BEAUTY AND USABILITY

 BEAUTY AND USABILITY

A brief manifesto or just some ideas

It is very trendy to have a "mission statement".

 I however prefer to have principles that can be applied.

My aim via writing or imagery is to share things and moments that are beautiful or useful and ideally both. Yes like other artists I do not always succeed. 

That art could be a blog or post an answer to another's question or a piece of crochet like a belt or a headband for my personal use or a well cooked cake or curry yet also a photo shared via Instagram or DeviantArt or an abstract print on Red Bubble or a pdf with notes on Plutarch or sharing some one else's art.

Then again there is the problem of critique. It may not be beautiful to rebuke propaganda as lies or porn as sexist but it is useful and when someone claims porn is art when it is badly drawn and seems to have no purpose but making money off borderline budding incels whose idea of a cute girl looks like a 14 year with the breasts of a woman breast feeding and other "art" that is BAD in terms of aesthetic quality as in lacking any, poor drawing or coloring technique that's derivative and cliched, and an ethical violation in ways a left wing feminist and a conservative can agree on .... well! 

I am not going to provide as even a description other examples of porn. I will state I do not regard all "adult" content that is sexual as porn. I believe that arguing even erotica is just soft porn and that we should accept all porn as okay to show "support" for sexworkers or for being "sex positive" ignores the fact some kinks fetishes fantasies and desires possibly indicate you need therapy and should not be fed and indulged to the point of excess? Meden agan Nothing Excessive as the Delphic Proverb says.

and no I am not going to tell you which artists whose work includes NSFW content I do like. 

Follow my twitter feed if you want to work that out. You will notice the ones I like have excellent drawing and story telling skills. My tastes are very broad and eclectic anyway. 

Let us return to my prime statement 

Art should be both beautiful and useful ideally. 

How do we achieve this?

Whatever your medium of production or chosen genre I try to teach people this :

KNOW YOUR MEDIUM whether its pixels or paint, yarn or dye or stone.

and by know I mean both practice and science if possible!

STUDY THE GREATS 

Look at those who came before you. Think about how and why their styles work. Do not just COPY but analyse and learn some art history. Do not tell people anime is okay and its part of Japanese culture and use that as an excuse to draw sexist maidservice hentai waifu nonsense. Especially not if you don't have the faintest idea about Japanese culture apart from what you have seen in your favorite manga and don't even know who Basho or Shikibu were or the difference between ikebana and inyo.

Look at Utamaro or Hokusai or Calligraphy. Think about the difference between woodcut block printing and ink on silk or paper and a digital tool controlling pixels.  

Look at Gothic cathedrals or Greek sculptures or Baroque masterpieces using tone or cartoonists or flowers and birds or Botticelli or Michelangelo or Masanobu. 

DRAW  Whether you sketch via a camera lens or doodle on the back of an envelope or make lines in the sand with a stick or your foot at the beach or ripple patterns in a pond with your hand DRAW

And please have a collection of reference material ! 

Books Photos Downloads from Google or Wikimedia Shells Flowers Retro Clothing Feathers!

CULTIVATE YOUR MIND AND SPIRIT

Have you noticed how many great artists had some kind of spiritual belief even if often heterorthodox?

Or an interest in poetry or music or philosophy. Catholic or Taoist mysticism. Zen and other forms of  Buddhism. Neoplatonic philosophy. Pantheism. Mathematics as a form of beauty? The rhythm of music and its links to color. Jungian Archetypes. Follow a WAY ? 

LASTLY getting back to ethics YES AGAIN ...

Even if you have a great  REP or AGENT or trustworthy clients and customers and fans who will NOT steal from you COPYRIGHT LAW learn about it and CONTRACTS and read the FINE PRINT and be very careful if you are doing "FAN" art and selling it !