The Bio
I've always
thought an artist's bio is distracting, misleading and usually
boring. The important thing is the work. If the work fails, the
bio can't save it-even one (unlike my own) full of credentials.
Think of the work of Homer (the Greek, not Winslow), or Vermeer.
Where are the bios?
..........My friend the late Canadian artist and writer Robert
Genn told about experiencing a "perfect moment"
during a painting trip to Ireland. He had had this experience
before, he says, and there's always something hauntingly familiar
about it--something about the correctness of the design or the
colors, the light is just right or whatever. He called it an
"alpine" moment and thought an artist has maybe ten
of them in a lifetime.
...
.......I think he was right about the
Ten Moments, give or take a few. With me, it might be something
seen in the world--an experience like Robert's in the alpine
meadow, although mine are seldom that picturesque--or a scene
in a movie, or something read in a book, seen only in my mind.
It has to be an image, though, not just an idea. Usually, my
efforts to make an image out of an idea don't work out. The image
must come first, usually unexpectedly. Making sense out of it
may or may not follow. The important thing for me is to get it
down as a sketch immediately. It may seem so dramatic and vivid
that it will be there in my head forever as a permanent resource.
Wrong. If I don't make it into something tangible on the spot
or very soon afterward the image is lost..Some of the sketches in this
show are attempts to do this. Photos don't work for me at this
stage. The photo is never what I saw--it never records that Moment.
.
But if we artists could make sense out of
our Moments--if we could track them to their source--I don't
think we would find them in the visible biographical facts of
our lives. I think we would find them, if at all, in the shadows,
linked in some way to important but hidden emotional episodes
in our lives. They might be archetypal or they might be purely
personal, but the unconscious need to express them--make them
visible, give birth to them, exorcise them--is probably what
fuels our creativity. All of my images could probably be grouped
around these Moments. Ten are enough. More would be unbearable.
..........My point is, the Ten Moments do not appear in the
artist's bio! As Balthus said, "Now let us look at the pictures."
..............................................
........................................................Warren Criswell
.........................................................June 2001
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