David Greene's Open Salon Blog

Love of Winter

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:02:58 -0500

George Bellows: "Love of Winter" - 1914, Oil on Canvas, 32 1/2" x 40 1/2"

One of my favorite works at the Art Institute of Chicago is the George Bellows painting, “Love of Winter.” Winter may be the least comfortable season to be outdoors, but it’s a visually appealing season to paint or photograph.

In winter, snow is the white canvas against which the visual world is displayed. The snow produces an aesthetic transformation. It acts like a wrapper on the objects of the physical world, which, removed of color and texture, are distilled. They are reduced to their essence, as their shape and scale—normally overwhelmed by color and texture—become their primary characteristics.

All that white emphasizes line. Immediately after a snowfall, trees, which may have looked merely barren and lifeless without their leaves, suddenly seem exquisitely sketched, as though they have been traced and brushed with snow by a master painter. Then, when the snow on the tree branches melts, the snow that remains on the ground provides the contrast against which the forms of the trees are set off, as seen in the trees in the Bellows’ painting. When color is introduced—by the brightly colored clothing people wear, as is depicted in the painting, or by something like a brilliant cardinal perched on a snowy fence—it is luminous.

Winter is clearly the best season to be inside looking out. The more austere the outdoor weather grows, the cozier one’s indoor crib becomes. I like to look out through the multi-paned French doors in my study, especially after the glass has been etched by sub-zero temperatures with half moon frost patterns on each pane. Whether the world outside is a mass of low contrasts—grays and whites—as it is during a snow storm, or a sparkling clear rasher of intense blues and whites—as it is on a bright sunny day, the framing of the scene by these frosted window cells makes it feel visually more abstracted. The panes of the window deconstruct the visual notes of the scenery as the Impressionists did with their brushstrokes and pointillism.

There are words missing from human language—missing, at least, in English. One of those is a word that would better describe looking deeply or intensely with a highly refined aesthetic expertise. The word I want would be like epicure is to eating, or sensualist is to feeling, or like connoisseur or aesthete is to the arts. This word would describe the way that artists see the visual world. I think this is one of the great benefits of looking at art. It helps us see the world differently.

Winter, I think, is a good time to cultivate a more highly developed visual discernment. One can do this by looking at paintings and photos, but also by looking, directly or through the windowpanes, at the underlying formality that comprises physical reality. Form and figure are easier to see at a time when the distractions of color and texture are diminished.

--David Greene is the author of Unmentionables: A Novel, a gay "Gone With the Wind" for everyone.

Perchance to Dream

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:01:10 -0500

James Stephens: "Snowy Remote Light" - 2002, Gouache on Paper, 8" x 10"

The gardener in January is a dreamer. January is undoubtedly the calendar’s botanical nadir. Yet it also marks a midpoint in the chilly months from November to March. This middlemost part of winter is destined to induce in the impatient gardener a hankering to get over the hump. In this grim month, when the cold is coldest and the dark is darkest, the gardener dreams of a paradise to come. In the gardener’s reverie, January’s cold dark days give way to April’s warmth and brightness. The mind’s eye, sore from the general bleakness, fills with a verdant vision, stimulated, very often, by a garden catalog.

Were these same catalogs to arrive in May, the gardener would be too busy to read them. But in January, even a Sunday afternoon will seem like a fine time to lie beneath a coverlet and peruse the catalog’s glossy pages, festooned with fantastic flora. It is then that the gardener, in a trance, can look forth from an imaginary perch above a fanciful landscape, beguiled with virtuous visions of digging, amending, mulching and other praiseworthy tasks which are, of course, delightfully effortless so long as they remain within the realm of honorable intentions.

“How glad I shall be to work the soil,” the gardener thinks, “when the warmth of spring ignites fire in my belly.” “I won’t mind it at all, for it will be pleasant to sweat a little in the cool hot of spring, then sit back with a fortifying tonic, and survey the lilac buds and the cherry blossoms.”

But alas, the lush inflorescences that bloom forth from the catalog pages postulate an ideal that does not prepare the gardener for the runty roots that actually arrive in the mail in late March. If the gardener has been around the block a few seasons, all this is well known. Yet such experience does not prevent these dreams from germinating. We humans have learned to survive difficult times with benign hallucinations. Come sub-zero temperatures, come coverlet, perchance to dream.

--David Greene is the author of Unmentionables: A Novel, a gay "Gone With the Wind" for everyone.

Operation eBook Drop

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:12:37 -0500

On the occasion of the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," I'd like to acknowledge the work of author and Army veteran Edward C. Patterson, who started Operation eBook Drop, which provides free eBooks for service members around the world.

Among the free eBooks are Edward Patterson's many gay-themed novels--which can now be read by service members in a new atmosphere of openness in the military.

The books include donations from over 500 indie authors. The book categories for free eBooks are Adventure, Anthology, Drama, Gay/Lesbian, General, Historical, Humor, Literary, Military Books, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Romance, Sci Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Thriller, Urban Fantasy, Western, and Young Adult.

Operation eBook drop began when Ed offered to email a soldier all 13 of his ebooks, for free. The soldier gratefully accepted. Following the chance encounter with the soldier, Ed, himself an Army veteran, queried other indie authors, asking if they too would be willing to offer their ebooks for free to troops deployed overseas.

Collaborating with Mark Coker of Smashwords, Ed and some of the authors started using Smashwords as the platform for distributing the ebooks to soldiers. Using the Smashwords Coupon Generator feature, authors are emailing 100%-off coupons to the soldiers.

With this service, deployed service members can register at Operation eBook to receive free eBooks.

--David Greene is the author of Unmentionables: A Novel, a gay "Gone With the Wind" for everyone. Service members, please see the listing for Unmentionables at Operation eBook Drop.

Unsafe Books by Nobodies

Tue, 7 Sep 2010 16:09:45 -0400

James Stephens - Book Building

1988, oil on canvas, 72" x 36"

On Labor Day, The New York Times proclaimed that “With the beach reads finished, it is time for the Big Books.” And what are the Big Books? Near the end of Monday’s article, The Times told us:

“Book buyers, analyzing the lineup of fall titles, said they saw a tendency to play it safe with well-known authors with very big, sure-thing books. 'It’s the tried and true,' said Patricia Bostelman, the vice president for marketing at Barnes & Noble.”

“Well-known authors with … sure-thing books.” Well that’s reassuring! I’d hate to see book buyers venture into stocking anything that wasn’t “safe.”

You might think that with the rise of the Internet and the word-of-mouth leveraging enabled by social networking and the ease with which books can now be produced and sold on demand, that there would be a rise in the number and diversity of books that publishers publish and bookstores stock and people talk about. But that isn't the case.

Publishers publish fewer unknown authors than ever. Bookstores have cleared the less certain titles from their shelves to make room for more copies of the top sellers. And in the social networks, virtually everyone is talking about—ta dum--Jonathan Franzen and Freedom. It is the thing. I imagine this is because we all like to be on the same page—one big community of American readers. Even Salon has chosen to read Freedom in its reading club.

To me it looks like publishers and bookstores are going to paint themselves into a corner. They will create a model in which they publish the safe titles by the big authors who write the “Big Books.” And the bookstores—if they survive at all—will be a place where you can go to buy one of the big books. It won’t matter which store you go into, you will be able to order either a Big Mac –or— a Whopper. You won’t have to worry about seeing items that you can’t be “safe” ordering. Bookstore franchises will sell book franchises to go with your eating franchises and your movie franchises so that you can have no doubts about what you are supposed to eat, read or watch.

But if I were opening a bricks-and-mortar bookstore today, I’d choose a business model that provides the one thing that is missing in this new economic model. I’d take over the job that literary agents, publishers, and bookstores have been forced to abdicate. I’d look for and sell the overlooked books.

Instead of just stocking the “Big Books," the store would commission local readers to go into the slush pile and dig out the hidden gems. The store would specialize in stocking these overlooked books, because I think some people might pay to have access to wonderful books not measured mainly for their blockbuster possibilities. The store could engage local readers to review the books that were written by nobodies who have no agent and which were either published by a small press or were self-published.

My theoretical bookstore would be filled with “we recommend” books instead of the “New York Times” recommends books that are already sold by everyone else. That would be the sole reason for people to come to this store instead of going to Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

The store would be selling books loved by reviewers in the community. But they might include unsafe books by nobodies. The 2010 publishing industry is not what it once was. It seems that it no longer can find a way to support the books that aren’t “safe.” But I’d bet that there are a bookstore’s worth of such books that are worthy of sale.

Overcoming Criticism

Tue, 3 Aug 2010 12:08:31 -0400

In my 20's, I had a vision of myself becoming an Artist with a capital A. In this vision, I saw myself exhibiting my photographs at galleries around the globe, getting glowing reviews in the major art media, and achieving fame and success. It’s a fairly common dream for those who are young and ambitious, and who aspire to make their lives momentous.

Then one day in 1978, I had a big exhibit of my work. I got a negative review in a major art journal. In her review, the critic wrote very little about my photography itself. She had nothing to say about the composition of the photographs, or their lighting or tonal range. Instead, she focused on the people in the photographs. She characterized the subjects of my photographs as inhuman, lisping, exaggerated, stereotyped posers.

I was so incensed by the review that I wrote an essay and sent it to the editor of the art journal. In the essay, I questioned the purpose of critics lambasting artists. I wrote about how much courage it takes to create something and how unhelpful it is to the world of creativity in general to have critics lambaste anyone.

The art journal published my essay, which elicited the largest number of letters to the editor in the art journal's history. There were strong opinions on both sides. There were supportive letters from famous artists, and there were letters from a raft of art critics, who wrote personal defenses of their trade, and laid on additional criticisms of me to boot.

There were also letters from ordinary people—some encouraging me, others not. One letter writer called me a “nasty bitch,” “ego-posing,” “sinister,” “decadent,” and a “sickie.” He referred to my work as “photographic garbage.” Ironically, the essay I wrote was nominated for an award for best art criticism of the year. My photographs, however, won no award, and that was my real disappointment.

After that experience, I felt quite vulnerable. I saw that if I put my work out people could and would say anything, not just about my work, but also about me and about my subjects, and some of it might be cruel. I realized that I couldn't handle criticism very well. I realized how insecure I was. Soon afterwards, I stopped exhibiting my photography.

Over the years, I’ve worked up the nerve to continue to take risks. I’ve grown more accustomed to reaping both positive and negative consequences. Experience has shown me that when I put my work out, I have to be prepared for all kinds of things. Because my work is culturally controversial, even if I get praise, I am likely to get some condemnation as well. Some of the condemnation has been about the work I’ve created, but I’ve also received reprimands directed at me myself—as if I were loathsome for having tried something and failed at it.

The truth is, each person who takes a creative leap and puts his or her work out, makes it easier for others to follow.

I was young when I wrote my essay questioning the role of criticism. As much as anything, I was engaging in my own kind of critical revenge. But there was one truth that I hit upon in the essay that has stuck with me: "all creativity is risk". Everyone who creates a work of art takes a risk, expresses a hope and a dream. It hardly matters what the person's level of skill is. It hardly matters if the end product is timeless. I believe that it is always beneficial to society that the risk is taken. Everyone who takes the risk and creates something, nourishes creativity for all.

Nowadays, no matter how I feel about someone’s work, I try never to lose sight of the fact that the person’s creativity rises from the same impulses that motivate my own work. The artist or writer may have a different vision than mine—but the underlying urge to create and share a vision with the world—is at root no different than my impulse to share my own imagination.

To other creators, I say, keep going, keep taking risks—even in the face of criticism. Persistence, despite being criticized or ignored, gives you the opportunity to build self-confidence. It takes practice to realize that what others say about you or your work has little to do with you. It certainly says nothing about what you may ultimately achieve in life. The people who love you will still love you. And if you can love yourself, even in the face of criticism, you will have mastered one of life’s most difficult lessons.

Sometimes people assume that a given creation is either good or bad—that it either has merit or is without merit. Sometimes they project this absolute judgment out to the rest of the world, as though aesthetic judgments were a science. In fact, the world has billions of people. Those billions of people do not all share the same taste. Less obvious is that world has a huge number of sub-groups of people who share distinctive tastes.

If you put your work out, it may well be that someone will appreciate your creation, even if many others do not. You may find a large number of fans, or your admirers may be just a few people. But the wider you are able to cast your net, the more likely it is that somewhere someone will appreciate what you’ve made.

--David Greene is the author of Unmentionables: A Novel, a gay "Gone With the Wind" for everyone.