I blame my mother for my art addiction.
As a child, she would talk about Michelangelo, Raphael and Klimt as if they were gods. I think I’ve subconsciously spent much of my life attempting to create something worthy of her appreciation.
I achieved this for the first time two, maybe three, years back. I typed out a poem for her on my Remington Quiet-Riter—which ironically is louder than a cattle gun—about one of the many moments she saved me.
If you were to look over my shoulder and watch me write—which I can assure you would be as boring as watching a pair of snails mate—you would see I approach the craft of writing like a painter.
I think very little about the actual words I use and almost exclusively about the way in which the words appear on the page—and how they look alongside one another.
Artists call this composition.
Admittedly, this drives copywriters at Honey a bit mad. With time, they realize there is a method to the madness.
When writing, I think often about my grandfather’s garage that housed his workshop. Every wrench, hammer and screwdriver had a place—and no space was wasted.
Despite the many decades of use, he kept his tools so clean, you could use them as eating utensils. When my grandmother assigned him a task, he never wasted any time searching for the appropriate tool. He could have found them blindfolded.
I see composition as a form of artistic organization.
But, back to my mother.
Once I had completed the poem, I carefully tore it from the textured paper I had typed it on. From there, I unearthed a blank canvas from the closet in my office.
I laid down a vandalized bed sheet I use for such purposes. I mixed the paint until it was this beautiful beige a few shades darker than the walls of my parents’ home—and I got to work. I used the paint to glue the poem to the canvas and then massaged what was left into the canvas surrounding it—allowing the paint to bleed onto the textured paper in the places where there were no words.
After receiving it, she wrote me that it made her cry.
I nearly cried when I walked into my parent’s home, months later, and saw it hanging on their wall. As silly as it sounds, I felt the pride of a child, seeing something he brought home from school magnetized to the refrigerator.
It wasn’t until earlier this year that I began collecting art seriously.
One day, I was walking the aisles of a thrift store in East Nashville when I happened upon a framed piece of paper depicting a drawing of a red woman that appeared to be dancing. It was love at first sight. I saw the price tag: $2,000. I negotiated the vendor down to $1,200 and took her home with me.
Upon further investigation, I discovered it was a working print by Nancy Spero, a major postwar artist. Her works appear in the MoMA, the Met, Tate, Centre Pompidou and the Whitney. She was famous for painting powerful female figures in motion, all while using remarkably economical lines.
This particular print was a small portion of one of her many masterpieces, To the Revolution. It was inscribed, in the bottom left-hand corner, to the esteemed art critic, Donald Kuspit.
While it certainly wasn’t a lottery ticket, I had gotten incredibly lucky—the proof is worth several times more than I paid for it. But, I have no plans to ever sell it. She has become something of a muse and now sits directly in front of my desk in my office.
We live in an age of fake art.
This is why we must educate ourselves on real art. More than this, we must challenge ourselves to create real art of our own—be it commercial art in our professions or art of passion in our hobbies.
Fake art isn’t unlike a fake orgasm. It might stroke the ego of the individual “creating” it, but everyone else is in on the joke.
I’ve been spending a great deal of time on X (formerly Twitter) as of late. Not unlike this working print by Nancy Spero, there is a tremendous amount of undervalued art created by undiscovered talent on that platform.
When I find a particularly talented designer or copywriter, I jot down their name for the day I have the funds to hire them.
However, along with this art and the talent producing it, there is an enormous amount of fake art making the rounds. I have nothing against AI. For better or worse, it’s inevitable. But, at the end of the day, AI is a tool. It’s not unlike the many wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers my grandfather kept in his workshop.
Many of the people creating with this powerful tool lack taste. Because of this lack of taste, they create work that feels like fake art. To the unassuming, the art passes. But, with time, humanity will catch on.
It’s my belief that skill follows taste.
You must develop your taste before you can develop your skill. I don’t care if you’re an aspiring chef, writer, entrepreneur or designer—you must develop your taste.
Take a good, hard look at anyone creating meaningful work. You will see that it wasn’t their skill that came first but their taste. With time, they became so inspired by their taste that they attempted to create something worthy of it.
You shouldn’t be a snob about many things in life. Your taste, however, is an exception. Watch great films. Read gorgeous books. Spin brilliant records. Eat delicious food. Study extraordinary people. Consume. Consume. Consume. Develop your taste. Refine your palate. Your skill will follow.
There is a story I am quite fond of about the French painter, Georges Braque.
He would drive through Italy with his wife, Marcelle. In each town and city, he would seek out the museums.
Braque would pull up to the front of each museum and ask his wife to venture inside and report back on whether there was anything worth seeing.
He would say to his wife...
"Marcelle, you go in and look around and then tell me what's good in there."
I love this story for two reasons.
For one, Braque had complete and total trust in his partner's artistic taste. So much so, he made Marcelle his curator. For two, Braque was terrified of spoiling his eyes.
We live in a time where there is more “art” than there has ever been before. Furthermore, the ability to create this art is easier than it has ever been. The writers and artists who will endure are those who have the ability to distinguish between what is good and what isn’t.
You might argue that “what is good” is subjective.
But, I disagree entirely.
Beauty isn’t up for debate. It’s obvious. It’s clear. It’s unanimous. It’s unmistakable. If you see The Kiss by Klimt and you aren’t moved, you’ve built a life on fake art.
I recommend you board a flight to New York and take a stroll through the Met.
While you won’t find The Kiss there—it is located at the Upper Belvedere Museum in Vienna, Austria—you will stumble upon something that turns your skin to braille.
But, as always, I digress.
Wonderful words. The masses are susceptible to rhetoric and the thinkers are often lead to death.
What is the "fake" part? Counterfeit? Or do you just not like it?