Can I recommend ‘Art and Fear’

http://www.auspiciousdragon.net/photostream/2006/05/art-and-fear.html

by Bayles and Orland, and the later ‘View from the Studio Door’ by Orland.

If that URL is a bit long for Blogger, try:

http://tinyurl.com/zlfzn

I don’t know, Karl, it sounds to me less like an art movement and more like a form of therapy for people with motivation problems. But then I don’t really know anything about it other than what I’ve read here. I’m open to finding out more – but I’m skeptical.

A constraint provides simplicity at the cost of freedom. In an overly complex situation (such as, what should I paint next, and how long should I spend on it?) a constraint such as A Painting A Day can remove the paralysis of indecision and focus creative energy. In this context, it is precisely the constraint that enables the motivation.

David,

We seem to agree that Painting A Day is the most important movement, if there are any at all. But in fact, the even more important movement is Painting Never, which is what many artists end up joining.

I think we should focus on Painting A Day some more. I think it is a mistake to underestimate the phenomenon. I see it as a rebellion against the established art system. I’m not surprised that at first such a movement would seem simple and humble.

Plus, I think a lot of the supposedly important movements of the past weren’t even movements. They were often one or two innovative artists, with a bunch of imitators, and as often as not someone else, perhaps even dismissively, named them. The “Impressionists” and the “Fauves” are both examples of this.

I’d like to propose a movement called PAW. The constraints are that the painting has to take exactly a week, and it has to have a dog in it :)

You might not be aware, but there is a similar PAD (picture a day) movement within photography. This arose out of the earlier picture a week idea, which coincided with the beginnings of photoblogging. A photoblog is a daily space which requires filling. An easy reminder, or a nag, that, actually, the days are slipping by and one hasn’t put the time into ones artwork that one intended to.

However, back to your main question about constraints. Some people seem to work best with constraints whilst others find them debilitating. I stongly suspect that this is a very individual thing. People who need constraints will make them where they don’t exist (I will only use this technique this year), whilst people who hate constraints will always be fighting them (if only…….or, unless x happens, I’ll emigrate).

I don’t think that the Picture a Day idea is a constraint by the way. Or at least not in the same way. A constraint would be “I’ll only use this lens this month”, whereas people seem to use the PAD thing as a motivator – either to start, or to finish, their work, depending on personality.

I think a key aspect of an art movement is that a group of people accept the same constraints. This makes the constraints more powerful.

You say that we are all bound by this moment only. That makes it a practical constraint for a group of people to adopt. But to me that is the magic of painting, that it creates something that transcends the moment. We change and age, but the picture stays more or less the same.

Another useful aspect of the Painting a Day movement is that the constraint, the central concept, is comprehensible to people outside the movement. I’ve thought it was not, in itself, such an interesting concept, but you make we think about it differently. I like your “it is about not waiting” reformulation.