One of the most exciting things about social media is that every time you post anything, someone somewhere has a correction or complaint about it. I understand now that this is simply a part of the process, and I accept it. It took me a long time.
People always try to correct me, telling me what to write and how to feel. It happens so often that it feels comfortable. I hardly ever get corrections from regular readers, just about everyone else.
I’ve had corrections from as far away as Singapore, Mexico, Australia, Poland, England, Ireland, and Iceland. I’m famous for my real and alleged mistakes, if nothing else.
I do make mistakes; I write a lot daily, and I am my own editor; God help us. Early on, I decided to spend my time writing, not re-writing. I even bought a hot proofreading software to limit typos. It is worse than I am. I get to defend not only my mistakes but also presumptuous software.
Today’s “correction” was exciting and got me thinking, as often happens. Are my photos of Maria “still lifes” or “portraits?”
The latest squawk came from Donald Ramsey, a social media corrector. You can tell the correctors from the complainers because they never comment on the post or the photo; they offer a correction and move on and are never heard from again.
Sometimes, they are correct, but most often, they are not. I can’t take strangers on social media corrections too seriously. I always wonder if they have anything else to do. Clearly not.
Mr Ramsey raised one of those teacher, academic, and busybody corrections yesterday after I posted a shot of Maria sitting in her chair blogging. ( below). I called it a still life. It was a groundbreaking photograph for me; it wasn’t about Maria but what Maria stands for.
Donald said I made a mistake: “That’s not a still life,” he wrote, “a still life is always an arrangement of objects. It’s a portrait.” This was not a thought or question but an absolute statement of fact.
Like many correctors, his message was brief and bloodless.
It is an interesting observation, given that it’s wrong, as amateur correctors (and Dyslexic writers) often are.
Now that my photography is verging on art, I should look into it. I love the picture, and I am expanding my idea of what a still-life picture is. It isn’t just a bowl of fruit for me.
I think of some of my pictures as photo paintings, a mix of styles. Three people messaged me to say the photograph reminded them of a Vermeer painting. He died in 1675. I love those kinds of messages.
I often urge people to start their blogs and be authentic. But I also tell them to be prepared to define themselves and their identity and be willing to fight for it. A lot of people are out there hoping to take it away. Writing online has given me an elephant’s hide, my thin skin is getting armor.
My truth is more straightforward than Mr. Ramsey’s: no one word covers any form of art all the time. Every artist I know has ideas of what they hope to do. Each one is different.
It is not for me to dictate such labels to them; I am hardly humble or shy, but I don’t have the arrogance to do that. They get to do that.
(Above, I call it a “Still Life.”)
My pictures of Maria – “the Blogger series” – are not generally a still life. Or is it? Well, it depends. Donald is black and white in his view, but the artist world is more nuanced than that.
I like Wikipedia’s definition: “A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural or human-made. Wikipedia”
The keywords for me are “mostly inanimate,” and “symbol.”
The still-life genre has remained popular due to its freedom of experimentation; it allows artists to explore different techniques, styles, and themes. There are four main types of still-life art: Flower Pieces, Banquet or Breakfast Pieces, Animal Pieces, and Symbolic Paintings.
Keywords: “explore..styles and themes.”
A still life is often (at least traditionally) an inanimate object, although some still lifes can be portraits ( Vermeer), and some are still lives (Vermeer).
It depends on what the artist is thinking and feeling when the image is created. There was no photography when Vermeer painted, yet he has inspired several of my photos – the one of Maria in particular. Out of curiousity, I wonder if anyone wrote him to tell him his definition of his work was wrong.
This doesn’t mean I’m comparing myself to him.
But Maria’s pictures are symbols to me – of love, art, and Maria’s remarkable gift of concentration and self. Sitting and blogging in her chair, she seems iconic, timeless, and bigger than life: a presence, not just any person. Not just Maria. Her face and body are full of emotion; she is wonderfully expressive.
(Above, Johannes Vermeer, “The Milkmaid.”)
The photo I posted of her today is not a still life; it’s a portrait. She is turning to the camera, and very much in motion, very different than the shot of her blogging. Her face says it all. You can’t really see her face in the other picture.
I can’t imagine sending a message to any artist like Mr. Ramsey sent to me; I have no right to do that, and art, for me, is not about what teachers teach but what I feel and see. All of my photography is personal and usually emotional. It’s about freedom. If I told Maria her quilts were not fiber art or true quilts, I would lose some teeth.
Art has changed radically recently; the old dogma and assumptions are up for grabs. It’s the essence of old fartism to look at a creation and insist on what the artist must call it.
Creativity and change are critical elements of my idea of art.
So the point is that my portrait of Maria yesterday is a “still life” for me, and who matters here? Me or Mr. Ramsey. Maria, an artist, gets a vote, and she says it is a still life as I want it to be and sees it that way.
Writing openly and honestly on the Internet is a challenge; it makes one a target for people worldwide. This is a new reality for people who wish to create freely and openly. I’m not going anywhere, not yet.
I’m learning to think rather than snarl. It feels better.
Counting Facebook, billions of people might see one of my blog posts at any given time. I have yet to learn who most are, and most have no idea who I am. I admit it is fascinating to come to terms with this new reality. Correctors, like trolls, are everywhere in every culture. It is a part of being human.
For most of human history, it was not possible to talk to strangers across the oceans. Now it’s impossible to shut people up. History will have to tell us if this is a good or bad thing.
The challenge is for a writer or artist to create their own identity, stick to it, and defend it. This has undoubtedly been good for me because, before social media, I didn’t know who I was or wanted to be.
That’s no longer a problem for me; thanks to messages I get daily from people like Mr. Ramsey, I know exactly who I am.
Is it a boat or a ship? A picture or a photo? A portrait or a still life? I agree — who really cares. All I know is that is a truly transcendent photo of Maria. Well done!
Makes me dizzy sometimes, but thanks KJ
Art history professor here. This isn’t a debatable point–your portrait of Maria is a portrait, not a still life. There’s a debate among artists and art historians as to whether a single body part (such as a hand) in a painting can still be called a still life. The consensus is that yes, it can, but only if it’s enhancing the inanimate objects in an important way. There’s no debate as to whether or not something like your shot (which I like quite a bit, by the way) can be called a still life. Yes, you’re free to use language however you like, but language is meant to communicate meaning: if you suddenly felt like calling a horse “a car” because they’re both means of transportation, some of your readers would be understandably confused and others would conclude that you’re ignorant of what you’re discussing. Congratulations on your fine portrait, but it’s not a still life just because you’ve decided to label it as such.
Jon, your attitude is part of the political mess we’re in now. You, like anti-vax folk and Covid deniers, are perfectly happy to ignore experts in a field and just make up your own “facts.” Suddenly Maria, who doesn’t have a PhD., is as much of an authority as an Amherst professor? You think it’s a sign of free-thinking to challenge authority. I have news for you—so do Trump’s most fervent supporters. Don’t like the implications of climate change? No problem! Just make up your own data, because that’s what all the smart kids are doing. Your photo is not a still life. Vermeer never painted a still life. Why not take the note from an actual authority and move on, instead of insulting her and looking like an ass.
Ellen, thanks for your note; I’ve sent the Amherst College Art History Department into meltdown. I have that gift. I admire your loyalty to your professor, slavish though it seems. I had the pleasure of reading your message to Maria this morning, and I told her that since she only had a master’s degree, she had nothing more to say to me about art, not until she gets her Ph.D. We do not, she says, have as much authority as her Amherst professor. Disagreeing with her and her professor seems to be forbidden. I also told her she needs to be careful. Her husband, who she thought to be another fuzzy-head progressive, is partly responsible for vaccine and climate change deniers, the rejection of science and learning, and, of course, Trumpism; she forgot gun violence and inflation. I can feel the knees jerking to the North. Thanks for calling me a smart kid; that’s a first.
Ellen seems young to me, so I’ll try to be civil. Your message seems more like a middle-school insult rant than a discussion of art. It’s more about cultural power than me. I wrote about this because I loved watching Maria’s work and blog, and I wondered if there wasn’t a different way of looking at portraiture now that I’m thinking about art, and how still life and portraiture can sometimes bump into one another (I am hardly the first person to write about that). I always thought the teacher’s job was to stimulate thought and experiment without penalty; that’s not allowed in the Amherst Art Department. I didn’t ask you or your professor to validate my writing, and I reject your insults; having read your messages, I see it was a good choice. You are linking me to every dark thing except the Holocaust.
It’s unfortunate when teachers and professors insult people who try to think, for better or worse, right or wrong. People started messaging me to say my photo evoked Verneer, so I started reading about him. I’m passing along this piece by Germaine Greer (below) about art because it was precisely what I felt about the Maria portrait when I wrote about it. I admit she said it a lot better than I did, but it’s what I felt, and I have no apologies for thinking about it. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to know that most still lifes are about flowers, vases, and fruit. Duh. You should think about a writing course. You sure misread and misrepresented what I wrote. You are why I don’t argue my thoughts with the thought police on social media and, obviously, Amherst College. It’s always a shitstorm. Insulting me doesn’t do the trick; it’s adolescent.
My crime was pondering a portrait I thought was more than a portrait to me. I see it was heresy to think that. And if we are being honest, it’s not your business how I write about my pictures.
Another reason for people to read your slobbering ode to your professor is that if people are wondering why so many rural people hate prestigious universities, this letter will help you understand: Ellen thinks that people who don’t agree with her and her Ph.D. professor must be stupid, not just wrong. That’s what the boss says. I’m sorry, Ellen, I’ve never been good at kissing the ring. I’ll continue to think for myself without the permission of the Amherst Art History department as I try to understand my life as a late-blooming artist. Good luck to you. I’m going to keep learning for as long as I can. I’m happy not to be a student in your college.
Germaine Greer:
“Great art, for those who insist upon this rather philistine concept (as if un-great art were unworthy of even their most casual and ill-informed attention), makes us stand back and admire. It rushes upon us pell-mell like the work of Rubens or Tintoretto or Delacroix or towers above us. There is of course another aesthetic: the art of a Vermeer or a Braque seeks not to amaze and appal but to invite the observer to come closer, to close with the painting, peer into it, become intimate with it. Such art reinforces human dignity.”
• Germaine Greer. The Obstacle Race
(1979) Chapter V: Dimension, p. 105.
Jennifer, thanks for your note. I gather I have the Amherst Art Department in distress. I like your observation that I am free to use my language however I like, and I’ll leave it there. I don’t argue my ruminations with strangers on social media since people like you will call me names in one way or another. I’m sad to hear any college professor (I taught at NYU for five years) say they get to decide what is and isn’t debatable. That is not true. Could you just read the posts here? What’s historically accurate is about truth, and I support truth in every way. But only some people, Ph.D. or not, get to make those decisions for everybody else. Any idiot knows that still-life art is not generally a portrait. There are exceptions, as is also well known. Good luck to you.
Really? Portrait versus still life? Sheesh. Yes, art is what YOU think and feel…..it is fully your creation and you may refer to it however you like! (I do hope you smile at being likened to Vermeer, though!). Creativity, in whatever form, can not be defined in absolutes in my opinion. I just keep enjoying your *work*……lucky me!
Susan M
Thanks Susan, I do enjoy my work.
It’s your art-you get to call it what you want.
Thanks Melina, I’ll take you up on that..
It is your post, and I believe you should call it, whatever you feel like. Either way, it is lovely.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Maria is life and in that image, she is still. So Still Life.
I was quite taken by the photo and its title. It’s a wonderful image. The shadows, the intensity of her thoughts flowing from her brain to fingers to keyboard. I love the title. I found it apt. It’s similar to pictures of Fate resting. Maria is always on a project or chore. To see her still was a moment to capture I love to paint and draw. The titles often sell the work
Great line – I learn to think rather than snarl. We should all adopt that motto.
Everyone here is all wet. Still life is just another name for bootleggers. Now pass the hooch and calm down.
I am loving your “Still Life” photos. Very well done!
Jon this brings back a memory – one I’ve never forgotten – me in grade school sitting at my desk and the teacher has asked us to draw a still life. I couldn’t think of anything and then I looked out the window up to the sky. I see lovely clouds which appeared still. So I drew them. I was then told by the teacher that was not a still life. To this day I have difficulty creating a still life 😂.
Never let the peckerheads get you down, Patricia, give it another go…
Thanks! Think I will 😎
Oh so so beautiful, it’s a portrait just because. And a still life because you caught Maria being still.
Blessings and thanks, Sharon. You got it.
What is it…I think just beautiful sums it up.
Thanks for that, that was the idea..
Again, I LOVED that photo of Maria. It was positively beautiful to me; she was herself, absorbed in what she was doing, and the photo taken with love. I wonder, too, if Vermeer was ever corrected about his art. I suppose maybe the ones who commissioned art from him may have. A tiny bit of research just now called him a “genre” painter, which is described as painting ordinary scenes from daily life. This is what I love about your art, Jon. It is ordinary life, elevated by love and passion.