Artist

Landmarks

Garth Beyer

In the 21st century, we’re more about creating landmarks than we are letting anything of old become one. Good or bad is still to be determined.

Worth mentioning, “a major landmark” has become a buzzword in the business of progress. The overuse has earned itself a lesser meaning.

The following photos are of four real landmarks set in the rural settings of Blackburn, Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale districts of East Lancashire, England.

Panopticons

Artists of all kinds are leaving landmarks for the mass to see. The best part about the 21st century landmarks is that few of the creators sit around gazing at their own work. They are off creating more.

To the 21st century-ers, works of art have become known as landmarks simply by being placed around the world for all to see. Sure, earning recognition, but most of the time artists do so for the pure enjoyment of sharing one’s work rather than credibility, reward, or merit.

Personally, my favorite part about creating a landmark is the moment when you think to yourself onto the next one.

 

Stay Positive & What’s Your Latest Landmark?

Garth E. Beyer… better yet, what’s your next?

What It Means To Mashup

Garth Beyer

I preach endlessly that the new age art is created by mashing up two or more properties, objects, or entities to create something entirely new.

Here I present to you Ben Heine’s Pencil vs Camera project. Click the picture to view more.

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Something I’m incredibly happy that I found: Writers as Architects.

Another artist, defying gravity.

Art was once about taking a photo of a photo of a photo of a photo. Now it’s about using a different medium at each level. It’s about combining not only different types of brushes, but different paints, different juices, coffees, and mud.

This method of creation goes beyond the easel. It encompasses us in advertising, in technology, and self-made products. The world is being redesigned and it wants you to be an artist.

Well, will you be?

 

Stay Positive & Mash Mash Mash

Garth E. Beyer

The Struggle

Garth Beyer

Ralph Steadman

Please tell me I’m not the only one that has had an incredible idea for a piece of art (painting, crochet, whatever) but when going to produce it, it turns out like garbage. And not the progressive kind of garbage where you do it enough times until it turns out the way you want, but the kind of garbage that not even a hobo would appreciate.

While you can read this article, and yes, it’s worth the read, look at the artwork first. It’s incredibly inventive, creative, and if you stare at it long enough, it seems like something we may be able to replicate..well, to some garbagy extent.

Enter: The Struggle

The Struggle is the place of frustrating emotions: between disappointment and geniusness; between euphoria and defeat. We feel The Struggle when we want, so passionately, to be creative, yet, can’t make the jump from our desire to our creation.

Something I’ve learned from Jobs and Pixar is that stories don’t really have a shelf life. Toy Story is as great as it was in 1995. Want to talk about artwork? Look at all the ancient art we still drool over. The fact is, we may not be able to replicate an image we have in our minds, but that doesn’t matter too much.

What matters is that we tell a story with whatever image we end up creating.

For those still worried, you can still create an art piece if you need to add a few lines to tell the story behind it.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Let Your Inabilities Stop You From Telling Stories

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit: Ralph Steadman

If You Find Treasure

Garth Beyer

Some treasures were not meant to be found because, in finding them, we reveal secrets, we dig up answers to mysteries that have kept us enticed in literature, in common conversation , and in analogy. We take items that are rich in character and make them as organic as the bones that surround them – sort of contradicts the idea of what treasure is.

My suggestion: turn the treasure into something.

Finding treasure is just like stealing art, it’s not stealing if you mash it up with your own flare and the style of a thousand other artists to create something new, something equally as valuable and treasured.

 

Stay Positive & “X” Doesn’t Mark The Spot, You Do

Garth E. Beyer

This was an old post I wrote, finally publishing. Part of me feels like the idea needs to be credited to someone, but I don’t remember what inspired this post. To that person, sorry for not giving you credit. If this was all my own, self-high-five.

 

Hoarders

Garth Beyer

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I have a great idea for a television show. It’s going to center on the life of hoarders.

Not any hoarders though. A special kind of hoarders, the worst kind, actually. (Yes, I’m well aware there is a show called hoarders that is centered on the life of hoarders.)

See, the type of hoarders who pose in the current television show and keep everything they touch, they are fighting the psychological battle of either holding on to the past or the concern of needing something for the future.

The type of hoarders I want to film are those who keep all of their art to themselves.

Those who have composed hundreds of songs but stick the sheets of music in the attic.

The types of hoarders that have 14 manuscripts tucked in the back of a drawer, telling themselves they need to be edited again before they are brought to a publisher.

The hoarder whose basement is filled with incredible knickknacks that no one will ever see. Or the hoarder who has a room filled with colorful handmade glassware, not for sale.

These are the hoarders with the serious problems. It’s one thing to be attached to a material item, it’s another to refuse letting anyone be attached to your material item, your art.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Be A Selfish Artist

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

Visitors, Clicks, Subscriptions

Garth Beyer

Visitors, clicks, subscriptions, pinbacks, emails, tweets, retweets, follows, facebook impressions, favorites, stars, ratings, statistics, forwards, reblogs, and bookmarks are all great. All fantastic. All give the ego a boost, maybe your moral too.

But do they matter?

If you create out of the necessity for subscriptions, if you create solely because you have people reblogging your creations, if you create to see your stats rise, you’re working, not creating.

If you can take out all stats, trackers, measures, feedback, impressions, reach, views, and audience and still create – that’s what defines an artist. A creator for the sake of creation, a creator that will follow through no matter what, with no guarantee of it working, and no expectation of it meaning anything to anyone but you, the artist.

 

Stay Positive & Artistry Is Always A Lonesome Process At Its Core

Garth E. Beyer

No, Thank YOU

Garth Beyer

Every damn time the barista gives me the coffee I ordered, he says, “thank you.”

I don’t write this in anger or resentment, more astonishment than anything. Is it not me who is supposed to say “thank you” to him. After all, he’s the one who did the work of making it, who topped it with whipped cream, who took an order and delivered. On top of being thankful for him making me coffee, I even tip him. So whose honor is it, really?

Obviously the artists. Obviously the person who was not only happy, but willing and passionate about taking action. Since I wasn’t ecstatic about the process of ordering a coffee, that opts me out, leaving one person left.

Seems to me like I’ve met an impresario. What would you say?

 

Stay Positive & Do What You Can Be Thankful To Be Doing

Garth E. Beyer