Inner Doodles

Where have all the fine arts gone? Or where will they go in the twenty teens?

2011-09-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

We are now in the future. It’s official. ATMs with push-button screens now accept up to 50 checks at once, they scan them in and tell you the individual amounts as well as the total amount that you’ll be depositing. Soda machines, also with push-button screens, allow you to pick your choice of soda, then your additive syrup (my flavored bubbly water can have more flavor?!), which then funnels through a single nozzle, being both efficient and exciting. Three dimensional movies and TVs are taking over and there is digital media everywhere you turn. You can’t escape the flashing lights and midi noises, that surround the world in airports, office buildings, stores, even in our pockets. Does this remind you of Back to the Future II or what? The only thing we’re missing is the hover board.

So, in this futuristic and digital world, how do the arts possibly stand a chance of, well, standing out? Advertisement has survived with a new string of nonsense words like: “Technology crystals lock in the flavor!” “Organic All-Natural Flash Pasteurized” and, my favorite, “Zero Trans Fats!” While the new wordy slogans for the same old products may be easy to see through, this doesn’t hurt their market as people still feel compelled to buy things like gum, juices, and chips. The arts, however, are having a more difficult time evading extinction.

In competition with technology and digitization, it seems that each genre is frantically trying anything it can in order to stay on the radar. They’re even trying on each others’ shoes. Art has transformed into performance and street art, dabbling in the brash and in-your-face aspects that so strongly characterize theater. Theater explores movement pieces where the actors are wordless and clothing-less, acting like they are now dancers and models from canvases rather than realistic human characters. Music becomes a conglomerate of funk, hip-hop, alternative, world, you-name-it, and therefore interbreeding with itself to create a new species. Hollywood is copycatting stage-style theater as it creates remake after remake; something that was done for eons on a live stage, new because it’s now on film!

Where can the arts possibly go from here? Is there no hope? Will it collapse into a distant part of history, or worse, into a forgotten dusty relic?

Oh, wait! The arts have always struggled. Shakespeare was dirt poor, and actors were paid virtually nothing. Van Gogh cut off his ear and still wasn’t famous until after he was dead. And no one in their right mind studies art or theater or music in college, unless they want to become a teacher, because they know it’s not a lucrative venture. So that must mean that there is a future for the arts, or at the very least an existence that won’t stray from what it’s used to dealing with.

Perhaps there will be fewer famous oil paintings, less traditional theater productions, and no more advertised down-on-the-farm blue grass jams, but there will still be representations of visual and audio ideas in one format or another. The ideas will of course stay the same as the ones that have buzzed around for generations, but “Now With Zero Trans Fats!”

In fact, one of my favorite theater companies, centered on the Stanislavski method, is putting on MacBeth this month. Check it out: http://www.synetictheater.org/

Recurring Nightmare

2011-06-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

This is loosely based on a dream. It's only come back twice since. Not bad for using an outlet. Perhaps I'll work on part two and make it go away entirely.

oil on wood. November 2010

In honor of breast cancer awareness month

2010-10-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

Gouache on canvas board. October 2010

Displayed in the Tata Gala online exhibit.

Eleanor and Don

2010-10-11T09:07:00.001-07:00

Pencil on paper. Thanksgiving, 2009

Ink and Oil

2010-10-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

"A Kiss" October, 2010, pen and paper. Showed in the Tata Gala online exhibit in honor of breast cancer awareness. "SEAMONSTERS" December, 2009 oil on wood painted from a photo.

V

2010-02-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

A vibrant purple african violet, Loretta, is sitting on my

Nantucket tiled table being beautiful and taking in her new surroundings.

A very warm and handsome handmade scarf patterned gold and burgundy, is wrapped neatly around my neck keeping it cozy.

A vaquero, cuddly and also very handsome, is likely on his way over to make me laugh and waste time watching Spinal Tap, of which my watching is long overdue.

A veeblefetzer is a fantastic word that I found while looking up other words that start with V, the V words were of course for the purpose of describing positive things.

A violent urge to send my car careening over a cliff, whether or not I would be in it had yet to be decided, has since subsided as I played my heart out on the acoustic guitar.

A vivid picture of the story I'd like to write just became apparent and I shall devote the rest of my evening to painting its picture with words.

Rhyme and Reason

2010-02-03T17:26:00.001-08:00

I just realized that Inner Doodles rhymes with Snicker Doodles. I suppose it's not a true rhyme, since it's the same word, but it makes me wish I had some eggs to bake with regardless.

Well, the play is over and now I find myself focused on writing and painting. Here's my latest.

Gouache on canvas paper. December 2009.

Everything happens for a reason

2010-01-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, my perpetual state of doing too many things can be beneficial. Last night the director of Spoon River Anthology, which I am acting in, went out with a few of the cast members for food and drink. We ended up talking about our various paths and how we got to where we are. Being a bunch of artistic types, there were many struggling sob stories, but the exciting thing was that we had all come together in that one moment and shared something that was important to each of us.

The vast amount of inspiration and happiness that is in the world often gets overlooked and when you have the opportunity to realize just how amazing life can be, it's almost always worth the pain and angst it took to get there. In talking with these awesome people, that realization stilled the spinning of my hectic little world, if even for the one moment, and made me really stop and absorb the goodness that's around me. Perhaps we'll never cross paths again when the play is over, but I'm sure we'll always remember our conversations.

Outreach to all my peeps

2010-01-04T21:32:00.001-08:00

So I think I'll join the technology era. I've been clinging to my dinosaur 35mm camera, my oil paints and fountain pen. But it just might be time to move on. Not entirely, don't worry, my camera will still refuse to collect dust and my hands will still get cramped and turn all sorts of colors from writing and painting with messy media.

I'm doing this so that I can not feel quite so old mentally and so I can connect with the people who are important to me. Here are some cool things to check out:

www.susanhasler.com

www.amywilloughbyburle.com or http://amywilloughbyburle.blogspot.com/