Choices Are Handcuffs

…a post in which I pretend to talk about design as an excuse to get you to look at some drawings.

Back in the pre-Cambrian 90s I decided it would be a good idea to get a Master’s in Fine Art. Mostly it was a good idea because it kept me from having to get a job, and kept student loans at bay for a few more years. As anyone who’s ever gotten an MFA degree can tell you, there’s really not much classroom learning that happens. You’re basically paying someone to let you sit in a studio and do whatever it is you do.

My problem was that I wanted to try everything, and ended up mastering nothing.

I’d rove from department to department figuring out how things work and then faking my way through it. Graduate school was about access to tons of equipment and knowledge; it was about access. Enjoying all of that access was much more appealing than mastering one specific area or “honing a craft”.

It was during these departmental explorations that I discovered the design department; which was begrudgingly hidden away in a dark corner of the art building like an unwanted distant relative. It was there that I learned the basics of design and typography and whatnot; but it was always with an idea that it would be fed back into the art stuff.

I should also point out that I hate “doing” things. I didn’t enjoy painting, or drawing, or doodling. I enjoyed figuring out a problem, or the way to communicate an idea, and then executing it to prove that I was right. To me the exciting part happened in my head and the physical part was just a necessary after-effect. That said; I always enjoyed seeing the executed finished piece.

And so I entered the post-college world and realized that I could make a living with the skills that I’d accidentally picked up in the design department, and life being what it is, the accidental career overtook the planned one. And why not? Design is about all the stuff I like; problem-solving, constraints, and the eventual release of the solution.

As time went on though, I missed having an outlet for my own ideas. And since I spent the majority of my time designing websites for clients (which I love doing, btw!) the last thing I wanted to do was design more websites. So I pulled out the old paints. And here’s where things get interesting: there were too many colors, I didn’t have a studio, and having mastered nothing I could start anywhere.

There were false starts.

Finally, it occurred to me that I needed constraints. So I applied some basic rules of design and made myself my own client. Any idea that can be expressed in color should be able to be expressed in black and white, so I threw all the other colors out. I took an inventory of my possible work spaces: I had a kitchen table that needed to be cleared by morning. That meant I had to work on paper and do things that would dry quickly and be rolled up by morning. That left subject matter to be dealt with.

What should I paint? Well, I asked myself, what do you ENJOY? I enjoy pestering people. I enjoy saying things that make them cringe and I enjoy being funny. I enjoy leaving funny comments all over the internet. So I decided to just paint the kind of stupid comments I’d ordinarily leave on people’s blogs and whatnot. To add another constraint I decided that the words would always be typeset in Helvetica, which is an excellent default.

I’d created constraints for myself: Words on paper using black paint. Having successfully created the constraints I needed. The floodgates opened—I’ve been painting non-stop.

You can see some of the results at The Beholder. It’s art, so bring your checkbook.

Written by Mike Monteiro on February 13, 2008 |