The Encouragement Files
(2-25) Celebrating Others, Weekly
As you might know, we have a regular, weekly newsletter Field Notes for Curious Minds. We send it out on another platform, not least because we’ve been there for nearly eight years and change is always a friction … but also because we like the way it looks and we’ve not been able to replicate that here.
What we can do - and we are ALL about the positives - is create a similar atmosphere. Irrespective of the look, we can replicate the feel.
This weekly offering is a complement to ‘Field Notes’, an extra celebration of the inspiring words, publications and people that have caught our eye. Ideally it will prove to be an encouragement for you to shout up for the creativity that lifts your spirits and counterbalances the downbeat.
This week we have been thinking about ART, not least because we travelled to Paris to take in an exhibition. Is that what people say? Or maybe ‘we went to look at some paintings’ … which is only half the truth, because there were collages, drawings and sculptures too. By the time you read this, the Surrealism exhibition at the Pompidou Centre will have finished; art will have been packed up and returned to the galleries that loaned it. Perhaps some of the attendees will have looked at their photos for a little longer than they spent in front of the actual artwork. Now, I’m not 100% certain we know our art from our elbow, but there was much to admire. The imagination and skill of the artists, of course. The influence of ideas … the surrealism movement left little untouched; cosmos, Alice Through the Looking Glass, philosophy, dreams, eroticism, and metamorphosis, to name but a few. Surrealists applied seemingly limitless techniques, and infused their work with the politics of protest. A single exhibition has unlocked, for us, curiosity, liberally sprinkled breadcrumb trails to follow. We are sure to start with Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington and how their personal lives and artistic inspirations overlapped.
Maybe that is what art is … inspiration and provocation … something to learn, and something to become curious about. Perhaps it just takes one picture to be the pebble in a pond, the source of endless ripples.
This edition of ‘The Encouragement Files’ takes Art as its central theme.
O R I G I N A L I T Y
The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has spawned a woe-is-me narrative in mainstream artistic circles. But the response of Robin Raaphorst has been to dial up originality, creating work that is impossible to replicate. Fusing her heritage of Asian folklore with a background in gaming design, the artist (known as Raven Milo) has made a conscious decision to do the work she wants to do.
"I focus on creating what I want instead of what I think the industry expects of me,"
Robin Raaphorst
S U B V E R S I V E N E S S
We relish the playfulness of artists like Takashi Murakami who put their own twist on styles that, at first glance, appear traditional. There is an added layer of subversiveness if you consider the commercial attractiveness of that approach. Take this suggestion of Japanese art, flavoured with cartoon figures that owe everything to a more contemporary manga oeuvre:
Rakuchū-Rakugai-zu Byōbu: Iwasa Matabei RIP (2023–24) is modelled on Iwasa Matabei’s Rakuchū-Rakugai-zu Byōbu (Scenes in and around Kyoto) (Funaki Version) from the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. The original seventeenth-century work depicts the city in extraordinary detail across two six-panel folding screens. Murakami’s version, which was commissioned for his exhibition Mononoke Kyoto at the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, populates its gold-leaf clouds with skulls, a memento mori inspired by a visit to the Toribeno burial ground. He also integrates examples of his own iconography including smiling flower-faced figures and his familiar Mr. DOB character.
T E C H N I Q U E
Perhaps some of the intrigue for those of us who peer into the world of art with curiosity but no knowledge, is that the scope seems limitless. Just when you’ve admired one fresh category, an artist emerges with a different take, or an alternative style or technique. Suddenly labels seem superfluous and you can admire/critique/celebrate the output of a creative practice for what it is … creativity. Maybe automation stretches the interpretation of what art is, but the outcome still represents an artist’s imagination and endeavour. Thomas Trum works with giant felt tip pens and custom-built paint machines but it looks like art to us.
Thomas sees every painting as “an interaction between human and tool — like a choreography.” Despite his systematic set-ups, the artist’s agricultural tools and techniques result in fluid organic forms, paintings that are transparent of their human-operated process. Each piece, Thomas says, is “a movement captured in colour”.
Art is the best possible introduction to the culture of the world. I love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings it can summon at a touch. It washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life
— Pablo Picasso
ART ON SUBSTACK
From Art Every Day to Beyond Bloomsbury, there is art knowledge being generously shared in every corner of
. But there are practitioners too; here are a few of the artists we love to peek in on:whose sketchbooks are filled to the brim with connections to Nature.
ART-INSPIRED FICTION
When I began writing fiction a couple of years ago, the words came more easily than the ideas. Finding the right prompts usually led to the unlocking of a story. I started to look at artwork for inspiration; not to tell the tale already painted on a canvas, but to unearth the story happening ‘just out of shot’. I started with a piece prompted by notes taken by Edward Hopper (thank you
) and I have been inspired by suggestions from , and among others. Here are a couple of favourites:
We would love to hear about your favourite art/artist publications on Substack. Who will you celebrate?
Back next week, same time, same place.
Barrie and JoJo
Substack is a home for creatives of all kinds, and is filled with so many wonderful artists that I love. I have been enjoying the work of Brian Biggs here on Substack - his letter of Christmas cards was particularly awesome, but honestly, I love all his work. I have been exploring and collecting the beautiful creativity I find in Notes and sharing them in occasional celebrating creativity posts 💛✨ I look forward to more weekly celebrations
Thank you both very much for the mention, that is so kind of you! I love these midweek posts.