Fruits of Labor (2011)
I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.—Henri Matisse
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve had someone say to me, “I wish I had your job.” What we do seems quite easy: hold a box, tell a model to pose, snap the picture. That’s all there is to it, right? Now that we don’t have darkrooms into which we disappear for hours at a time, and instant filters that help cover mistakes, the number of people attempting to be photographers has exploded, and the overall quality of work has diminished. There’s no appreciation for the labor involved.
Sure, anyone can take a photograph, and anyone can slap paint on canvas and call it art. The very nature of contemporary visual art makes it appear easy. Sometimes it feels as only those who are themselves involved in the struggle understand what it takes to put together a truly unique and memorable image; the hours spent planning and experimenting, the failed attempts that no one saw, the disasters the occur when we get something wrong. We think that art is supposed to be easy, but it so very seldom is.
During Matisse’s Fauvist period, roughly 1904-08, the artist’s frequent subjects were nudes, one of the most popular being the hedonistic-looking scene of Joy of Life (1906), which depicts nude women lounging in an open field. Because of the nudity in his paintings, many people just assumed that Matisse, like Picasso, engaged in a very open and active lifestyle. Yet, nothing could have been further from the truth. Matisse lived by the concept that art is life by another means. There was no play, it was all labor. Nothing was easy.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]What’s more frustrating, though, is when people fail to understand one’s work. When Matisse first exhibited his painting, Woman in a Hat, as part of a fauvist exhibition in Paris in 1905, people laughed out loud and scratched at the canvas. In 1907, a painting he had sent to New York for the Armory Exhibition, Blue Nude, was burned in effigy! The affect all this negative response had on Matisse was personal. His health was affected to the point that the doctor insisted, on more than one occasion, that Matisse completely step away, leave town for a couple of months, so that he might recover.
Herein lies the difference between one who is an artist versus one who is merely playing a game: artists live their work. There is constant study, not merely of their craft, but of life and how it can be expressed. There are periods where no one understands what we are doing, nor why we would even attempt such a thing in the first place. Work that is new, different, and experimental is ridiculed, derided, and perhaps even destroyed.
When I first showed someone a photograph from the torn paper concept several years ago, their response was, “Well, that’s … interesting.” They’ve not been invited to be exhibited. None of the images have sold. Perhaps it seems silly that I would return to the concept at all. But, these are the fruits of our labor. We work through the frustration, through paper tearing, through conditions that dry the paper too fast. We hide how much work it is.
Easy? No. Worth the labor? Yes.[/one_half_last]
Shame, No Shame
All Wash(er)ed Up (2010)
In the face of patriarchy, it is a brave act indeed for both men and women to embrace, rather than shame or attempt to eradicate, the feminine.—Alanis Morissette
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I grew up being taught that everyone had a responsibility to work hard. Both my parents worked long hours. I had my first paycheck at 14. Sitting around idly isn’t something I do well. I fail to understand this act of binge-watching television series because after about an hour everything in my body tells me I need to be up being productive. We were taught that it didn’t matter what you did, that all jobs contributed to the greater good and deserved people’s respect. Looking down on, or shaming someone, just because of their occupation was about as rude and ignorant a thing one could do.
So, as I’ve grown up and gotten a taste for how the world actually is, I am continually disappointed when this particular sin of shaming other people shows up, typically denigrating a friend for something they’ve done to feed themselves and/or their family, complete with name-calling and harassment. As this has happened within my circle of friends three times in the past five days, I’m calling bullshit on the shame patrol. There is no shame in working hard, no shame in getting one’s hands (and body) dirty, no shame in sweating hard, and certainly no shame in doing jobs you don’t especially like just to keep the lights on and food on the table.
One of the earliest impacts on my sense of work ethic was a WWII veteran named Warren Hartsocks. A short, stocky man who never lost his buzz cut, Hartsocks had dropped out of school to join the military. The US Army taught him to be a mechanic and that’s what he proceeded to do the rest of his life. If you came across Hartsocks during the day, he was likely wearing a well-stained wife-beater t-shirt and baggy grey pants, equally stained. He was missing most his teeth, eternally had an unlit stogie in the corner of his mouth, had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, and in the summer his body odor could get pretty strong. People called him a dirty, foul-mouthed mechanic and tried to avoid him, but he worked hard for every dime he made, was a gentle soul, and took the time to teach me how to fish. [/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The list of occupations society often shames is too long, but here’s a list of the ones that I see most often:
I can only think of one occupation that deserves shame: Politicians. Our country’s founders envisioned elected office to be one of public service, not privilege or power, and certainly not one that led to wealth. The concept was that a person would give a period of time to serve the people from their elected districts, not pander to ridiculous ideologues and corporations with deep pockets. Politicians inherently serve only their own interests at the expense of the rest of us. They have taken us from being a democracy to an oligarchy. Public office was never designed to be a position of profit, but one of giving to one’s country.
Too many days I go to bed totally disappointed in the human race. We shame those who work the hardest and praise those who contribute to our demise. Perhaps the real shame is on us all.[/one_half_last]
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