Fighting With Feelings and Moving On

Just Happy | Acrylic on Canvas | 30" x 40" | 2021

"Did you know XYZ thing isn't actually true and is just an old wives tale"

"No it isn't. My mom always told me it was true"

An all too familiar situation we're all guilty of: being presented with new information and rebuking it without seriously considering the new information that has been presented to us because our mom told it to us growing up. Not calling anyone's mom a liar, but surely no person knows EVERYTHING there is to know despite how we may feel. It is, however, oh so very difficult to refute information you've thought to be true your entire life. We're all guilty of this, and if knowledge is infinite, then so is ignorance. There's both an abundance of knowledge to be had as well as a plethora of ignorance.

More important that attempting to learn everything there is to know, is learning how to process information. New knowledge should be processed as such:

Examine claims made -> attempt to both refute and support claims -> draw conclusions.

In reality, it often goes like this:

Examine claims made -> compare it to our preconceived notions on the subject -> draw conclusions

Processing this information in a meaningful way is imperative to continual personal growth and understanding being that change is inevitable and constant. The older we get, however, our neural pathways being more defined and less flexible, encouraging us to make the same decisions based on the same knowledge we know even if things have changed. This can make it difficult for people to adjust as times change. And as times change, "I don't know" becomes are more understandable conclusion to draw everyday.

I find this framework particularly useful as we see the art world changing at almost a daily pace. There are so many new, burgeoning avenues that have yet to be explored. The potential of these avenues is almost infinite, but it can be difficult for many people to adjust to these new innovations. At the same time film photography is making a comeback, so is AI art. This juxtaposition is beautiful and scary.

Old pathways will die, and new ones will grow.

Old pathways will grow, new ones will die.

It is my hypothesis that the art world will move in two directions generally speaking:

• Towards the innovation: artist will leverage any new and existing technologies to advance their practice. AI derived art is inevitable. It's a new avenue with infinite possibilities. This new technology will also take some artist's jobs, just as phone cameras took photographers jobs (although not all of them), but will still provide new means of creation.

• Towards (their) truth: artists will delve back into the fundamentals of their practices as a rebellion against the perceptively 'cheaper' new art forms. Photographers shoot film, painters use oil paint, and sculptors do what they've always done.

Now that our art has reached a point where it's attainable to everyone, many people will seek to separate themselves by practicing the bare fundamentals of their craft which is less attainable. People will also seek to separate themselves by becoming experts at these new technologies. These two movements are not necessarily mutually exclusive but will tend to be. I'm not sure if one group in particular will endure longer, but there is a sense that artist will switch between both movements of sorts.

It will be truly exciting to see how new technologies influence the art world for better or for worse. So, I ask you, how do you process information? How do you process things that contradict what you know?

Happenings

Nothing currently, but look on my instagram page to view a recap of the abstract art class I recently taught at Bfree Studio!

<3

Cole The Renaissance