No longer will art be identified with talent. What I'm saying here is that the world of computers is making the technicians the artists of the day. The average art viewer does not know the difference between a painting or sculpture that was painfully developed by hand in real time by an artist who their studied craft for years, compared to a computer printed painting or laser produced sculpture.
Technicians can plot out a painting or drawing that can be totally developed on the computer. The computer overlaps and layers images from databases. The computer controls the hand through the eyes without involving touch and feeling to flow through one’s hands. With computers we can build bigger sculptures, opening minds to perfectly realized images.
What we leave behind, often unacknowledged, is the participation of the team of fabricators that actually create the art. Most viewers see only “the artist”. That artist may have had nothing to do with the physical realization of the art. The artist becomes a brand, and the art a commodity.
Now is the time when images may never touched by the artist. Can you say the art has soul? Maybe some can, maybe some can’t. Our world is ever-changing. Looking at one’s values of art and technique can allow you to transcend technique.
I will always have to lay hands upon my work regardless of what aid the computer gives me. This is what art means to me. To the technician that has to learn Photoshop or three-dimensional imaging to create, I believe as long as you have the heart of an artist then your talent will shine.
But, as an artist you should look at the people who have walked in front of you through time, understand their abilities to take a brush or to take a chisel to make a world of unknown beauty with their hands. Know this world well. Being an artist means to transcend your medium and speak from your heart. But you still need to be grounded in the medium.
