Halloween has come at last. It's the end of summer. Winter has come. Winter depression is on its way.

I've struggled with it for years. November comes, and suddenly, nothing means anything anymore. I feel indifferent to everything, things I used to be excited about mean nothing anymore. All I want to do is get back to sleep. Being awake is an effort.

I've become a real life zombie. Walking dead.

Happy Halloween.

Painter's Manifesto

Painters, let us unite our voices in protest of Art as expression of Philosophy.
Let others concern themselves with meaning.
Let Modernism, the Post-modern and the Contemporary fade into the pale of History!
Let High Art suffocate itself!
And while we watch it die, let us appreciate that what we do, whilst not concerned with Meaning, is what we Wish to do, what we Must do, and what we are good at doing, whether that is expressing a Feeling or simply painting from Nature.

Is it necessary to separate Painting from High Art?

In order to paint freely, YES.

Should every expression be an expression of something new? Should each painter be limited by everything that has ever been done before?  NO!

What point is there of History, if not to learn from it? Let us develop freely! Let us take inspiration from the past! And let us unite and proudly declare, what we do may be a Craft, but it is a Craft we do with Pride!

A thought experiment by a frustrated painter.

I still want to paint, but no longer wish to be an artist.

This is a combination of reading to many artist's manifestos and feeling limited as a painter in the contemporary art world. As art seems to have developed in such a way that everything that has ever been done has become a taboo, while at the same time small galleries everywhere still show fairly traditional paintings, I have come to think the time has come to separate Art from Painting. That way painting is no longer restricted by the label of art and pressure for innovation. Of course I doubt such a change will ever happen in people's minds, but it doesn't have to; a beautiful decoration in someone's home may still be art to everyone except the select few who remain in the Art World.

It's All Art (except that)

The last couple of days, I've been spending a lot of time in the park with Danto's After The End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History. It is an interesting read, and slightly less complicated than the title suggests. It has, however, brought my attention (back) to the idea that anything and everything could potentially be art.

There are many variations on this particular theme that keep spinning around in my pretty little head, and I won't get into them all now; it's 2.26 am and I should be asleep. What's keeping me up tonight is the definition of the term "art".

After reading a couple of chapters, I notice that all the examples used are either paintings or installations. Typical examples of modern art. Perhaps it isn't too strange for someone writing about art to use such typical examples. What interests me is the examples he doesn't use. It seems many of the disciplines of the arts are excluded. What about poetry, for example? Music? Drama, literature, architecture? In older texts, these are more or less given, yet I've realized that I, too, don't immediately associate music, or literature for that matter, with the term "Art".

There is of course the possibility that I am an exception, that I wasn't properly taught the nature of art when I was a child, or that I misunderstood what I was taught (I was never a particularly bright child). But maybe, just maybe, the stereotypes I have been considering to be art - painting, installation, obscure nonsensical items that resemble nothing at all and symbolize the decline of mankind, the evil of capitalism, the evil of communism, the moral corruption of society, or the artist's feelings about something, isn't exclusively my own misconceptions. And no, I don't know why I say that, OF COURSE it is all in my head.

Anyway. I just thought it was curious that, since art has developed in such a way that everything is allowed and anything could be art, disciplines that used to be a naturally included in the term "ART" are not anymore. They have become separate disciplines in their own right, with their own theories and histories, and though I don't think this specialization is necessarily a bad thing, it does make me wonder what's left of the arts as such, and what its place is in modern society.

I should mention that everything I just mentioned that used to be a part of the arts is now parts of what we know as "culture".
Including art.

Young Woman Blues (at the magazine shelf)

A couple of weeks ago, I bought two magazines.
One was interesting, insightful, well written, and challenging.

The other one was aimed at women my age.

This is something I've been brewing on for a while now. I felt insulted to have paid £3,50 for something I felt, in a nutshell, to be a collection of meaningless sentences arranged around some photographs. For every page I turned to see the same nonsense - clothes, celebrities wearing clothes, some mention of health and quite a bit about relationships and sex - I felt just a little bit more insulted. Not merely because the information was so incredibly trivial - I was expecting that - what really got to me was the fact that it somehow didn't seem to add anything new.

I read to get new impressions. A unique point of view, perhaps, or new information, or just to escape from reality altogether. I certainly don't read to confirm something I could quite easily derive at myself through pure reasoning. Take this example: "Your man suddenly stops texting you. He's probably not that into you." Which, by the way, is not directly quoted from anything, and I'm sure I've come across it more than once. I'm also pretty sure it is usually the answer to a question that goes something like: "He suddenly stopped texting, has he lost interest?"

Yes, this answers itself.
Most likely.

Unless the woman is overanalyzing normal behaviour. I'm not going to generalize here. Not much, anyway. Overanalyzing is something I've been guilty of doing more than once myself. I have worried unnecessarily more than once, because I've failed to see the obvious explanations. I'm not even going to try to blame this one on the media, because although I read girls' mags as a young teen, I never truly took them to heart. Nonetheless, I think there is an issue with the way men are represented in media aimed at women.

At best, all the thoughts and emotional range of men appear to be represented by one man, or a small group. At worst, men are presented as aliens or animals. They will relate to you. They might love you. They have thoughts and feelings - but not the same thoughts and feelings as us, and must be constantly watched and analyzed.

I may be guilty of occasionally overanalyzing things, but don't come here with the suggestion that men and women share the same emotions or basic reasoning. And if you're trying to tell me every man on the planet can be represented by a group of 5, you've got another thing coming.

By the way, the interesting and intelligent magazine I mentioned at the beginning of this post was the New Scientist magazine. Thought I'd mention it.

Another name to forget

Today, I've officially joined the community of unknown bloggers, for reasons mostly unknown even to me.
One thing is for sure; I have no misconceptions that my ramblings will be of any importance for the majority of potential readers. Nor do I believe I will consistently provide a niche audience with insightful thoughts on one specific theme over a longer period of time. I have absolutely no desire to use a blog as a platform to advertise clothes, shoes and makeup that are currently available on a high street near you (as much as I LOVE shoes).

Indeed, I believe my name should be taken very seriously.

I'm a mad, rambling lady. Admittedly without cats. And I'm only 22.

But back to the reasons for writing a blog. As I've already mentioned, I'm not expecting to instantly rise to Internet Fame. I believe the main reason is as simple as this: I'd like a platform to express my thoughts. Something a bit more anonymous than Facebook, but more available than a notebook under my bed. Not that there's anything wrong with the notebook under my bed, it's a very nice notebook, if only it was possible to find a pen when I need one!

As for the theme of my blog, expect anything and everything.

Maybe except weight loss, I don't think I'll get into that. Life is too short.