Tag: ethics

What is a “Personal Style”?

In painting, it is really possible to look at a picture and say, “Oh, that is by so-and-so.”  If you are familiar with a painter, you become familiar with his / her style.  You can tell by the light, by the brushwork, by the colors, by the subject.  It’s like your face in the mirror – you know it instinctively.  This knowledge of what someone’s style “looks like” makes me question myself:  What is my style?

The fact is, I don’t have a style, unless I were to call it messy and scribbly.  This occurs when I don’t think about a composition or what I want to do, but just do.  I cannot say this produces much which I like.  Once I am involved in working on a piece, I do seem to be able to deal with compositional elements, and can say when to finish, and say, oops!  shouldn’t have done that!

So, when does one’s own style emerge?  Is it a conscious choice?  Is it something which develops slowly?

This question came to me last night when I was putzing around, following another Peter Sheeler video and practicing his exercises.  There is an ethical question here:  is it acceptable to do this?  I think it is, as he is posting his videos online for people to learn from – and I have been learning, most certainly!  The lack of ethics would be to pass them off as my own.

The lesson from last night was using wet-in-wet to paint trees.  Mine are not as successful, mostly because my paper is not the same as he uses.  The lesson was good, though, as the focus was on the trees and the bloom of the colors on a wet surface.  The rest of the lesson was good as I watched him put in shadows which, left to my own imagination, would not have shown up.  The lesson there is to think about where the sun is coming from, imagine it, see it in the mind’s eye, and then paint it.  That’s a valuable lesson.

Thus:  Peter Sheeler’s video on wet-in-wet.

And my own painting.

 

I found it interesting to see myself adding the spatters and the shingles on the roof, which weren’t in Peter’s original drawing.  Is this the beginning of my own style?

The Ethics of Absolutes

Yesterday someone asked me if people should always report things they think are unethical or wrong.

Given who asked me this, it really was not a surprising question.  This person is an extremist, absolutist in almost every situation which occurs.  The words always and never are the boundaries of existence.  No compromise.  Take no enemies.  Win.

What happens when you live life like this?  I don’t think you can experience joy.  I also think that people like this are intrinsically unhappy and have a poor sense of the I and the thou.  I know this person has few friends, and the few who are willing to befriend have to put up with a lot of crap.

Life is a series of adaptations and negotiations.  What benefits me will benefit you.  What benefits you will benefit me.  We both win.

In politics, moderates and “evil” liberals look to compromise.  In totalitarian regimes, the people in power are right, and the rules are ones they make, and they are always correct.  In far right politics, there is only one way to do things, which is the way of that rightist, and everyone else is wrong, and budge thou shalt not, even if everything else goes to hell and comes to a screeching halt and people die.  Win!


Questions like this never cease to fascinate and trouble me.  Mulling them over takes time.  People who are so extreme are very brittle – rattle their world and they blow up.  They just cannot adapt gracefully, but struggle and fight the process of change.  For them, compromise and understanding of another’s reality is not in their Survival Handbook.  To do so is to admit failure, to be unsuccessful, to lose, be defeated, to have no personal power.

We all need to have boundaries, take a stance every now and then, stick to our guns on some things to survive – but an inability to adapt to daily fluctuations is disastrous in terms of interpersonal relationships.  It’s a lifetime of failure and a slow death of the self as good and wonderful.

Experiencing such people can be toxic if you do not see it.  I don’t most of the time.

When I encounter such people, I wonder about my own values and think I must be amoral as I am not adamant, do not have a strong sense of right and wrong, and am laissez-faire about most things.  Yes, there are times when I have strong opinions – but I don’t expect the world to frog march to my outlook.

My locus of control is internal.  I know that I can let those with the ethics of absolutes rule my life – or not.  Freeing myself from their poison is hard, but necessary.  I pity them, resent them for the hell they cause, but emerge with yet another perspective of human nature, and hopefully a bit more adept at recognizing them before I even encounter them so I can take a path to avoid them.

Lazy me.