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Pearls from artists* # 521

“Raconteur,” soft pastel in sandpaper, 58″ x 38″ image, 70″ x 50″ framed

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

But on the whole, I’m taking into consideration, at the point of the cut, where the audience’s eye is and what direction it’s moving, and with what speed. The editor has to imagine the audience’s point of attention when the film is projected, and has to be able to predict where ninety-nine percent of the audience is looking at any moment… I have to be able to say with some certainty that at such-and-such a moment ninety-nine percent of the audience will be looking at this point on the screen, and in the next second they will be looking here. That means that their eye is travelling, say, left to right, to the upper corner of the frame, at a certain speed. If I choose to cut at this point – at frame 17 – I know that at that moment their eye is right here, in the Cartesian grid of the screen.

That’s a very valuable piece of information. When I select the next shot, I choose a frame that has an interesting visual at exactly that point, where the audience’s eye is at the moment of the cut, to catch and redirect their attention somewhere else. Every shot has its own dynamic. One of the editor’s obligations is to carry, like a sacred vessel, the focus of attention of the audience and move it in interesting ways around the surface of the screen.

This is exactly what I do as I work to compose my pastel paintings! – BR

In The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje

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Q: What was the first review you ever received and how did you get it?

My first review!

A: In 1991 I was in my late thirties and had resigned my active duty Naval commission two years before. I had been an artist for five years. I was anxious to get my pastel paintings exhibited, seen by an audience, and collected! As I worked hard to build my resume, I hustled to exhibit in all sorts of spaces that were not galleries: restaurants, hospitals, real estate offices, law offices, theaters, doctors’ offices, and more. The goal was to just get the work out of my home studio.

In December 1991 I presented a solo exhibition at Dumbarton Church in Georgetown (Washington, DC). For years Bryan had volunteered to set up chairs, a Steinway piano, and other miscellaneous equipment for their classical music concert series. The church’s downstairs space was used to showcase artists’ work. So I applied for a solo exhibition, was accepted, and got my first review in a local Washington, DC newspaper called “Eye Wash!”

Moral: artists have to work extremely hard for every little thing that comes our way!

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Pearls from artists* # 485

New York City

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

[Michael] Ondaatje: It’s an odd thing: I’ve heard you talk about the importance of ambiguity in film, and the need to save that ambiguous quality which exists in a book or painting, and which you think a film does not often have. And at the same time in a mix you are trying to “perfect” that ambiguity.

[Walter] Murch: I know. It’s a paradox. And one of the most fruitful paradoxes, I think, is that even when the film is finished, there should be unsolved problems. Because there’s another stage, beyond the finished film: when the audience views it. You want the audience to be co-conspirators in the creation of this work, just as much as the editor or the mixers or the cameraman or actors are. If by some chemistry you actually did remove all ambiguity in the final mix – even though it had been ambiguous up to that point – I think you would do the film a disservice. But the paradox is that you have to approach every problem as if it’s desperately important to solve it. You can’t say, I don’t want to solve this because it’s got to be ambiguous. If you do that, then there’s a sort of hemorrhaging of the organism.

O: And more of a confusion.

M: Yes. I keep thinking about it, and it’s a wonderful dilemma: you have to acknowledge that there must be unsolved problems at each stage. As hard as you work, you must have this secret, unspoken hope that one very significant problem will remain unsolved. But you never know what that will be until the film is done. You can almost define a film by the problem it poses, that it can’t answer itself, that it asks the audience to solve.

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje

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Pearls from artists* # 484

Behind the scenes of our documentary. Photo: David De Hannay

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

[Walter] Murch: We hope we become better editors with experience! Yet you have to have an intuition about the craft to begin with: for me, it begins with, Where is the audience looking? What are they thinking? As much as possible, you try to be the audience. At the point of transition from one shot to another, you have to be pretty sure where the audience’s eye is looking, where the focus of attention is. That will either make the cut work or not.

[Michael] Ondaatje: So before you make the cut, if you feel the audience is looking towards point X, then you cut to another angle where the focus of attention is somewhere around that point X.

The Conversation: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje

This passage in Ondaatje’s book resonates because I work similarly to refine and construct each pastel painting. My goal is to move the viewer’s eye around in an engaging and interesting way. This part of my process is subtle so I suspect that most of my audience neither appreciates nor even suspects that I have done it.

Comments are welcome!

Pearls from artists* # 483

Behind the scenes of our documentary. Photo: David De Hannay

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

The editor has a unique relationship with the actors. I never try to go on to the set to see the actors out of costume or out of character – and also just not to see the set. I only want to see what there is on screen. Ultimately, that’s all the audience is ever going to see. Everyone else working on the film at that stage is party to everything going on around the filmed scene: how cold it was when that scene was shot; who was mad at whom; who is in love with whom; how quickly something was done; what was standing just to the left of the frame. An editor particularly has to be careful that those things don’t exert a hidden influence on the way the film is constructed, can (and should in my view) remain ignorant of all that stuff – in order to find value where others might not see value, and on the other hand, to diminish the value of certain things that other people see as too important. It’s one o the crucial functions of the editor. To take, as far as it is possible, the view of the audience, who is seeing the film without any knowledge of all the things that went into its construction.

On Editing Actors, by Walter Murch in The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, by Michael Ondaatje

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Q: Who is your core audience for your blog? What do you want people to know about your art that you have not created visually? (Question from “Arte Realizzata”)

Working on “Raconteur”
Working on “Raconteur”

A: As I understand it, my core audience here (currently 77,000+ and growing!) is an international group of artists and art aficionados looking for hope, inspiration, and probably, motivation to keep making art.  Unfortunately, ours is a world that too often misunderstands and under-appreciates the difficult, essential, and sometimes lonely work undertaken by artists.  Hopefully, my blog makes readers think, “If Barbara can keep making art under these conditions and continue to thrive after what she’s been through, maybe I can, too!”  

Comments are welcome!

Pearls from artists* # 426

Barbara’s studio

Barbara’s studio

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

You are talented and creative.  You rarely block and when you do block you know how to move yourself along.  Your moods are not incapacitating and you haven’t stepped over into madness.  Your personality is sufficiently integrated that your necessary arrogance doesn’t prevent you from having successful relationships.  Your nonconformity hasn’t made you a pariah, and your skepticism hasn’t bred in you a nihilistic darkness.  You work happily in isolation but can also move into the world and have a life.  You have, in short, met the challenges posed so far.  

Are you home free?  Unfortunately not.  The next challenges you face are as great as any posed so far.  They are the multiple challenges of doing the business of art:  making money, developing a career, acknowledging and making the most of your limited opportunities, living with compromise, dealing with mass taste and commercialism, negotiating the marketplace, and making personal sense of the mechanics and metaphysics of the business environment of art. 

Many an artist grows bitter in this difficult arena.  Many an artist flounders.  Only the rare artist sits himself down to examine these matters, for they are painful to consider.  But you have no choice but to examine them.  If you are an artist, you want an audience.  And if you want an audience, you must do business.

Eric Maisel in A Life in the Arts:  Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists

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Pearls from artists* # 415

Staten Island Ferry

Staten Island Ferry

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

I like to think of myself (and each of you) as a high priest of memory protection.  Using our cameras, we protect the memories of our subjects; we protect the memories we have while interacting with those subjects; we help to protect the memories of our audience who sees our work.  This is truly a sacred calling, and one that deserves respect and a thoughtful approach.   

Scott Bourne in Photo Therapy Motivation and Wisdom by Rick Sammon 

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Pearls from artists* # 406

With “Avenger,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38” image, 70” x 50” framed

With “Avenger,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38” image, 70” x 50” framed

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

If we really are due for a shift in consciousness, it is incumbent upon each of us to “be the change,” in Gandhi’s famous phrase.  Nothing is written in the stars.

Art is a testament to this way of thinking, because every great work of art is made, not for an abstract audience, but for the lone percipient with whom it seeks to connect.  The symbols that compose artistic works are not static objects but dynamic events.  As such, they can only emerge within a field of awareness, that is, within the context of a life being lived.  It is therefore by approaching the work of art as though it were intended specifically for you – as though the artist had fashioned it with you in mind every step of the way – that you can turn the aesthetic experience into an engine of change in your own life and in the lives of those around you.

J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice:  A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action

Comments are welcome!

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