Get the Idea
In the July 12 NY Times, Holland Cotter has a review of Atta Kim's long-exposure photographs. Mr. Kim is Korean and a photographer and making his NY solo debut in a show at the International Center of Photography. It's a very insightful review and I encourage you to read it.
To me, the fascinating points Mr. Cotter brings out are these: First, he says Mr. Kim takes an old technique and uses new subjects. Secondly, he says Mr. Kim pushes the boundaries of a traditional method. Quoting Mr. Cotter, "Mr. Kim's work is more distinctive for it's ideas than for its technology."
Yes! Yes! Yes! This is exactly what I've been pushing to anyone who will listen. It's all about the idea. You can have beautiful technique and craftmanship and still bore your audience if the idea is not there.
Getting the idea is the big step the artist takes to go from "creative" to "innovative." You can feel the move into innovative thinking. Thinking is a brain exercise. When you pump up that muscle you can feel the difference. Your ideas will be fuller, pithier. It might happen that you won't be completely comfortable with your new idea, but you just know you've got something. Now your "intuition" is guiding you to believe.
Having said all that, I am reminded of the old adage, "we teach what we most need to learn." I may have been typing "you" this and "you" that, but what I've been saying, I've been saying to myself.
To me, the fascinating points Mr. Cotter brings out are these: First, he says Mr. Kim takes an old technique and uses new subjects. Secondly, he says Mr. Kim pushes the boundaries of a traditional method. Quoting Mr. Cotter, "Mr. Kim's work is more distinctive for it's ideas than for its technology."
Yes! Yes! Yes! This is exactly what I've been pushing to anyone who will listen. It's all about the idea. You can have beautiful technique and craftmanship and still bore your audience if the idea is not there.
Getting the idea is the big step the artist takes to go from "creative" to "innovative." You can feel the move into innovative thinking. Thinking is a brain exercise. When you pump up that muscle you can feel the difference. Your ideas will be fuller, pithier. It might happen that you won't be completely comfortable with your new idea, but you just know you've got something. Now your "intuition" is guiding you to believe.
Having said all that, I am reminded of the old adage, "we teach what we most need to learn." I may have been typing "you" this and "you" that, but what I've been saying, I've been saying to myself.
posted by Kate at
9:23 PM
2 Comments:
I am beginning to think that creative and innovative tend to be relative.
By
Janets Planet, at 8:31 AM
I suppose so. I'm coming from the place where I get an idea to do a painting of a nude, for instance. I can paint the nude realistically or I can be inventive and make changes to the form. Like Picasso would paint both eyes on the same side of the face or Matisse would cut a form out of paper where arms and legs resembled a human's arms and legs or Modigliani would elongate the face and neck. Each of them pushed the idea to make something new.
By
Kate, at 1:17 PM
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