Re: Interpretation

[Mike Holmes <mike@mc-h.demon.co.uk>]

In message <34672356.6127@twowaytv.co.uk>, Steve Tutt <stutt@mailhost.tw
owaytv.co.uk> writes
>What say you good people???
>
Greetings chaps & chapesses,

Just my fourpen'orth (or several). I remember one time at art college a
lecturer saying to us, "All them out there -" waving his hand in the
general direction of an outside window "- think that all us artists get
our ideas like thunderbolts out of the blue - a light bulb appears over
our heads & we jump up saying, that's it! I'll do that!"

As he went on to explain, it doesn't happen quite like that. Everything
we create is built on everything we have ever seen, heard, smelt,
touched beforehand - the important difference in our case being that the
process is largely subconcious; it goes in, get twisted around somehow &
comes out differently, & for the truly gifted ones it doesn't need much
thinking about. It just happens.

While most of the other kids were playing outside during the school
holidays, I was invariably indoors drawing. I used to draw strip-cartoon
stories, in fact I used to draw strip-cartoons before I knew that they
were strip-cartoons. It was some time before I learned that a modern
cartoon ought to be separated into different scenes or frames, my
earliest were invariably one long strip, like the bayeur tapestry.

I've seen stuff I've drawn that I don't remember doing because it
predates the moment that I can first ever remember, when I was 3. The
point is I'd always been doing it, & it was a perfectly normal function,
like breathing, & almost as essential.

When I was 5 I learned a couple of startling things. This began when I
noticed I was continually being asked (yawn!) "Where does it all come
from?" What sort of a question is that, where does it come from? Doesn't
everyone do this? Obviously not!

The next thing I learned was that a few people could be quite jealous,
even try to destroy my work if they could, as though I was trying to
show them up in the art classes. So I learned to be secretive & only
shared my gift with a few trusted friends. Even my teachers didn't know
about some of the stuff I was capable of. All that mattered was to get
it down on paper, where it wanted to be. It was never a case of "what
shall I do today?", invariably I was possessed by ideas that needed to
be let out, to be made real in paint & colour. This was not a relaxing
process, but more like excorcism. They certainly didn't care for much
fancy interpretation - the way they came out is the way they wanted to
be. Nothing to do with me, I'm just their instrument.

So I ask you, given the following multiple choice question: How are we
meant to interpret the Kate Bush song entitled (your choice here):
a: she is trying to get across the deeply profound statement "X";
b: she is merely weird & derranged so in fact it doesn't mean very much;
c: she was high on drugs at the time;
or, if my own experience is anything to go by, I much prefer-
d: it was buzzing through her head when she woke up one morning, she
wrote it down, end of story.

In which case I could understand her getting quite irritated sometimes
when repeatedly asked to EXPLAIN it afterwards (it's a question I always
dreaded). It's quite likely to have been inspired by something in
particular, otherwise it just is. Enjoy it or not.

Artistry comes in many forms. I've never been much good at mathematics,
but I understand how you can model things with math, & a few people have
hours of fun playing with numbers as a form of creativity (e.g. solving
a problem in quantum physics).

For the last decade & a half I have concentrated on writing mostly -
catalogues, magazines, software, even dabbled in electronic engineering,
if on a strictly amateur level (aren't I diverse?). Anything that
satisfies my need to create. Someone might look at something I've done &
ask was it inspired by such-&-such & I'd say "well I never thought of it
like that" - nowadays I have less patience with the more negative
criticism, like when someone is lecturing me on what they think is wrong
with something I may have written. I'm afraid my attitude now tends to
be "Look, no-one's forcing you to read it. So you don't like it, that's
cool, I can handle that. Now go away & read something you DO like & stop
giving me earache about it." This is a free state after all, & I'm
entitled to my own opinion, otherwise I'll just be repeating what
someone else has written - & so have you.

I've never had much time for critics, professional ones I mean, be they
of art, theatre, literature, whatever. To my way of thinking these
critics are really frustrated artists; they want to be able to do that
but they can't, so instead they talk about it. Trouble is cos they're
not real artists they talk drivel, because they have no real experience
of the kind of creative process that went into it. Have you ever heard
art critics describing a picture? They even use a pompous phony language
that only they pretend to understand, & which comes across (to me at any
rate) as complete hype. 

The way I put a thing down is the way that feels right to me. You may
see things in it & intepret it in ways as manifold as there are human
beings on the planet. That's the best part of it, diversity - wouldn't
it be boring if we all thought the same? But from my point of view it
just came out that way because that's how IT wanted to come out, I
didn't have much say in the matter. People have been arguing over the
interpretation of art probably since the first cave paintings, but if
you had an opportunity to ask the actual artist about it you may still
not get a very satisfactory answer, cos they're not too sure either. See
what I mean?

There's that quote in one of the Gaffa texts (can't remember which one)
where Kate was saying when she was 5 she was performing a dance or
something, & some visitors at the house (not the immediate family
obviously, who knew her much better) made some comment on it. It
seriously put her off, so much so that she finishes by saying she's
"been trying to get back there ever since." I think I know what that
must have felt like.

So, I do detect a certain kind of affinity, if you get my drift. In
short I believe Kate does what she does because she has to, because she
is driven, & has been from the cradle. Luckily for her her particular
gift, & especially the way in which it manifests itself, is very
popular, but sometimes the gift can be a curse, too. It can make you its
slave...

"I can't believe I've no control, it's all derranged..."
                                        (David Bowie "No Control")

By the way, I had this bizarre dream about her the other week. She was
just finishing putting a car engine back together, having previously had
it apart in pieces all over the floor. Naturally it was so sparkling
clean afterwards you could eat your dinner off it - canny lass, I bet
she could do it too
-- 
Mike H
"She [was] like the Spice Girls all rolled in one with a flake on top."_O_
       (Re WH, on the pop-quiz 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks', BBC2 Sep 97) |<
A genuinely affectionate quip, nevertheless she's MUCH better than that