Prince

A friend of mine, an artist in her own right and quite so, claimed that a piece has no meaning if the artist does not understand it. And I quote, "I always considered it most important for the creator to understand his own art. If the artist does not understand his art, it is meaningless, even if someone else finds some interpretation of it. It's merely an object; it's manufactured, not created".

Well, I thought about that a bit... I'd like your opinions on that. See, to me, personally, art can be a reflection of its creator's self, but that does not mean that art is self-explanatory to even its creator. Or that the creator can understand it at all. I believe this because of how I feel about most of my work, which I consider to be art, for the most part. For me, art is but a product of a creative process, and it is that creative process that provides me with joy, relief, and in some cases - healing.

However, I rarely understand the outcome. I can look at whatever pictures I've taken/made, or read poems of mine, but I generally do not understand them. This is more apparent to me after a little bit of time has passed since a piece was created. I can try to explain the emotion of a poem, for a while after I've just written it, but give it a few months and I'll be lucky to recognize it as my own, much less be able to interpret it. At that point, the piece has lost its meaning for me, the little meaning it had to begin with.

For me, the creative process is where "it's at". I'm glad if someone can appreciate the outcome, and it is flattering if and when they do, but in the end I think I prefer not to understand too much. Think of it like this...you have all this pain and anger inside you, all this blackness, all this disgust and shit, and you [creative process] get it out of yourself and throw it onto a canvas, vomit it all out of yourself [relief]. You can then let others see the outcome [art?], which is your creation, but now that it is out of you, and no longer IN you, it does not have the same meaning, you get detached from it, and basically all you see is a pile of shit, trash, junk throw on a canvas. If someone else appreciates it for its aesthetic values or whatnot, great. But the ties are severed, and there's nothing there to understand.

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MoNoXiDe_XXX

When i do art, If thats what you want to call it.
I have no idea about even what i am going to draw skectch whatever, i just do it, and people ask me why i drew the things i did.. my only reply is.. " i dunno?"

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I may be ugly, But at least I aint got no money!

GoldenOuroboros

Depends on the work and the artist I think. Sometimes I will put raw emotion into an art piece, such as one I put up here that was called f^ck, I was having a bad day that day.. Others are just landscaping or something I think people would look at and say.. "Hey, that's cool"

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analinguist

a lot of art shows more emphasis on the process in which it is made rather than the completed product. i think that it is important that an artist is conscious of a conceptual motive, or else there is no reason for it. although a final product may loose interpretation, if your focus is more on the process, then you haven't lost the art. the abstract expressionists are a good example of those who focus on process rather than overall product. i don't believe that art necessarily needs something profound to say to it, but most of the strongest pieces do. art that takes 3 years to plan and 5 minutes to execute is the best kind.

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Altheus

I have to say, that I'm not one to judge art, what is or what isnt, what means or doesn't mean. I suppose like everything, concept is one thing, and aesthetics is another. The best art I know is aesthetic, the most interesting is brimming with concept. I suppose if you set out with no concept, and concentrate on process, all you really are doing is exercising. If you set out with no concept, but become more and more focused as to what you are ultimately achieving, it has become art. I'm just like this.

charliex

arts about evoking emotions, you don't have to understand something to have it evoke an emotion.

what happens with pieces we don't know the origins of , are they art ?

I don't think the definition of whats art and whats not is left to the creator of the object, that seems a little egotistical to me.

alt0220bergeek

I think an artist always has something that drove them to create. They may not need to fully understand it to realize the vision their drive/creativity had. And at any rate, art is an interpretive thing. Art is always interpreted by those seeing/hearing/experiencing it. Their interpretation is not necesarily the same or similar to what the artist intended, and this is impossible to prevent, nor should it. We each bring our own internalized definitions and experiences everywhere we go and this will also tend to affect our impression of things. Given this concept, no two people will interpret anything the same. With this in mind, it doesn't even matter if the artist understands their own vision.

Sorry for the mini-rant, but a point I feel personally on.

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