Semi Permanent a wrap up !

So i have arrived home from Semi-permanent 2008 what a great 2 days of a coming together of creative minds.

The motion graphics, designers, art directors, animators etc were all really inspiring and being from this background / career I enjoyed their processes and presentations and "got" what they were all about but seeing my blog is mainly about art i will give a bit of a touch on the 3 artists that presented.

During the course of the event two Australian artists presented, both of which have considerable overseas success these were Anthony Lister (based now in New York) and Ben Frost a Sydney based artist. The other artist which was the one i was most looking forward to seeing was Amy Sol who is from the US and flew out for the event.

So, I will put it blankly, at a conference which was comprised by design and creative professionals (and students wanting to be professionals) the first two male artists presented themselves in my opinion poorly. I am a pretty open minded in all respects i think people were interested in hearing about the artists processes, seeing their work, hearing about their history and how they got to being where they were today. Anthony lister in particular who presented a slideshow of the behind the scenes parties of people doing weird things getting drunk and drug references by both of these artists kinda didn't really mix well with me but was obviously a big part of these artist's lives. I found it hard to understand what the @#$#@$ they were talking about probably 98% of the time. Maybe they were nervous ? Maybe they were trying to make a statement ? Both of them were a little easier to understand and follow towards the end of the presentation particularly when prompted by audience questions but for people who forked out good $ and time to hear them talk it was kinda hard to sit there for the whole hour for each.

In saying that though i like to look at the positives, one message i did get from them was that there is a responsibility they have taken upon themselves to make a statement about the world through their art, and they really wanted to make people stop and think about topics and certain things through what they do. They really had in depth thoughts and ideals about the world and it is that they were trying to convey in some respects, i am not sure many of the people "got" that this is what they were trying to say which means that their message was lost. I heard a bunch of design students talking about the way the artists presented themselves on the way home where they were discussing that they had been told "thats just what artists are like". I was thinking that was sad, does that mean your not a real artist if you dont speak in those weird abstract terms which leave you wondering "what? are you talking about".

In contrast to that there was Amy Sol's presentation, I only became a fan of her work when i saw it via the list of presentation speakers for Semi-Permanent. Amy's presentation was what we all wanted to see, we saw photos of her studio (tidy and untidy :) she had a good range and close up photos of her work she talked about the meaning of the various works, where she gets her inspiration from, her materials, her exhibitions, her process and best of all you could see she wasn't changing herself and really spoke from the heart. She wasn't trying to be cool or make a statement it was about the art. I could really identify with the way she spoke about her art and you can see it is really personal for her, she didn't always have a definite explanation of things sometimes she just "feels" things or makes things up doesn't know where it comes from and that was enough. The same design students I mentioned earlier were also saying "not all artists must be like that Amy Sol's presentation was great she wasn't like that at all" :)
So their is hope.

In conclusion one message i got from all of the presenters is to love what you do no matter what. Be ready to push yourself and explore new ways of doing things push the envelope so to speak and to keep going, you might not have the right client, style, skills whatever that might be but its really all about the process you will get to where you want to go in the end its all a journey you just have to keep taking it :) Who is talking in abstract terms now ? My gosh !!! ekkk am I an artist now?