Because Nothing Says “Young Adult Literature”…
…like full segments on modern art.
Oy, my friends are already saying I’m taking a big risk and I’m only a fifth of the way through the book. You see, I go to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden quite often for inspiration. I don’t claim to understand the technical aspects of what I’m looking at but it always amazed me how someone stares at a canvas or a clump of materials and says, “I’m going to create this with it.”
I love the old masters, don’t get me wrong, but when I walk the Hirshhorn I get this feeling of modern day artists creating something from nothing. They’re not being commissioned to create a portrait or a fresco based on some biblical or historical narrative. They just create and they’ll often leave openings in their creation that don’t really have a definitive meaning.
Since my novel is about a character that knows everything about the past, present, and future I think it’s a great idea to put him inside the Hirshhorn early on. The Hirshhorn, to me, represents the absence of facts, one of the few places that my character can stumble into and, for the first time in his life, find that he doesn’t have all of the answers.
The idea came to me on a recent trip, when some tourist was looking at Clyfford Still’s 1950-M No. 1. The man sort of grunted, turned to his daughter and said, “You can do that. You should be an artist.”
I tried to put my main character in that situation and figure out what would go through his mind. He’d instantly realize that it’s true; this girl could recreate that painting. But if she was staring at a blank canvas and never seen this work before, would she create that painting? Although he wouldn’t have a definitive answers (monkeys, typewriters, Shakespeare) it would be a safe bet that she wouldn’t.
And that’s sort of the very nature of art and it presents itself as an escape for my character, a child that knows everything. If he stares at a blank canvas what will he create? Anything he wants. There’s no definitive answer.
Of course, to bring it back to pop culture and move it towards something I know more about I decide to flex my character’s interest in creating a narrative and art and, naturally, he starts making comic books at an early age.
It just takes a slight set-up in the Hirshhorn to get there. No harm, right?
There are three works I focus on during this scene and each of them help to lay the groundwork for the narrative of the book and, if the book takes off, the entire series. Juan Munoz’s Last Conversation Piece, the previously mentioned 1950-M No. 1, and Peter Fischili and David Weiss’ The Way Things Go. The first piece represents the need to fill in blanks and improvise, the second piece represents the need to sometimes go it alone completely, and the third piece represents ordered chaos and how actions in the present have a reaction in the future. For a child that knows everything who’ll soon be running into people he knows nothing about, all three of those threads are incredibly important.
Or an editor will instruct me to just drop all of that and offer the motivations up to “whatevs.” Or “magic.” That seems to be a pretty convenient explanation.
Oy, my friends are already saying I’m taking a big risk and I’m only a fifth of the way through the book. You see, I go to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden quite often for inspiration. I don’t claim to understand the technical aspects of what I’m looking at but it always amazed me how someone stares at a canvas or a clump of materials and says, “I’m going to create this with it.”
I love the old masters, don’t get me wrong, but when I walk the Hirshhorn I get this feeling of modern day artists creating something from nothing. They’re not being commissioned to create a portrait or a fresco based on some biblical or historical narrative. They just create and they’ll often leave openings in their creation that don’t really have a definitive meaning.
Since my novel is about a character that knows everything about the past, present, and future I think it’s a great idea to put him inside the Hirshhorn early on. The Hirshhorn, to me, represents the absence of facts, one of the few places that my character can stumble into and, for the first time in his life, find that he doesn’t have all of the answers.
The idea came to me on a recent trip, when some tourist was looking at Clyfford Still’s 1950-M No. 1. The man sort of grunted, turned to his daughter and said, “You can do that. You should be an artist.”
I tried to put my main character in that situation and figure out what would go through his mind. He’d instantly realize that it’s true; this girl could recreate that painting. But if she was staring at a blank canvas and never seen this work before, would she create that painting? Although he wouldn’t have a definitive answers (monkeys, typewriters, Shakespeare) it would be a safe bet that she wouldn’t.
And that’s sort of the very nature of art and it presents itself as an escape for my character, a child that knows everything. If he stares at a blank canvas what will he create? Anything he wants. There’s no definitive answer.
Of course, to bring it back to pop culture and move it towards something I know more about I decide to flex my character’s interest in creating a narrative and art and, naturally, he starts making comic books at an early age.
It just takes a slight set-up in the Hirshhorn to get there. No harm, right?
There are three works I focus on during this scene and each of them help to lay the groundwork for the narrative of the book and, if the book takes off, the entire series. Juan Munoz’s Last Conversation Piece, the previously mentioned 1950-M No. 1, and Peter Fischili and David Weiss’ The Way Things Go. The first piece represents the need to fill in blanks and improvise, the second piece represents the need to sometimes go it alone completely, and the third piece represents ordered chaos and how actions in the present have a reaction in the future. For a child that knows everything who’ll soon be running into people he knows nothing about, all three of those threads are incredibly important.
Or an editor will instruct me to just drop all of that and offer the motivations up to “whatevs.” Or “magic.” That seems to be a pretty convenient explanation.
This entry was posted by Jason, on
Wednesday, January 9, 2008.
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