{First published February 24, 2015}
David Farland (author, teacher, video game writer, and prolific sunnuvagun) recently wrote this in his weekly "Kick in the Pants" newsletter:
The truth is, most art isn’t very good. Theodore Sturgeon once pointed out that “90% of everything is crap.” If you look at a dozen Western novels at random, or a dozen paintings, or a dozen poems, or listen to a dozen songs from an album, most of them will be forgettable.
There is a danger in exposing yourself to too much vapid art. It can weaken your judgment and erode your sensibilities, until the time comes when you see things that are merely passable, and somehow think that they’re good.
So from time to time we need to re-train our sensibilities. We need to seek out the best that we can find, then let it lift our vision.
His argument here, well it kicked me right in the pants- as intended. I've got these huge boards on Pinterest full of art that's supposed to inspire and teach me. What I've noticed lately, though, is that I spend, at best- 3 seconds or so on every painting that I "pin." Not nearly long enough to understand the subject, the color choices, the brush strokes- any of the nitty gritty stuff that I'm supposed to be studying to make me a better artist. And where, in the beginning, I only pinned things that really grabbed my attention, lately I find myself pinning stuff that Well, someone, somewhere, probably likes that. Not me, actually, but someone else will. Probably people who like knitted sweaters with felt kittens and beadazzled mason jars. So, not me. But somebody. Pinned.
Thing is- Pinterest has become a time suck. It could be a fantastic tool, if I have the discipline to make it that. But lately it's become a place to go to look at eye candy, and scroll, scroll, oh isn't that a cute pic of a hedgehog in a sweater?, scroll, scroll, scroll...
I'm wasting too much time on nonsense that isn't art, and art that isn't good.