TIME WELL WASTED
It is spring, and I am sitting on a train. Like every week so far it is running late and slowly making its way from Ljubljana to Pivka. The low sun is seeping through the trees, which have recently turned green, creating a golden light that warms my face every now and then. The music in my headphones is drowning out outside sounds, my eyes are closed, I am creating an artificial isolation and counting on no casual acquaintance sitting down next to me. We are moving slowly, and I would much rather spend this time with my thoughts than in polite small talk about weather. I set out at 7:30 in the morning, started work at 10:00, and if all goes well, I’ll arrive home around 7:30 p.m. Twelve hours, thrown away… At least from the perspective of creating art. And yet these hours, which I throw away about five times a week, are crucial to my existence and the realization of my artistic work. In addition to the obvious financial support, they give me time to reflect. On days when I commute to work by train, they also provide an opportunity to read books, listen to music, and occasionally draw. Usually, after this pilgrimage to Ljubljana and back, I eagerly head to the studio with a clear idea of what I want to do.
Despite the long day, I don’t feel tired. I get to work, and two hours fly by in two seconds. I find it easiest when I continue working on an unfinished painting, whose layers of paint from the day before offer a glimpse into the past and the future potential. The hardest, however, is when I start with a new blank canvas, which offers endless possibilities, yet seems completely uninspiring to me and triggers doubts about my first strokes, choice of colour, format, theme… Today is such a day. A wrong brushstroke can drag out the process of creating a particular work, especially when you don’t realize it right away. Even though my creative process is very deliberate and planned, I sometimes continue painting indecisively. I waste hours and evenings in front of the canvas, hoping that the painting will magically come together and satisfy me in the end. These are the hours I truly throw away, because I have never been satisfied with a painting created in this way, and it has ended up in the bin, or at best repainted with other paints until it finally met my expectations. But mistakes and dissatisfaction are also part of the artistic process, and I have come to terms with the fact that I learn more from my mistakes than from my successes.
I often think about what draws me to the studio and what compels me to create. I read books on art, philosophy, and psychology, and I listen to podcasts featuring artists who interest me, but I can’t seem to find the answer. But maybe it’s not necessary to have answers to all the questions… Maybe the simplest thing is to use that well-worn phrase: that an artist feels an inner calling to create. Or maybe we artists deserve the stereotypical image of dreamy people with too much time on their hands if we can’t even explain our own essence. The more time I spend thinking about this, the more questions I have and the fewer answers, yet on the other hand, everything seems clear to me. When someone asks me why I used certain colours for a painting, the question seems so pointless to me that I’d rather not answer it. The colours are the way they are because they simply have to be that way; otherwise, the painting wouldn’t work... It’s that simple. After all the time I have spent in the studio and devoted to thinking, I no longer question the colours of a finished painting—that’s in the past. But people don’t know this, and the question isn’t as pointless as it seems to me. Still, I often prefer to answer that the colours are the way they are simply because I like them. Who cares how many failed colour combinations it took to make something look right to my eyes? How many hours were thrown away to create something tangible? Time is something we artists absolutely need to exist; it is a privilege we must fight to win every day, especially because others think that we have it in abundance.
Since Slovenian Railways are even more unpredictable than the exhibition fees at Slovenian galleries, I haven’t taken the train for almost the entire summer. It’s a good thing the conditions on Slovenian highways are so bad that we’re stuck in traffic almost every day, so I don’t focus as much on driving as I do on my thoughts. At least art doesn’t suffer on this account. I’m reading a lot less, though, and all the podcasters are at the beach, too. Fall will be here soon, and with it, exhibitions and curators will return—and suddenly they’ll desperately need updated résumés and titles for exhibitions that won’t happen for another six months. If I’m lucky, during the summer, someone with a little extra cash who’d like to buy my painting might come along, but even that is about as unpredictable as a train on Slovenian tracks. Time and money—that’s really what an artist needs to survive. Actually, time and money are what everyone needs… Maybe we artists aren’t so different after all.
A productive fall and a logistically busy winter have come and gone. With two major exhibitions behind me, I’m once again sitting on the train to Ljubljana. The golden light of the spring sun has returned, and with it the longer days I’ve missed over the past few months. Among the thoughts that traditionally race through my head, a reflection on how to move forward has crept in. The exhibition I opened at the beginning of the year increasingly represents a kind of milestone for me, from which the path back is difficult—nor do I want to take it. What was of secondary importance to me just a year ago is now increasingly coming to the forefront, and I am placing ever greater significance on the structures that underlie the creation of exhibitions. It is no longer important to me merely to have an exhibition, but also where, with whom, and in what kind of relationships. Given all the time, work, and money we artists devote to our creative practice, any additional work that falls on our shoulders seems superfluous to me. When I think about how much time I spent packing all the works even more carefully than usual because of past bad experiences, and all the favours I had to ask to be satisfied with the exhibition, it sometimes seems to me that our (artistic) endeavours are truly pointless. Especially when I look at the bigger picture... The global rise of the right and hatred, the genocide in Palestine, the ecological destruction of the planet, and so on and so forth. How am I supposed to fight against all the horrors of reality through my art? Although I highlight the importance of community, cooperation, and coexistence in my work, I currently find it hard to overlook humanity’s ignorance. I’m starting to wonder not only why, but also for whom I should even be exhibiting anymore. How can one believe that your thoughts and art will touch people who, within a single government term, forget what was taken from them and how they were oppressed, and can even less reflect on their role in what is happening and on how we are all dependent on one another. Above all, how those who dictate our lives depend on us.
Political events, both locally and globally, can very easily be mirrored in any other situation, but since I am an artist, I find their reflection in my own environment. Galleries too rarely realize that without artists, their spaces are empty and without purpose; that without artists, curators have nothing to curate; and that technicians and other staff members at these institutions are there precisely because of the artists of the past, present, and future. Unfortunately, the reality is usually the exact opposite, and we artists all too often get the feeling that we are a necessary evil, that we are being done a favour, and that we can only be quiet, accommodating, and grateful for the opportunity to serve others as a tool for a monthly income. I believe that some of those listed feel exactly the same, just from a different perspective… Like all relationships, the one between artists and cultural workers is a two-way street, and it is only right that artists, too, recognize the importance of others. Just as we hear all too often about poor practices in cultural institutions, we also hear all too often about proud and egotistical artists who are impossible to work with. At a time when we condemn everything indiscriminately, a look in the mirror wouldn’t hurt either.
SUPPORTING PILLARS
I was raised to be a person with a strong work ethic, and although nothing was ever forced upon me, it was taken for granted that I would work during the summer holidays in the carpentry workshop. My parents say that I even came up with this idea on my own, and if it were up to me, I would have spent my summer vacation in the dust of the woodworking shop as early as the fourth grade of elementary school. Perhaps that’s why I look at the word “artist” with disdain. Artists are considered by most people to be lazy, and I am not lazy. I have always frowned upon reading descriptions of individuals on social media who easily label themselves as artists. With most, it seems too early, and with others, undeserved, while those who truly deserve the title usually don’t shout it out loud. Others label them as artists. On top of that, there’s the mocking way the word is used, referring not to someone actually engaged in art but to someone who carelessly maneuvers through life without any responsibility or contribution. This politely condescending usage is present in all societies and, despite its humorous nature, is degrading. It’s as if this “artist” is a hopeless case who doesn’t even deserve direct disapproval from society, since society assigns them so little importance that their existence is understood only as an unfortunate coincidence. I am aware of how absurd this aversion to the word is, a word that more and more frequently describes me. I still believe I don’t deserve it. When I fill out application forms or update my resume, I am always in doubt about how to present myself… For now, I’m stuck with the phrase “visual artist.” Every time, I think of films in which people lie in job interviews, exaggerating their competencies. Since I find it hard to adopt this title, I feel like a fraud. Although it is the only title by which I truly identify.
It’s uncomfortable every time someone asks me what I do. Since I do many things, it’s hard to choose just one, the main one, as that would give it more meaning and ultimately define me. If I started listing everything I do, I would seem unserious and unsettled, as if I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do in life. That everything is done half-heartedly. I don’t know why it’s so hard to say that I am a painter, sculptor, graphic artist… Just an artist. That I exhibit my work and that, in general, people appreciate it. Instead of being proud, I feel guilty and privileged because I am following my dreams. Another phrase I find repulsive… It sounds so romantic and kitschy. Dreams are something associated with sleep, lazing around, laziness. It’s good that I never finished my studies at the academy, as I would have been labeled a graduate or academic painter. Then I would be a lazy dreamer with a diploma. And automatically, this would imply that other lazy people are worth less than me because they are not educated. What nonsense. Anyone seriously involved in art knows that it does not allow space for laziness. That practice becomes second nature, requiring routine and exercise, through which you gain courage and confidence in your ideas and their execution. Even when you’re not physically involved in work, you think about it and develop it. I am convinced that the intellectual part of artistic practice is just as important, if not more so, than the actual execution. I treat execution almost like the work I did in the carpentry shop as a child. If you know what you need to do, with what tools and how, the execution is just the final step in the process. The difference between furniture and an artwork is that with furniture, you know exactly when it is finished, while with an artwork, there is always doubt. If we accept the thesis that each subsequent work is better than the one just finished, then this doubt is justified. When I look at my works from a few years ago, I see mistakes I wouldn’t make now… If I made them now, they would certainly look different. But at that time and in that space, they were exactly right to bring me to the point where I am now. In five years, I’ll probably think the same about the painting I finished yesterday.
The first piece of art that sparked my interest and stood out in the sea of amateur art, with which we were mostly surrounded in the countryside, was a small reproduction of Guernica, hanging in the hallway at my grandparents’ house. A souvenir from the Prado Museum, which my grandmother hung next to her book collection. She certainly never thought that this poster, hung in the corner of the dark hallway, would have such an impact on her grandson. I only became aware of the significance of the reproduction recently when I walked down the hallway after a long time and paused in front of it for a moment. Despite the poor quality, damage, and sagging frame, Guernica still has the same impressive effect as it did when I first saw it. After Picasso, there came Ivo Šubic, Mihelič, and Svetina. All dead… Their lives seemed so distant to me that I never for a moment thought they could be a part of me. I heard about peers who enrolled in design high school and later the academy. How they had been drawing all their lives, how their notebooks were filled with drawings instead of notes, and how they fell in love with drawing by flipping through comics. Although I drew a lot as a child, I never felt like I was part of that club, maybe because I was never drawn to comics. I preferred books with long sentences, excerpts, and chapters, and if they didn’t have drawings, photos, or illustrations, even better. A bit ignorantly, I decided that architecture would be the right direction for me… Craftsmanship and art in harmony. I was wrong. Now I know that architecture rarely turns into art, just as design often walks the fine line between art and craft. But due to various interests, it mostly leans toward craftsmanship. Art is individual, and it primarily serves the one who produces it, and that suits me; descriptive geometry does not. Moreover, I’ve always felt like someone who doesn’t belong in architecture. I only felt a sense of belonging when I started studying at the academy. There, I gained more knowledge from my classmates than from the professors and further strengthened my belief that art cannot be learned. However, you can learn technique, broaden your horizons, and prepare for the political cultural system, which is inevitable. The latter is also responsible for putting a gun to the cornfield of many emerging artists. It is permeated with favoritism, cronyism, and nepotism. And if endless urging from everyone doesn’t drain your will for serious artistic practice, it can be the dysfunctional system, which is supposed to support artists, that nails the final coffin. The system that is supposed to care for art, artists, and preserve cultural heritage mostly cares for a select few employees and their friends. Every time a new government takes power, they fade into the background and wait for the next round, yet another simplified example of how cyclical life is in all areas. The system provides just enough crumbs for artists who are skilled and diligent to survive without complaining too much. After all, society constantly criticizes them for living on the brink of poverty with some paid contributions, as a privilege they don’t deserve because they haven’t worked hard for it. At least until they achieve some major success (usually abroad). Then everyone praises them and shares in the credit for their existence.
Until I wrote the previous paragraph, I never thought about how much I was marked by the listed artists from my childhood. Now, when I look at Guernica or Šubic’s frescoes, I see more similarities with my own work than with the works of the artists I like most today. Even more, I realize the influence of my grandmother, who introduced me to these artists. Although it’s just a few names, their oeuvres are so powerful that they sparked an interest that still persists. What particularly fascinated me was their depiction of sadness, horrors, misery… Raw and honest, they served as witnesses to the lives of the common people, giving them strength and meaning that was missing from history books. Svetina even went so far as to create his sculptures from shrapnel of broken bombs. He created life from death and a tangible reminder of the horrors of humanity. People forget too quickly, but art remains. Artists observe, question, and critically think about things that concern us, directly or indirectly. The sum of our thinking ends up in works that can be more or less direct. When you start looking at art from this perspective, the idea of laziness and meaninglessness quickly dissolves. People’s identities are preserved and built through cultural heritage and heroes, who we now celebrate, assign holidays to, and name awards after. Most of them barely made ends meet during their lifetime because society didn’t understand them and the authorities didn’t care. The pillars of civilization are eccentrics, lazy dreamers with advanced ideas and the courage to follow their dreams. Without these supporting pillars, the ceiling in a house of limited size may exist, but its existence is predictable and boring. With supporting pillars, we expand our horizons and enrich our lives. Just as without supporting pillars, the ceiling will collapse sooner or later, society would not exist as we know it today without artists, even if it continues to reject them.