The Art of Finding Yourself When You're Lost

The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa
By Michael Kimmelman (2005)

Chapter 7: The Art of Finding Yourself When You’re Lost

True stress and danger bring out the best in some people and inspire art in a few. Kimmelman provides numerous examples of this fact, including Picasso’s masterful work which he produced when Paris was occupied. A long time ago I posted another another remarkable example, the Indian artist Sonabai, who was forced into a decade of solitary confinement in her own home where she created a whole new art form.

Additionally, there are the quilters of a poor and isolated community in Gee’s Bend, Alabama (this one's for you PAMO!). Geographical isolation and poverty preserved generations of elaborate and unique quilting designs made from worn and left-over clothing fabrics and cornmeal sacks (photo). The author praises their quilts as some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has ever produced. Folks, if you’ve never seen these quilts, do yourself a favor and look them up on the web.

There are also many stories of remarkable art that emerged during the term of a prisoner’s incarceration. Ray Materson, for instance, taught himself to embroider unique and highly skilled baseball-related pictures. Much of his work is smaller than a baseball card and contains 1,200 stitches per square inch!

Kimmelman devotes most of this chapter on the work of Australian photographer Frank Hurley who served on the Endurance during Shackleton’s ill-fated exploration of Antarctica. Hurley’s photographs were much more than illustrations of his surroundings, they were fine art – art created in a physically hostile environment during a struggle for survival. The best of these images have an extraordinarily modern quality, stark and stirring; their reduction to irregular geometric forms brings to mind Alexander Calder or Ellsworth Kelly.

After his rescue, Hurley continued to photograph and film various situations and events, but his work suffered. It lost its impact and artistry. Kimmelman makes an excellent point about this: If we are affluent enough today, we live amid a mounting glut of distracting choices, killing our time mulling over what food to eat, which clothes to wear or gadgets to buy, where to go on vacation. We can easily lose our way. When Hurley gained choices, he lost his focus. Wearing the same clothes, eating the same seal pemmican, staying in the same place, day in and day out, he was better able to concentrate on making the most with what he had at hand. That’s perhaps his most enduring lesson. The same may be said of Sonabai, the quilters of Gee’s Bend, and Ray Materson. Perhaps the real lesson is that no matter what our circumstances, it is only when we completely focus on creating and ignore the distractions around us that we produce our best work.

What are your thoughts?