Please Don't Paint Me

The dead, but still stately, cottonwood tree in the image above is located in Leavenworth Landing Park, along the banks of the Missouri River in Leavenworth, Kansas, USA. The snag is slated to be painted blue as part of a global project related to promoting awareness of mental health issues. While this is a noble cause, the side effects of landscape art installations like this should give us pause.

The Blue Tree Project has its roots in the tragic story of Australian Jayden Whyte, whose suicide at age twenty-nine gripped headlines in 2018. During the eulogy at Whyte’s funeral, his best friend related the story of how Jayden had pranked his father by painting one of the trees on the family farm blue. That became the inspiration to paint trees elsewhere as a reminder to check on the mental wellbeing of loved ones, and foster a greater awareness of issues surrounding mental health.

There are now numerous painted trees, and other objects, throughout the world, on every continent except Antarctica. There are currently 1,138 trees registered by Blue Tree Project, mostly in Australia.

Some communities have taken to erecting facsimile trees instead of painting actual trees. One of the more innovative examples is a tree of fifteen basketball hoops. Unfortunately, the website for Blue Tree Project does not indicate where these artificial trees are located, nor how they were constructed.

While this endeavor is meant to send a specific, clearly posted message, what else is implied by turning trees into artistic and/or humanitarian vehicles? One message is that it is permissible to deface a natural object, at least if you have an important agenda. This is vandalism in any other context. We are also saying that nature is something that can only be improved upon by the hand of man. Natural landscapes, and the living things within them, must serve some kind of utilitarian value in order to justify their existence, even if that means reducing them to a “canvas” for artistic expression. This is not ok.

The Blue Trees (plural) is a landscape installation project by artist Konstantin Dimopoulos, designed in part to evoke thoughts about “ecological issues, such as the ecocide of our forests and climate change, and….raising our social consciousness referencing how individually and collectively we shape the world we inhabit.” His exhibitions involve painting the trunks of entire groves of trees a deep blue color.

The pinnacle of artistic hubris may be demonstrated by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Their landscape-level work was temporary, and performed mostly in urban areas, wrapping buildings or monuments in fabric, usurping the profile and work of the original architects. They prided themselves on avoiding “deserted places,” focusing on “….sites already prepared and used by people, managed by human beings for human beings.” This did include vast rural expanses, though, featuring fabric fences, fabric “gates,” curtains, and other potential impediments to the normal traffic of wildlife, and obscuring scenic vistas. In Surrounded Islands, they draped a hot pink fabric skirt on the surface of the water around eleven separate islands (two were surrounded together). Who knows how marine life was affected.

Where does art cross the line into damage? Who gets the authority to decide? Do we give enough critical thought to these questions? Ideally, artistic license should not trespass on the works of the Creator, if one believes in such an entity. We should not allow historical precedent to dictate the path forward, either.

There are strong and valid arguments to support the fact that Mount Rushmore defaced a mountain held sacred by Indigenous Americans. Stone Mountain in Georgia features the carved depiction of three prominent figures of the Confederacy from the Civil War. The monument glorifies White supremacy, and overwhelms the stories of the Black people who once lived and worked there, and who still reside in local communities. It also defaces a natural landscape feature that figured prominently in Indigenous occupation of the region.

Don’t get me wrong. Art can be a powerful stimulus for positive social and cultural change. It need not be permanent nor massive in scale. I do wonder, though, what will happen when that old dead cottonwood at last falls into the river, as erosion is inevitable. Will the paint contaminate the water, or negatively affect aquatic life? Will another tree be painted to replace it?

Sources: Dimopoulos, Konstantin. 2024. “About the Blue Trees,” Kondimopoulos.
Meachim, Laura. 2019. “Blue Tree Project tackles mental health and suicide in regional Australia,” ABC News, September 30, 2019.
Powers, Benjamin. 2018. “In the Shadow of Stone Mountain,” Smithsonian Magazine.
Spellman, Rebecca. 2020. “Harrowing story behind a solitary blue tree in drought-stricken land takes a sinister turn as it’s found burned to the ground,” Daily Mail, February 17, 2020.
”Most Common Errors,”Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

One Hundred Percent AI-Free!

I am old enough to remember a humorous theoretical problem that asked something to the effect of how many years would it take a group of monkeys sitting at typewriters to crank out the works of Shakespeare. Fast forward to today, in the age of machine learning, and the questions are barely theoretical and the time frame horrifyingly immediate. How long before artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms make writers and other artists obsolete?

My one and only avatar, courtesy of my partner, Heidi, running an image through a popular filter in 2021

There is a lot to unpack here, and if you have not devoted time to follow digital and technological advances, you have some catching up to do. I am grateful there are watchdogs like Sean Thomas, who recently wrote an illuminating overview (but dark forecast) in The Spectator.Maggie Appleton penned an even more thoughtful summary in her blog. Few of us in the creative fields pay close enough attention to these things, if only in part because we do not want to know how threatening it truly is.

Artificial intelligence, as it applies to artistic endeavors in general, only came on to my own radar when friends in social media, namely Facebook, began to post about how AI images are generated. My understanding is that the algorithms are “trained” through exposure to countless existing images, overwhelmingly created by living, breathing humans. This is a form of data mining that does not credit its sources. An AI image is essentially a composite of an unknown number of previous images that informed its digital genesis. With no credit, let alone compensation, to the original artists, this is tantamount to theft.

The technology is also quickly outpacing the ability of governments to regulate it. Heck, most people in the U.S. Congress are probably blissfully unaware of it. This has not escaped the notice of the legal community, though, and a class-action lawsuit was filed recently on behalf of artists whose works were used without authorization by an AI program known as Stable Diffusion.

Ironically, and perhaps tragically, a previous legal case, Author’s Guild v. Google, resulted in a favorable decision for Google Books, which took substantial liberties in providing free “previews” of text and images for books in its search engine. Shoot, I thought that was a great thing at the time the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America came out. Only a couple of spreads of plates and text would have sufficed, though.

I hate to be a cynic, but it seems apparent that corporations ultimately want a world with nothing but consumers. Everything on the production side they want automated, or at least outsourced at poverty wages. Material wealth is for CEOs and majority shareholders. Never mind that without earning a living, there can be no consumers. That is an afterthought in this day and age. Advertising copy and imagery will soon be done by computer, and does art serve any other purpose anyway?

To the best of my ability, I will be avoiding anything AI, and will not use it in creating my own writing and photography. Heck, I do not even use Grammarly, maybe because I am fortunate to have friends who are better editors than I am. They will not hesitate to message me with anything that needs correcting. Meanwhile, I will be a happy agitator for the rights of all individual human beings, especially those who are creators. Let not the corporate voices drown out the disadvantaged and underrepresented. Not on my watch.

I want to give special thanks to my friends and colleagues who originally provided the links cited here: Gwen Pearson, J.C. Scott, Steve Taylor, and Jonathan Kochmer.

Art is What You Make (of it)

What do a banana taped to a wall and snowshoe tracks in a mountain landscape have in common? Both qualify as art, or not, depending on your point of view. Debating the definition of art is a useful and important exercise, if only within our own individual minds. It informs our personal and collective aesthetic, and our morality.

© abcnews.go.com and Maurizio Cattelan

The wall-mounted banana by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan might have made the news just for the $120,000 price tag it commanded, but the ingestion of the piece is what got the attention of the media. Evidently, the man who tore the duct tape off and consumed the fruit, David Datuna, is himself a performance artist who claimed that his act of eating it was itself a form of art. Here, it would appear that art is a matter of convenience, publicity, and questionable ethics. Is art for the sake of fame and/or notoriety really art?

Meanwhile, in mountain landscapes around the globe, Simon Beck creates stunning, large scale patterns by tromping across the snow in snowshoes. He gains inspiration at least in part from the intricate designs of snowflakes themselves. He will be coming here to Colorado in January to no doubt make something magnificent. Beck has also done similar work in sandscapes.

The personal choices of the artist, and the range of interpretations among the audience, make art the most universal expression of freedom that there is.

Both the banana and the snow tracks are ephemeral. Fruit spoils, tracks are quickly obliterated. One thread I read in social media asserted that Beck’s work was not art because it “has no meaning.” I found myself boiling at that remark, but was not sure why. I started writing….

”Wow. One could ask what is the meaning of a sandcastle, a snowman, an ice sculpture, a decorated cake, or any other ephemeral piece of art. If anything, I think this is astonishing precisely BECAUSE of the labor involved knowing the results could be gone in the next hour. The message? Appreciate the NOW, that is all we have."

This goes to the root of what makes art such a volatile subject. Art is whatever you make of it, but the intent of the artist is key. Art can be used as a weapon, as a way to empower or a way to oppress. Art can be propaganda or it can be a tool of social change for the better. Art can be whimsical or profound, humorous or gut-wrenching. The audience decides whether to elevate works to an iconic level or deem them worthy of the trash bin, but there will always be dissenting voices. The personal choices of the artist, and the range of interpretations among the audience, make art the most universal expression of freedom that there is.

It may be telling that I am personally much more likely to hold contempt for those offering derogatory opinions and comments about a given work than I am for artists who I still may not celebrate as genius or buffoon. You have the right to create something and call it art, but then again you do have the right to your point of view as an onlooker. What sparked your outburst of praise or condemnation, though? That is what I want to know. You were moved, but why? Honest conversation should be valued more than it is, and is itself a form of artistry we should all aspire to.

I was living in Cincinnati at the time that Robert Mapplethorpe’s posthumous “The Perfect Moment” came to the Contemporary Arts Center in 1990. Controversy surrounded the sexual and homosexual images in the exhibit, and protests and a trial ensued. I felt it was my civic duty to patronize the exhibit, regardless of whether I agreed with all aspects of it. Yes, there were photographs that made me uncomfortable, but many more that made me laugh, or simply gawk at the jaw-dropping beauty of orchids and the human figure. Besides, exposing yourself to discomfort is underrated. It tends to cultivate empathy. There is no doubt in my mind that Mapplethorpe fully embraced, and celebrated, everything that makes us human, from an appreciation of the natural world to our sexual proclivities. There was zero malice to be found in his intent.

What is your own threshold for “art?” Does it hinge on the degree of effort exercised in executing the piece? What about the degree of effort you put into making your interpretation? Do you scoff and move on? How do you express your appreciation? Is it by assigning an arbitrary monetary value to it at auction? Do you leave flattering comments in the guest book at the gallery? There is an art to evaluating art, wouldn’t you say?

Advice to Creative People

I could probably summarize my advice to other creative people in one sentence: "Get comfortable with yourself." What would be the fun in that, though? It takes awhile to grow into that mindset anyway, so here are some thoughts that might help you get there faster.

Value your works

Maybe the first thing you have to appreciate is that what you produce are "works": irreproducible images, passages, and other products of your personal vision, interpretation, and mind. Social media, and the digital age in general, has severely eroded the value that our society once assigned to the arts. Don't stand for that. Demand compensation, within reason of course, that reflects what you put into a given work. Recognize your worth as an artist and human being and don't back down from it.

Don't emulate anyone else

It is very easy to fall into the trap of believing that if you....followed the writing routine of Elmore Leonard, say, you would be much more productive and successful. Balderdash. Not everyone works the same way. A routine that is effective for one person is completely inappropriate for another. Seldom are even two consecutive days the same for my own writing style. If you are producing, then you are doing what works for you. Only if you fail completely to produce, over a long period, do you need to re-think your approach.

Make your art a priority

You do have to make your creative endeavors a priority in your life if you want to be successful. Still, recognize that on some days, even the best at their craft would sooner have a root canal than sit down at the desk, stand at the easel, or whatever. Just the same, remember that healthy eating, exercise, cultivating loving relationships with others, and personal education are also necessary for your productivity. A diversity of activities each day, or at least each week, is key to keeping energized and creative. I make it a point to take a brisk 30-minute walk every day, unless the weather poses a threat to my health.

The myth of the muse

One cannot rely on someone else, or something else for inspiration. "Write (draw, paint, etc) what you know" is a constant refrain from teachers and mentors, but there is good reason for that advice. It is a steady stream feeding your creative self, and it lends uniqueness to your voice. You must believe in your personal perspective, realm of experience, and style of expression. My personal desire to change public attitudes towards insects, spiders, and other "unlovable" creatures drives me daily. What I don't already know I learn; and I infuse my writing and photography with my personal enthusiasm and awe for the natural world.

There is no "writer's block"

If you are passionate about your work, there is no valve on creative flow. It is a constant torrent. What can happen is periodic lack of motivation and/or a lack of focus. Many of us are prone to distraction, maybe even have undiagnosed ADD. Committing to one project, be it an essay, novel, painting, or commissioned sculpture, may seem impossible at times because other projects or life events are clamoring for our attention. That is natural and afflicts everyone regardless of their occupation or career. Accept that this will happen, and take extra care of your physical and mental health when it does.

Don't compare yourself to others

Many times this will be a pitfall, something that consumes you when you are vulnerable to a sudden attack of an inferiority complex. Your measure of success must be your own. You may be prone to jealousy and envy, but most of us are. Use those emotions as motivation, not as an excuse to wallow or give up. Your uniqueness is all you have going for you. Celebrate it.

Get comfortable with turmoil

There is some truth to the "suffering artist" cliché. Passion often comes from personal experiences, circumstances, or world events and issues that you react viscerally to. Channel the rage, anger, hostility, or pain into something that moves others. Personally, I believe my greatest successes are when I express opinions and beliefs that are shared by others, but that those other people never dared broadcast out of fear. What would their friends think? How dare they say that! Be that kind of daredevil.

Don't apologize

This comes on the heels of being fearless. Do not be fearful of changing your mind or attitude when confronted by an opposing point of view that has merit; but don't apologize for expressing yourself in the moment, espousing your own personal interpretations (be they written, drawn, painted, sculpted, sung, etc) of your world. You are not responsible for how others receive your works. Your intent should never be to willfully hurt others, but you are going to cause wounds now and again and you have to accept that as part of the price of the creative process. Forgive yourself when that happens.

Don't live by someone else's standards

Did I say that already? Well, it bears repeating. Here is "A Cartoonist's Advice," by Bill Watterson, the man behind Calvin and Hobbes:

"Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble."

Write your own rules

Whatever you may take from this blog post, there is greater value in what you decide is best for yourself. You will always be your own worst critic, but you have to also be your staunchest advocate. There is no one else capable to making you great. So, pin those self-affirming statements to the wall over your desk, to the frame of your easel, or mirror, or monitor. Experience joy. Make sacrifices. Accept occasional poverty (in the financial sense only). Think. Feel. Live. That is all that art is.