[MD] MOQ and Art: Platt and Marsha in defense of Visual Art

[Mike Craghead]

Mike: Wow, Platt & Marsha, many thanks for the kind words!
> Platt:
> If the following essay were a performance, it would deserve a standing ovation. Thanks for taking the time to put your ideas about the meaning of art on paper and
> sharing them with us. It's a boffo addition to the literature surrounding the MOQ.  
> You've explained the inexplicable about as well as anyone I've read. I especially
> was struck by your comparison of creating DQ (solitary arts)with perfoming DQ
> (performing arts). Having done a bit of both, I agree with your description of 
> the difference. The only bone I would pick would be with your downplaying the
> visual arts. The rewards for the creator may be not be immdediate, but the work
> itself can provide a DQ experience for "consumers" over many generations without
> the need for an audience to be there at the moment of creation. Rembrandt is
> still enthralling millions.
>
> Thanks.
> Platt
>  
> Marsha: I also applaud Mike's essay.  I didn't respond earlier, not because I 
> didn't find it extremely interesting, but because I can't seem to 
> narrow my thoughts and feelings to get them on paper.
>
> I also take issue with Mike's thoughts on the Visual Arts.  I paint 
> for the experience.  I am the oddball who doesn't think much about 
> audience.  I don't think I'm fibbing.  The painting itself seems to 
> have its own reward.
>   
[exerpt, Mike]: "In my own realm of experience, I find visual art to be the least satisfying,
because the Dynamic part(creation) is private and short-lived, then the Static
part (consumption) can happen when I'm not even there. I feel good when I know
I've made Quality work, but I'm not held immediately accountable, and that's not
as rewarding." 

Mike: 
...I didn't mean to pick on visual art. I love it and always will, I was just comparing what music feels like to me with what visual art feels like to me, and try to define their relative "balance" in terms of the MOQ, not to downplay their value in the grand scheme of things. It's the difference between chocolate and vanilla: I like one better but I would never speak ill of the other and I like a scoop of each on a waffle cone. 

I agree with Platt about the value of art created a long time ago. And I believe you, Marsha, that you paint for the process and that it's it's own reward. Each artist has their own DQ/SQ balance during the creation of the work. 

But then again, don't you consider the audience "at some point in the process?" That process including, what is done with the piece after it's created. As soon as you decide to show your work, you start thinking about the audience. Lighting a piece correctly is for the viewer's benefit, and wouldn't be necessary if the viewer weren't a factor. 

Here's an idea: during the process of creation, as we do what "feels right," are we painting as a viewer (writing as a reader?), or, experiencing / consuming the work on-the-fly as it's being created? And is that what makes it so pleasurable? Creating work of high SQ (intellect, biology, etc), then becoming our own audience (that DQ event). 

Why does it feel so great to create art? Maybe as artists, we are so biased toward liking our own work (which would explain those utterly deluded participants in "American Idol" auditions); such fans of ourselves, that we get a charge out of seeing it appear before us... watching our own art happen is a DQ experience akin to (but of course not as severe as) that of the screaming teenage Beatles fan. Then we have the "darker" artists who claim to hold their audience in such low regard- they're the folks splashing red angst all over the canvas and cursing into the microphone- maybe their art is just a manifestation of low self-image, because they are their own audience, and they don't like what they're watching? Either way, the art becomes colored by the audience, even if the artist and the audience are the same person. 

Reading over it, that concept could be way off base. If someone doesn't poke that idea full of holes soon, I probably will, but for now, there it is.

Thanks for your time,

Mike Craghead
humboldtmusic.com
humboldtmusic.com/mc
humboldtmusic.com/sarimike

>   
> Mike:
> I have been wrestling with the meaning of art for a long time, viewing 
> the question through various goggles: those of a visual artist, of a 
> musician (singer & songwriter), and (to a much lesser degree) of an 
> actor. I'll contribute my ideas on the subject, since they seem to fit 
> quite nicely within the MOQ, and might help with Ham's question (above).
>
> For me, the appeal of these pursuits has always been the piece of them 
> that is undefinable. Ask anyone about their favorite art or music or 
> theater performance, and at some point they'll have to start using 
> some really amorphous and unsatisfying language that will never really 
> approach the goal of "capturing" the experience in words. I've always 
> enjoyed that "next level" aspect of art; I've called it "the most 
> tangible form of magic" that we've got.
> I've always said that creating great art is "finding the balance 
> between the heart and the head." Art that fails can be said to be 
> off-balance: either too cerebral; overworked and underfelt, or too 
> visceral; lots of feeling which is lost because the structure failed. 
> In terms of the MOQ, Dynamic Quality is visceral and Static Quality is 
> cerebral.
>
> Art is a means of communication. If it weren't, no one would need 
> galleries or theaters or concert halls, artists would just stay in 
> their rooms and paint and sing and act all alone. I believe that any 
> artist that claims not to care about their audience at any point in 
> their process, is fibbing; it's a "controversial" sentence in their 
> press kit, not a statement of fact. And art that fails, does so 
> because it fails to communicate. The joy or angst or fear or hope 
> doesn't make it to the audience. It's the performance by an actor in a 
> theater that is utterly believable and moving, but can't be heard by 
> the folks in the back row because the actor doesn't project their 
> voice (the performance has plenty of DQ but not enough SQ: Stage 
> blocking, voice technique, etc). It's the song on the radio with an 
> irresistible, poignant melody that you can't get out of your head, 
> whose lyrics turn out to be utterly banal (DQ in the music, probably 
> born of great inspiration, but lost because of low-SQ, "phoned-in" 
> lyrics). It's the sculpture that can't be appreciated without an art 
> degree and thousands of words worth of exposition (DQ lost because the 
> artist didn't "let the viewer in" with some SQ thinking; or provide a 
> path into the vision). [An aside about visual art here: I realise that 
> my "sculpture" comment may reveal my own bias about visual art, so in 
> the interest of full disclosure I'll spill those beans. Shouldn't work 
> have inherent Quality woven into it's fabric, that any viewer can 
> perceive, not just the folks who know the artist's life story or the 
> history of the movement they're a part of? Those facts  may sometimes 
> convince us that a work has higher Static Quality than we would have 
> thought otherwise, but should those facts be crucial to enjoying the 
> piece? The cliche, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I 
> like," is far more valuable than the art critics would have us 
> believe: it's Dynamic Quality, which only reaches us (as audience 
> members) when the artist balances it with Static Quality. Leaving all 
> of the Static Quality bottled up in words (the descriptions, 
> expositions, histories, etc), is, in my view, a cop-out (for more 
> airing of this particular pet peeve, see Tom Wolfe's "The Painted 
> Word," 1975). But I digress.]
>
> Back to the MOQ: Ham speaks of the end result being more satisfying 
> than the process. I've felt it and seen it, and it's opposite. I think 
> the reason lies in the fact that the creation of the work is a 
> completely separate experience from it's "consumption," i.e. writing 
> is entirely different than reading. Writing (and any other creative 
> process) is taking the "inspiration" (DQ) and communicating it (using 
> SQ effectively) to the audience. If you wrote it, you're not going to 
> read it like a reader, you're going to read it too critically and 
> think about it using different pieces of your brain. To circumvent 
> this pitfall in judging our own work, the best thing to do is develop 
> a split personality of sorts: become an objective observer. Sometimes 
> distance (physical or temporal) from the work helps. But in any case, 
> you try to put on the goggles of a reader. If you do it right, you can 
> experience your own work from a fresh perspective, and get a better 
> idea about what your reader sees and feels. If you manage to trick 
> your brain properly (a "Method" acting trick; "The Actor's Studio," 
> Sanford Meisner, etc), you may even achieve the same forehead-slapping 
> moment of epiphany that you're hoping to induce in your reader! Read 
> it again and again and you'll find it's DQ giving way to it's SQ, just 
> like it probably will for your reader. So, Ham, the act of writing 
> isn't just DQ; it's DQ filtered through SQ. And the end result, for 
> you (unless you manage to read it like a reader) will be nearly all 
> SQ. Isn't that the goal of writing? To create something with very high 
> Static Quality? It's DQ appears only at the moment of conception 
> (writing), and comes back at the moment of consumption (reading). If 
> you're finding the end result more satisfying than the creative 
> process, perhaps you've mastered the "split-personality" trick, and 
> are reading your work like a reader. Congratulations!
> In my own realm of experience, I find visual art to be the least 
> satisfying, because the Dynamic part(creation) is private and 
> short-lived, then the Static part (consumption) can happen when I'm 
> not even there. I feel good when I know I've made Quality work, but 
> I'm not held immediately accountable, and that's not as rewarding.
> In contrast, I find acting to be a bit of an overdose of DQ; if you're 
> doing it right, you're so "out there" that it's downright spooky. 
> That's why great actors (with VERY few exceptions) have to develop 
> massive egos, just to survive the process. "Acting is living 
> truthfully under imaginary circumstances" (Boleslavsky, If I recall): 
> the "living truthfully" is behaving (like Lila?) as YOU really would 
> in the situation; not as a character, because you have fooled your 
> brain into thinking like the character would think, using intellectual 
> tools you've developed ("preparation") which are designed to elicit 
> Dynamic behavior in yourself. At the same time, you've managed to 
> believe in the "imaginary circumstances:" the camera, the stage, the 
> costumes, the audience. It's an experience alive with DQ, but it's 
> exhausting! 
> So for me, music is the perfect balance. Writing a song is the 
> "private" experience that's akin to painting in that it's balancing DQ 
> with SQ to create the song. But then I get to perform it, which is an 
> entirely different experience: DQ (performing: give & take with the 
> audience) and SQ (remembering the lyrics, deciding what song to play 
> next, using correct mic technique). Recording is yet another rewarding 
> experience, balancing DQ with SQ. (Incidentally, as a musician, I took 
> great issue with Phaedrus when he criticized the singer Lila had seen 
> on the riverboat. But I'll leave that rant for another day...)
>
> Thank you for your time!
>
> Mike Craghead
> humboldtmusic.com
> humboldtmusic.com/mc
> humboldtmusic.com/sarimike
>
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