| | THE HUNGRY ARTIST:
Aside from being a professional visual artist, I have aspired to…um…write a novel. I say this with hesitation because it is a second hat I’m putting on at this stage of my life. I'm still to prove my talent here. However, I have written many articles about art [and other subjects] but writing a NOVEL is a different beast. As to that, I did want to share a very brief and sketchy idea of The Hungry Artist’s theme and plot.
Theme: a band of dissenting and talented artists, of various disciplines, fight for a career in an egalitarian art community where the mediocrity of postmodernism is enshrined. Conflict: Talent versus non-talent.
Plot: The focus of the plot revolves around the story’s main protagonist, a young, idealistic painter: a representational classic painter’s fledging career is helped by a mysterious art historian--who praises abstract modern art in a popular art journal and damns classical realism. Learning that she writes under pseudonym, the painter attempts to contact the art historian writer or otherwise track down her identity—to no avail. She continues to bolster his career and yet the writer never acclaims the painter openly, but she is responsible for each commission the painter secures. [What the hell is this writer's story?] Both the classical realism school of painting and abstract movement are united against this single artist, and our fighting hero must fight for a career in a profession he loves.
But all this does not tell the complete story.
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Let me say it now: Yes, there's no doubt that Ayn Rand has influenced my writing and of all her fiction works The Fountainhead is my favorite. I’m inspired by Ayn Rand pretty much in the same way she was inspired by the works of Hugo. Primarily, however, I’m inspired by my own experiences: I am a visual artist and I am deeply entrenched, for better or worse, in the whole Art world. After 20 years of "covert" observations, I decided that this story has to be told. Hey, I have my own "horror files" to report, my friends.
Like The Fountainhead, there are independent minded and talented people, but unlike Howard Roark--they wish to RETURN to tradition. That grand tradition being: intelligible, skilled, representational art. Their fight is against the art world establishment. The public? There’s no doubt that the public at large is dubious of postmodernism in art, but they have nevertheless been duped by it. They accept all of its subjectivist premises. As one character reports:
“…And then there is that segment of the public, those who are constantly exposed to this work [postmodernism] and to the arguments on its behalf, they have failed to accept it. Others merely express confusion and frustration, and still others reject it outright. This last, you still think they haven’t fallen for the racket? Well, you can take it from me that they have been suckered punched in the brain. What other age as ever said, ‘well, I don’t know if its art, but I know what I like.’”
THIS line alone---"I don’t know if its art, but I know what I like"---is key to understanding how far the postmodernist have succeeded. Agnostism is always a mark of victory--be it in religion, ethics and art theory--among the perpetrators of certain ideas. One of my "evil" characters is a postmodernist philosopher by the name of Ivan Wine.
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The Hungry Artist: I don’t believe there is another work that will dramatize and trash (as I intend to do) postmodern art. But in doing so, it will be a fun and exciting work that will make a positive stand for skill and talent. AND it will be a funny novel filled with interesting --and whacko characters. And, of course, conflict, conflict, conflict.
My target market is not necessarily an Objectivist audience. (Of course, they are free to read the book; their money is good as anybody's). So The Hungry Artist protagonists are not standard-issued Objectivist heroes. The characters are talented and passionate people, but they are flawed and troubled people, too, and it shows. And, yes, yes, I know that I’m going to be accused of presenting “feet of clay” Naturalist characters. [But that I don’t agree with all of Rand’s points about characterization is another discussion].
Other interesting characters:
MARLON ROY: The book also presents a Julliard trained rock musician who is at odds with a postmodernist piano player- the type who sits in front of his piano for an hour---and plays nothing. Marlon Roy is a brilliant musician who is a patron saint of a counterculture.
LEE WEBER: He is an abstract painter whose dementia takes a frighful plunge.
Then there is also a caricature artist who paints with the same depth as any classical painter—and who mocks a popular postmodernist writer and Installation “artist” as he mocks everything else that is worthy of being mocked. Hmmm?
JAKE ROBERTS: There is also another character—Jake, an old man, who left his wife and successful career to spend his remaining years—alone—to do what he always wanted to do: paint. He’s a Christian who feels that postmodernism is an example of atheist Left-Wing loonie-tunes in action. Of course, his appraisal is not complete and he is due for a big surprise.
Basically, The Hungry Artist presents an astounding panorama of truly dissident creative spirits--artists who are radical becuase they want to return to tradition.
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Please tell me, is there any others on OL who are writing a novel? And feed-back is most welcomed.
Well, that's all for now.
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