Art Isn’t For Squares

Garth Beyer

and this story isn’t only for painters. We’re all artists.

whitespace

Being an artist is simple:

1. You have something that you use

2. You have something that you use it on

“But the painter’s basic challenge, the manipulation of colors and forms and metaphors on the flat plane with its almost inevitably rectangular shape, is no longer generally seen as art’s alpha and omega, as the primary place in the visual arts where meaning and mystery are believed to come together,” said Jed Perl, art critic for The New Republic

The square canvas has become the sign of an amateur. So has PowerPoint slide themes and fill-in-the-blank business plans and pre-written sales dialogues.

I’ve written almost exhaustively about the age of redesign that we are in. Artists of all kinds are experimenting not only with what they use, but what they use it on. I have noticed a fault, though. There’s a whitespace that needs to be filled.

3. Something new to say, express, or feel.

Michael Levenson, writer for The Atlantic said, “Brilliant new forms are good in themselves. But they’re even better when they inform new ethics, showing us how to acknowledge our contradictory modern selves and still marry for love (Woolf), or how to go on when you can’t go on (Beckett).”

Art isn’t for squares,

but it is for people who understand their “how” of making a difference.

 

Stay Positive & Find Your Whitespace And Fill It

Garth E. Beyer

Here are two articles that compliment one – another.

Photo credit

I Don’t Care If You Come Up With A Defintion For Journalist, But I Do Care That

Garth Beyer

you come up with a universal definition for “mass shooting,” rather, a set of definitions.

FBI defines “mass murder” as one where at least four people are murdered during the same incident. People base “mass shooting” off that definition by saying that a mass shooting is when four or more people are shot during the same incident.

That’s like saying a person living in poverty thinks the same about a five dollar bill as a billionaire.

If you asked anyone on the streets to attach a number to the word “mass.” No one is going to say one, two, three, or four.

Take a step back from all the news you’ve read in the last 10 years. Now think about all the times you read or saw “mass shooting.” Was it really mass?

I think the FBI and laypeople can learn something from the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory System. They have levels of risk alerts. Instead of stating there will be a terrorist attack, they rank the possbility.

HSAS

Or maybe the FBI can pull from the Fujita Scale. A scale that classifies the level of severity of a tornado. For example, a tornado producing gusts of 90 mph would be considered an “EF 1.”

Fujita Scale

Imagine if you switch “mph” with “deaths” in the Fajita Scale. Then you substitute each EF 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 with something that expresses the range of deaths in that category.

Mass Shooting

Which “X” would you substitute with “mass shooting”?

Certainly not them all.

1. Why not call the situation what it really is. If four people died, it’s a four person killing spree. If 36 died, it’s a 36 person killing spree. Now we don’t have to deal with which is a mass shooting and which isn’t. Calling a four person killing spree a mass shooting then calling a 36 person killing spree a mass shooting is insensitive to those closely connected with the 36 person killing spree.

2. If it’s a matter of word count or syllables to the media, I would rather have a lengthy accuracy than a short generalization. Wouldn’t you?

3. Notice how throughout this article, you felt the same for a “mass shooting” that involved four people versus a “mass shooting” that involved 36 people. Just because you get specific, doesn’t lose the impact. Any number of people dead hits those closest to them the same.

Seeing Is Doing

Garth Beyer

8611165224_d62a39d7a7

Milton Glaser said, “The great benefit of drawing is that when you look at something, you see it for the first time.”

I like to think this applies to me and my writing the same as it does to you and your form of art.

I could read everything that Malcolm Gladwell has written, then, if I were to type out a story, word-for-word, from one of his articles, I would still be seeing that story for the first time.

Of course, seeing is something much more than observing the image of something, it’s more like seeing into it.

You could craft the same business plan Jeff Bezos has written for Amazon and even after studying every part of it, transposing it would still allow you to see it for the first time.

This concept of fundamental to education. You can be told of a technique or an idea, but you won’t truly see it until you apply it or do it yourself.

 

Stay Positive & Seeing Is Doing, Doing Is Seeing

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

Talent, Finishing, Conversing, And Starting

Garth Beyer

You have no clue just how talented you are.

The two best things you could be doing with your talent is finishing and conversing. These two actions not only compliment you by expressing how talented you are, but they precede growth.

You learn best from finishing. When you finish something, you have the choice to keep it quiet, stick it in the drawer, erase it entirely… or share it, talk with people about it and get feedback. (Both are positive, but you know which produces the greater result.)

The tragedy is that you may also not know how untalented you are. The fear this ignites when faced with being part of a group is enough for you to stop considering it all together.  So, you finish and that’s it.

That was okay to do prior to the connection economy we are in now. 25 years ago, you could stockpile your art and still leave a legacy. Now you never hear of a person who kept everything to herself and became a legend.

I encourage you to get together with someone or a group of people.

In a world that demands you to finish, don’t forget to start something incredible along the way. Eight people getting together to converse about what they have finished. That in and of itself is incredible.

 

Stay Positive & Go

Garth E. Beyer

A Tree Was Cut, But The Lesson From It Was Not

Garth Beyer

There was a tree that meant the world to me. I hugged it, climbed it, and ate PBJ sandwiches in it throughout my childhood. It was how I became known as a monkey.

One day, I woke up from a nap to the sound of chainsaws. The city cut down the tree. I don’t even remember if they kept the stump there. I was devastated.

My only question at the time: why

The answer was that the city had to cut the tree down because part of the tree grew around a telephone line.

I didn’t understand. Why didn’t the city just cut the branches that were engulfing the line and leave the rest of the tree? I wouldn’t mind sacrificing part of my climbing tree if it was between that and having nothing to climb.

Before you cut any plans, any creations, any ideas, ask yourself if you really need to cut the entire thing.

Most of the time you don’t. I suppose I owe this lesson to a tree. I’m okay with that.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Stop Climbing Or Questioning

Garth E. Beyer

A Fair Place To Find Passion

Garth Beyer

You can write and talk about a lot of things you like, but it’s difficult to do so without sounding like you are promoting it.

When searching for passion (in writing, in creating, in art), find something that makes you angry.

I’ve noticed hundreds of exceptional products made because the inventor was angry that things were the way they were.

Sure, you can find something you love and add to it so that you love it more, but I can’t sense the passion when you do that.

If you communicate to me that you added more frosting to the middle of an oreo, great, I’m sure some people will like that. But, if you get frustrated that they don’t offer enough variety in terms of the flavor of frosting and then go out and create a new frosting, you will certainly get a lot more attention.

(Now is a good time to read about Cheez-Its.)

Remarkable change and creation stem from passion, and who is to say that anger is not a fair place to find passion?

 

Stay Positive & Count To 10, Then Do Something About It

Garth E. Beyer

Yea, You Are In Control

Garth Beyer

You have certain tasks you have to do. You have standards, deadlines or quotes that you have to meet. You may not have control of what you have to do.

But you do have control of how you do it. (Yes, even when you think you don’t!)

The reason you always have control of how you do it, even if you were given specific instructions to follow, is that what those instructions produce could be better. It’s not remarkable people who discover ways to improve something. It’s those who discover ways to improve something that become remarkable.

You are in control. Better start believing (and acting!) on it.

 

Stay Positive & How Will You Do It?

Garth E. Beyer