The Unanswered Question

Robert Genn painting from his
flat-bottomed scow, on the
Nicomekl River in British Columbia

This article from Sara Genn, the daughter of Robert Genn, a Canadian landscape painter who I admire not only for his landscapes and abstractions, but his clarity of writing and observation. I get these writings weekly and they really inspire me to continue delving towards the center of what my art is about.

Historically, my intentions have been to let my work speak for itself and for it to retain a mystery. There is now a push for me to begin to define my work in words as well as visuals. My writing is weak, and the course of learning about describing my work must be developed. The thought of presenting questions instead of answers will be an important direction for me to address. A couple of observations and quotes from the article linked above:

In 1976 Leonard Bernstein lectured on art at Harvard University. “A work of art does not answer questions,” he said, “it provokes them.” He called his talk The Unanswered Question, borrowing his title from the 1908 symphony composed by American modernist Charles Ives. 

“Why talk when you can paint?” (Milton Avery) 

Writing to understand why I make art is going to be a large part of my next few years of exploration. I am not sure what original ideas I may have, but one question that is starting to loom larger in my mind is about “ideas” — where do they come from, and why was there nothing in that place in your mind before?