May

9

Barn blind and herding dogs

Filed Under Judy Wood 


For a few years now, I have been receiving the twice weekly Robert Genn postings on art and art related topics. Even though they are “painter-centric” and I’m anything but a painter, I find them generally to be interesting and insightful.

A recent one was titled “kalopsia” and discussed this term, which in essence describes the illusion of things appearing more beautiful than they really are. Of course one could go off on a tangent here about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, beauty being subjective, cultural, or whatever, but I’m not going to head off in any of those directions. What he was addressing was the inability of some artists to be able to see their own work as anything other than totally wonderful and beautiful, even when to the eyes of others it might have any number of areas where it is less than successful or even adequate. In the horse world, we would call this being “barn blind”. Same concept, only in this case it is our horses that are absolutely perfect beings with no possible faults of any sort to be found. Really, it’s like a description of the early stages of being in love.

I think I have experienced some artists who function in this state. They often produce quite stiff work with no noticeable merit or technical skill, but they are totally convinced that this is fine work of the highest order. Unless and until they are able to recognize their own flaws and shortcomings, it is unlikely they will ever improve their eye or their execution. Which is fine and is their right, as long as they don’t expect the rest of the world to go along with their assessment or to hand over large amounts of money for their work.

I have suffered from this to a minor degree over the years, off and on, with some of my non-photo artwork, although with the passage of a little time I have always become aware of, and often embarrassed by, the works that fell short of what I was trying to achieve. Funny how putting a masterpiece aside for a few months can cause a sharp drop in its quality. Kind of like those wonderfully fitting clothes that suddenly change size on you after they’ve been in the closet for a while.

With my photo work, on the other hand, I suffer from reverse kalopsia. Not sure if there is special term for that affliction. I go out and do whatever photo mission I’m bent on, then gleefully rush home and download the shots. Disappointment! They’re awful. What was I thinking? How on earth do I have the nerve to call myself a photographer? I can’t stand to look at them any more so they get relegated to a folder in the backup hard drive and I move on. Sometimes months or even a year or so will go by before I go back and revisit these shots. Strangely, they have often improved tremendously in the elapsed time, and many are quite good. Maybe it’s the aging process, like wine, that improves the product. Whatever it is, this is really a pleasant surprise and an encouragement for me to keep on keeping on.

Today’s shots are from one of those tucked away and avoided file folders. My backup drive is starting to get full, and rather than having to do the dance with Jim about needing a much larger external hard drive (which I do, and will get, but not just yet) I’m trying to delete the extraneous stuff, which is what caused me to go back through the build-up of the past year’s shoots.

The images today are from a sheep herding demo at Pioneer Days here last August, and from a subsequent shoot I arranged at the farm of the dog owner. She is a gifted and dedicated trainer of herding dogs and was generous in working her dogs for me so I could get some shots. The first shot is a photomontage of one of her border collies and the sheep. Shot number two features one of her young dogs, not yet in serious training when I was out there last fall, but showing signs of great intensity and the work ethic required for working herding dogs.

To read the Robert Genn “Kalopsia” article, check the link http://clicks.robertgenn.com/kalopsia.php

And I’d also like to put in a word for the latest posting on my daughter’s blog, which is also dog related. The link to her blog is http://margaretsymons.blogspot.com/ May 7 posting.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.

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