarrassing while I'm still alive. Not that I'm all that self conscious about what others think, but hey.......I really am, but not in an insecure way. I am happy to say that I did keep these journals because there is something quite elucidating and beautiful about being able to revisit yourself, not in a narcissistic way, but as a tool to learn and observe your own process of maturing emotionally, spiritually, creatively and technically. Also, it allows me to create some new ideas from older material, though most of the time I would rather let sleeping dogs snore. After a few weeks of reading and looking through old sketches I am quite happy that I decided to keep these books, which continue to propel and inspire me in numerous ways.

My suggestion to all artist and writers is to keep all your note/sketch books so that you can visit them and so that others might be able to share in your process of creation.






Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The Writing of Art

Art can propel you to think and reflect, to draw upon associated memories and elicit responses of humor, horror or invite mythological imagery, associate pictorial memories or simply  to find a place of peace and relaxation, but generally one does not see a story directly produced in their mind in response to visual art. Let's see if this premise holds true when examined in context to the creator of art and writing and that of the observer.
 
Do art and writing have anything in common with each other? The written word generally creates a picture in ones mind almost automatically, but can visual art directly elicit the creation of a story or a poem in an instantaneous way (like seeing the words in your mind)? Visual art can inspire one to write commentary about the art such as the aesthetics, conceptual and or historical context, but when it comes to a direct translation of visual art forming words in ones mind it seems quite a distant possibility unlike the written word automatically creating a picture in your mind, though some people may access this differently.

I've had this quandary many times about the response of the reader and that of the viewer of visual art. I create visual art and I also write poetry and short stories and have wanted to understand if there are similarities in response to either mediums as well as to question if my mind works the same way in the creation both writing and art.

bit of my history. Upon furthering my intention to be a visual artist I set upon the academic route and attained a BFA in painting while also managing to take a few courses in writing and poetry. I am quite confident of my skills as a visual artist and have no trouble doing shows and commissions, but I tend to think of myself as a "folk writer" such as are non-academically trained artist being referred to as "folk artist". As a writer I tend to have a certain disdain for all the rules of writing and pay very little attention to Strunk and White as well as any other "supposed to do things" in the world of writing including punctuation. After thirty years of writing short stories and poetry I finally decided to bypass my fears about publishing my work and created a book of my poetry and art called, "Moments Without Time". Fortunately I have many friends that have given me positive feedback regardless of what they may really think about my poetry, and so I continue to write and contemplate what I want to do for my next book. Have no fear, there a point to made here as I wax on my insecurities about writing.


There is something about writing that I find considerably more personal and revealing about my mental and spiritual interiors than that of my visual art when presented to the general public. I can always make up a story in the aftermath of creating a work of art, a justification, making it allegorical or not, autobiographical, or purely meaningless dribble, etc., but with a poem or a short story the reader is always directly inserted into the interpretation, crawling into my printed words, creating pictures from the words, stripping me naked with every sentence read. With writing I feel vulnerable and unable to defend myself, maybe because I don't feel qualified to be writing words on a page for all to see, or maybe because writing is simply a more intimate medium than visual art, or maybe because I feel substantiated by the societal right of passage called a college degree that I have in art, but not in writing. Regardless, the creation of art and writing does have some similar and dissimilar qualities, for me each one does influence the other to some extent.  Most often I think in pictures when I write or do art, conjuring up memories or making up new mental images and concepts, but I don't generally translate a set of written words into a work of visual art. When writing I use both picture memory and word concepts to create, and I feel more like a scribe taking notation than being the originator of a poem or short story. Both mediums encompass listening to my muse and working intuitively, but I don't paint the words I hear when painting, the words are simply directing me as to color, composition, contrast, etc., a sort of complimentary set of verbal cues from my academically trained mind and my muse. Maybe this cutting a fine line between the two processes, but I see them as quite a distance apart. Onward to the point of this article.

Everyone's creative process is different, but we arrive at the same place in a work of art or a work of the written word, the finished product. What the observer or reader feels and interprets from a work of art or a piece of writing is generally as varied as the creators process of the work, and the way someone's mind functions in the process of interpretation can be verbal or imagery based. I am curious to know what your perspective and process of creation is in art and or writing.


Sunday, January 20, 2013

Book of Poetry & Art

 


If you like to read poetry, I just self published this book of poetry with a few art works from the "Nature Series". With over thirty years of writing short stories and poetry I thought it might be interesting to present some of it in conjunction with my art, testing the waters of what it not only takes to create a book, but also to get some feedback on my writing. I don't think of myself as a word smith as might a seasoned writer, but I do enjoy painting my thoughts with words.

http://www.blurb.com/books/4001033-moments-without-time

Click on the link above and it will take you to the preview of the book. I would appreciate any commentary you may have to offer about the book.