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johncomic: (Uncle Old Guy)
For a few years now, I've been saying that [the recently late] Alice Munro is my favourite writer. Now, news is coming out that calls her personal character into question. [It also suggests that efforts were made to suppress this news while she was alive?] This brings us once again to the issue of, "What do we do when good art, art that we love, has been made by a person who is not good, who we find it hard to love?"

There are various levels of separating the art from the artist (or not), and we all vary in how much we are able or willing to do this. Ultimately, it's a subjective and personal decision. I've come to realize that, for me, it's better and more accurate for me to say that I am a fan of a creator's work rather than a fan of a creator. I'm now trying harder to express myself in that way.

And now I'm seeing people going back to Munro's work, re-reading it in a new light, and wondering if they were inadvertently approving of messages counter to their own values. In this case, I don't have so much of an issue, I guess. For me, it isn't so much what she wrote about, or what her message was, as how she wrote it. Her writing has an elegant and insightful economy to it: she never sounds like she's straining to sound Writery®. That's what I like about her sutff. Those times when she wrote about dubious people doing dubious things, I never took it as approval of those things — more an awareness that there are people like that out there.

And now it turns out that she was one of them, so maybe we shouldn't be so surprised.


P.S.: I can understand boycotting an artist when we learn things like this about them, not wanting to contribute to them financially, etc. But, once they're gone, that whole aspect sorta becomes moot, I think?


johncomic: (Uncle Old Guy)
being able to sit out on the front porch to read for a while — first time this year!

[Okay, since you asked: I am currently reading Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke]

eye opener

Aug. 20th, 2022 10:48 am
johncomic: (Default)


This is one of the most powerful art lessons I ever received: the importance of realizing what colour you actually see as opposed to the colour you “know it is”....

[taken from Painting in Acrylics: The Indispensable Guide by Lorena Kloosterboer]

johncomic: (Sweets)
Today I gave up on reading a novel [something I am more willing to allow myself to do nowadays than when I was younger].

It's very short, more technically a novella — about 120 pages — and I got about halfway through it before deciding I'd had enough. The author is, as it happens, a very well known showbiz personality, whose work on screen I have always enjoyed immensely. And, when seeing him on talk shows, I always found his “real life self” to be warm and engaging, although in a quiet way. I guess I was expecting to find his writing to be similarly warm and engaging, and ended up disappointed in that regard.

All along, I was thinking about why this story wasn't connecting with me, and finally I think I figured it out. This guy's writing, at least in this book, is so cold and aloof and disconnected, I got an undercurrent from it that “I don't really care about any of these characters or what happens to them, none of it interests me, so I have no idea why any of it might interest you.” 

This is the first time I can recall being consciously aware of this: part of what I respond to in any creator's work is the love with which they made it. It can be a story, or a painting, or a musical composition, or a blanket — anything, really. But, on some level, I get a sense that the artist was emotionally engaged with their work. “I like this, it means something to me, and if I'm lucky it will mean something to you, too.” I never realized before that I somehow pick up on this unspoken sense of the creator's love, and that this enhances my own appreciation and enjoyment of what they have made.

This may all well be nothing more than my imagination — but, for me, it's a real thing to be taken into consideration. And it reminds me to care about my own work.
johncomic: (Uncle Old Guy)
I autographed 115 copies of my new book for people who ordered signed ones.


publisher's hand and room not mine
johncomic: (roundhead cartoon self-portrait)
My 34th acrylic is a study of a piece I found in Jeremy Ford's book Painting Pastel Landscapes [wot I got outen da lie-bury]. He was demonstrating working with pastel on black paper. I got thinking that I had a canvas lying around that I had long ago undercoated with black, and still didn't know what to do with it. I kinda liked Ford's painting and so I gave it a shot.

This is my first time doing a study of someone else's work in a different medium than what they used. The experience was a pleasing eye-opener for me — it seems to suggest larger possibilities. And I think this one turned out okay enough.

acrylic painting #34

Oh, and here's a scan:

scan of #34
johncomic: (Moss)
My Christmas presents every year usually include books, and this past Christmas was no exception. But it wasn't til now that I thought to share them here. As happened the last few years, they tend toward art themes, and you don't hear me complaining:







gobsmacked

Jan. 4th, 2022 12:29 pm
johncomic: (SK BW)
Late last year, a regional comics publisher, Black Eye Books, contacted me about crowdfunding a collection of my Dishman small press comics series. I had nothing to lose by agreeing to it, but I wasn't confident that this project would succeed. I never saw myself as a name draw in the field, and Dishman has been available to read online (for free) for years now. So no one needed to buy this book, it seemed to me.

The crowdfund was set to launch officially this morning, and I found out that it met its necessary goal in an hour. I am pleasantly (but thoroughly) shocked.


johncomic: (Moss)
receiving a beautiful new book

John Singer Sargent watercolor collection

johncomic: (Moss)
I see that [personal profile] leecetheartist has posted what they've been reading, so I'll copy, why not?

Just Finished:

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
The Big Kahuna by Janet Evanovich
Body Surfing by Anita Shreve

Currently In The Middle Of:

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon
Johnny Hazard, Volume One by Frank Robbins
Hagar the Horrible, Volume Three by Dik Browne
Menage à 3 by Gisèle Lagacé

On Top of My To Be Read Pile:

The Heist by Janet Evanovich
Another View by Rosamunde Pilcher
Selected Stories by Mavis Gallant
Island by Alistair MacLeod
The Collected Stories by Carol Shields
Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy
Rob Hanes Adventures, Volume Zero by Randy Reynaldo

johncomic: (Frank)
I am currently reading The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren, and am about five or so chapters in at the moment. Last fall I read my first Lauren book, Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, and I fell for that book hard. I re-read it after New Year's and fell harder. So, in a sense, this current book has a lot to live up to, and I am beginning to suspect that it will not.

By the end of Hazel's first chapter, I was in love with her and couldn't wait to see what happened with her. (More to the point, she happens to be the type of character that I usually find irritating: the fact that I found her lovable instead is a testament to Lauren's skill.) Today, several chapters into Olive's story, I, well... I don't dislike her. She's okay, I guess. I'm interested enough to keep reading, but I'm not compelled. I simply don't find Olive as captivating as I found Hazel.

And this got me thinking: I will bet you that Lauren (both members of that auctorial duo) love Olive. They found her story compelling enough to want to tell it. But, so far, I am already convinced that I will like this book by the time I reach the end, but I won't love it the way I love Josh and Hazel. [The characters and the novel.] This one isn't connecting the same way for me.

Which leads me to further thinking: I like all my characters. I like their stories enough that I want to tell them. But this doesn't mean that other people will.

Does this mean I have failed as a literary craftsman? I don't think so. What it means, I think, is that it simply underscores the fact that not all things are for all people. Just because one Lauren novel is for me, and very definitely so, doesn't mean that all of them necessarily will be, or have to be. (Although experience teaches us that a creator who makes something that clicks for you is more likely to make other things that will also click for you.) Just because you don't like my book doesn't mean it's a bad book. It only means that it's not for you. 

In recent years I have come to rethink (very seriously) the whole notion of good and bad art. Good art communicates and connects -- with someone, somehow. But it will never do so with everyone. But we speak of good and bad art -- I have done so myself, long and often -- as if they are something far more objective than they can actually be.

Which brings me back to a point I keep returning to again and again in recent months: let people like what they like, and you go ahead and like what you like.
johncomic: (Charlatans)
summoning the courage to take my first step toward painting

I haven't made a serious attempt to paint since high school. Back then I convinced myself that this is simply something I can't do. This year I feel ready to try again. For months I have been reading, studying, buying materials... today I actually did something.

This is only a first step, an underpainting for my test drive -- remains to be seen if I end up with anything usable, but I am already learning about how acrylics handle, and feel -- and have already learned that the process is a sensory pleasure on its own, so I look forward to continuing.

first underpainting 20191124
johncomic: (Frank)
I participated in NaNoWriMo again this year. After last year's efforts resulted in my first novel, I have continued to write in the year following (as you will know if you read this journal faithfully), and this month I was faced with writing my fifth.

I hit the 50K word count on Nov. 10, which memory told me was faster than I managed it last year. Memory was, in fact, mistaken, because when I look thru last year's archive, I see that I hit the 50K on Nov. 7 last year. Ah well. This time, I went on to write almost 15K more on Nov. 11 to complete the novel. [And never again will I cram that much into one day! I woke the next morning with aching hands and arms, and sandy eyes. Why subject myself to that when it isn't necessary? I just got so caught up in the rush of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.] Since then, I have read through it three times to proofread and make tiny tweaks. In any case, well ahead of the Nov. 30 deadline -- in both cases, I attribute my speed to preparing an extremely thorough outline beforehand.

As I sit here now, I'm not sure how I feel about these books. Ambivalent. They all sound like I wrote them. They are all part of a series of sorts, so I suppose a consistency of tone is a good thing. But I'm wondering if what I actually have is a consistency of voice, or a sameyness that could become a rut, if it hasn't already. On the other hand, I can't see myself writing something wildly different next time just because I feel I somehow owe it to someone, if it isn't the book I actually have in me. So far, I've been writing what I want, because I want. I'm making no effort to court a mass audience. I realize that no book is for everyone, and my books certainly aren't for everyone. And I eventually realized that all I'm hoping for is that I can find the people my books are for, without being particularly worried about how many of those folks there might be. If I can please five or six readers on a regular basis, I can be happy with that. As long as I am one of them, and so far I am. I do like my own books, and if someone else had written them, I would still like them. I guess that's the most important thing.

I also wonder if the fact that I don't concern myself with earning anything from them, or achieving what is normally understood to be success with them, makes me a dilettante. If so, I can live with that.

johncomic: (Frank)
completing the first draft and first edit on my fourth novel -- have already begun rough preliminary notes on the fifth
johncomic: (Moss)
getting an excellent bargain on long-sought books
johncomic: (Frank)
getting a good review on my latest book
johncomic: (Moss)
completing my Alice Munro collection
johncomic: (Frank)
finishing [the first draft of] my third novel
johncomic: (Frank)
Someone on Instagram recently asked us to name our current inspirations. I decided to share my own list as it occurred to me, just to show you where my head is at these days. So go nuts with it:




Tonči Zonjić
Alice Munro
Maeve Binchy
Alex Toth
Randy Reynaldo
Anthony Auffret
Jean-Claude Mézières
Tomas Kubowicz
Charlie Dowd
Delvon Lamarr
Hank Mobley
Mary Oliver
Pema Chödrön

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