Strangeness!

Oh, Thank Goodness!

On some level as artists, we already know this.  Rarely are we drawn to images that are photographically perfect!  I mean what is the point of excessively admiring what can be seen in life or something a camera can do already, cheaper and faster? 

As an art facilitator…of sorts…often the question of what is the difference between an “illustrator” and a “fine artist” comes up.  The question often arrives as “why do I like this “weirdness” so much?’  I will confess that both well-done illustration and fine art must have equal amounts of technical art skills and can be equally appealing.  But in my opinion, the important difference is the courage of a fine artist.  An illustrator will present a very photographic life like image.  The subject, color (if any), proportions, and surroundings, are realistic. The best examples I can think of are early portrait paintings or Norman Rockwell’s magazine cover images.  Our rational mind tends to judge this art by how realistic or lifelike it appears. But a fine artist consumes the same information, takes it into themselves, ingests it and for lack of a better way to describe this process,  spits it back out on the canvas, paper, sculpture, fabric, etc.…infused with their own style, feelings, and opinions.  It takes a huge amount of courage to present to the world our version of life, with all of its strangeness. 

The next time you are in front of a piece of non-conventional art, or a person or anything eccentric and find yourself unexplainably drawn to it, congratulations!  Your soul, not your logical rational mind has just recognized and responded to the “strangeness”.

"Not Other Way" Jack Johnson