Do You Think Being Aware Of The Different Elements In Art Or Just Ordinary Objects Can Make The Process

Do you think being aware of the different elements in art or just ordinary objects can make the process of actually making art difficult? I get that it's about balance and unity of it all, but being introduced to so many concepts early on feels like too much. Almost feels like learning to make art digitally for the first time -> introduced to all these neat gadgets but no idea how to use them or where

This is a crazy good point anon & very important. YES I think it makes it exponentially harder

It’s just like everything else though where learning to pick your battles is pertinent - knowledge is a foundational aspect of your beliefs and your art is based on your beliefs regardless of how you frame it. Accruing relevant (and irrelevant tbh) info is always going to help you navigate more complex & unique themes. Obviously not everyone is going to get anywhere with it but I think the whole thing is pretty rewarding it motivates everything I do in my entire life so I think it’s worth it. Definitely doesn’t even just apply in theme as well it sounds like you’re talking here about practical technique too which you’re 100% right about again. I think things that I find helpful to remember are

1 - Identifying a comprehensive goal in my action helps me to slow my roll & stop trying to pull from too many sources at once

2 - On the contrary it’s also good to remember that difficult, arduous & thought provoking task is important to art. It doesn’t have to be important to you but don’t be afraid of it

But the good thing about knowing things is knowing things helps you to know more things and knowing more things helps you to make better decisions. These kinds of worries about art are just smaller picture effigies of bigger problems about growing up, it is hard & it’s exceedingly normal to feel lost especially if you’re young. If art is at its core a representation of the life behind the creator then it’s just that. All things are present even incidentally through every single thing you create, which is also why being informed is important ! If you have something to say about something then then your art will. Your art exclusively exists through the people who view it & their tastes. “What kind of people would you want to discuss your work? Whose admiration would flatter you? What figures do you admire? What occupies most of your thoughts?” Are what I’d consider pretty big standard starting points they might give you on a sheet if you were to ask someone about beginning a series of focused work.

Also the thing about purposeful art compared to direct description (e.g. in this context art discussion) is that visual art exceeds writing in a lot of areas including ease of ambiguity. It really is hard to talk about the place obscurity has in art especially factoring in where people might differ on it. But it’s easy to let its importance bypass you, especially as a figurative artist. It’s also easy to make ambiguity sound like an area of study, when really it is like the antilabel of artistic components, ambiguity is black ! It defines itself as a lack of presence & not as its own entity, which in my opinion makes it a lot easier to approach lol. It finds itself comfortably where you apply nothing else

There are one million things that could be / have been said on this subject. I’m sure you would probably get more solid ideas on how to approach an issue like this from someone who has taken a different approach to art themselves, I’ve never read any book approaching art performing from a seminary perspective just as I’ve never been taught or schooled. I’m still going through the throes of asking myself these same things & I think I will be for my entire life. It’s easy to believe that consensus is a trophy gained for putting enough time into something when the truth is that there is no guaranteed finality to art. Be afraid of stagnancy, not ephemerality. There is a lot to be said even for oblivion in character & impulse, so really just make art regardless. Even if it never gets good at least you were doing something

I think you’re already on the right track if this is something you’re thinking about though if you ask me or at least you’re doing something similar to me lol. The amount of “things there are” is genuinely intimidating & especially as such an uninformed, sheltered person as I am making any real decisions for something as longterm as an artistic identity without any real connections to a qualified community seems impossible. Keep thinking like this & hunting yourself down I like to do everything I can that makes something happen about this. It’s not easy ! I don’t think it needs to be