Art without philosphy is just a pretty picture

[don dean]

I start this discussion by stressing that these are purley my own motivations and reasons for painting writting and makeing music (oh and by appologising befor hand for my typing and spelling as it has been pointed out niether are my strong points) each artist and i use the term genericly will have thier own inspiration and motivations for doing what they do and i would never wish to impose my own feelings on others we all have our own paths to tread so i will give you my own journey and see if you can realte with the road i have travelled i have all my life played with paint and music writting came much later in life i was never a vandel but was somwhat erant as a school attender my teachers did not know what to do with me i would attend art and music and little else as nothing engaged me mentally my school days where write it on the blackboard copy it down learn it then get tested on it no discussion just do it english lit bored me and any form of poetry was of the i wandered the hillside brieht and shiny type extreemly yawning browning keets all that stuff had no relivence to this working class kid so my reports always read donald is an extreemly bright and inteligent child but he will not pay attention in class and so it went till unknown to my mother i forged her signiture and released myself from school we wont go into the repercussions but i was a child of the 60's and left home the first time at the age of 16 so we skip foward to my early twentys never even read a book at this point but i get married and sudenly after being on the move and by this time i had travelled far and constintly on the move suddentl i was staitonery and had time on my hands the place we where renting was full of old books so one night i sat down and read of mice and men by stienbeck and did not stop reading for the next 6 years somtimes 3 books at a time everything form crime and punnishment to cience fantasy si fi thrillers biographys then skip foward i sepraeted from my wife moved sout back to london and one day was writting to a friend we had a disagreement over somthing that she had seen and i wrote a 10 page rant but afterwoods felt sp much better so i started putting my feelings down on paper and as is my way realised i could formalise and express whole paragraphs in one sentance and that was the beginning of me writting poetry and songwritting now all this time i was painting and makeing music at that time just playing in bands as a sax player so music always had a relivence as i was consntly trying to hone my playing and writting was not a problem as i was just me trying to express myself my feelings thoughts and beliefs but my art was struggling i was constanly trying to find my purpose for doing it trying different formats mediums but to me all i was doing was copying either from nature or other artists i just could not find my voice so i stoped did not even draw a picture for over 5 years one day i was writting to a friend and while i was composing my thoughts i started to drwas a portraite of my dog in the letter i really got into this so thought well id always wanted to paint her portraite so started to paint and realised how much id missed it so after a couple paintings just messing around really i painted the painting you see here its called self portraite in stead of creating a picture of myself i painted a picture including things that have a relivence to my life or have influenced me so by giving a much clearer picture of who i am and after many years of painting every day i finnally have come to a point where i know why i paint and have formned my own technique all my work now has a philosphy behind it a purpose there is no point explaining it as its not relivent exept to myself but now even if i do just paint a pretty picture it has a purpose to exsist and is not just there to fill a space so this is why i say art without philosphy is just a pretty picture

[Romantic Poetess]

Don, I enjoyed reading this article about you, I love the meaning behind your portrait. I can relate to you with some similarities in school. I myself was only interested in art, & english lterature...but in english/lit I could not grasp or understand the meanings of anything. All I could do was write with my deep fasination for words. My teacher throughout high school allowed me to write my way to A's....I failed all the tests with big F's & D's...but he allowed me to write him things to replace the test grades. He was a rock of confidence to me. He is the first person to ever tell me his feelings about my writing. He imprinted himself upon my memories in such a positive fashion I will never forget him. (Mr. Whitaker)
Your spellling is character & all that gives your pages the soul of you & no need to apologize for being you :)
I really like your portrait
Embraced ~ Embrassé
Vickie
Totally Groovy!!!

[don dean]

thanks for takeing time to read it see i only have one good memory teacher wise no i should say 2 mem the first was and without going into a long expose about my family life wouldnt bother me to tell you just dont want to bore you lets just say by the time i was 12 i had great difficulty with reading had a lot to do with my father any how when i got into my secondry school we in this country have infants then juniors then secondry i was in the bottom class and bottom of that class a no hope kid any how we had a young and very pretty form teacher who was also our english teacher and i was in love with her as was every other boy in the class she took me under her wing by the end of term i was top of the class and had gone from barley able to read a sentance to winning a reading contest and standing in school asembly reading to the whole school i went up to the next stream and again went to the top of the calss and up a stream again thats when my father left home and i lost interest in school the two are not related not directly anyhow was a relief in the end to me that he had gone though not at first anyhow i digress then later the head of the art department took a shine to me started putting my work on display in the school an so on by this time i was band captain of the shool band and signing in to shool then going home with friends playing cards but i did use the art room when i was about 15 he put me down to take o level art normaly not taken till 16 that a major exam here i would need that one to go to art college but my mum was seriosly ill in hos and i had to stay with cousins and missed it then when i wanted to go to art college my father came to see my headmaster and head of art dept he then told me that according to what they told him it was a waste of time me trying to get into art college they did not think i had the talent and so on and like a fool i believed him so then came the forging my mothers signiture so i could leave school early i went back to visit my art teacher after leaving school and he gave me a real mouthfull of expletives about how id dissapointed him by leaving school so i told him what my father said and he was speechless he then told me that he had informned my father of the complete opposit saying that i was the best art student he had taught for a long time this is just one of the storys of my life the games we play with the lives of those we should be protecting but lest you think i am bitter not so i have resolved all my past gohsts years ago and realise that who i am now and the work i do now is the sum of what i have experienced thus far i have had a varied interesting life lots of saddness that comes when you are not prepared to compromise with your beliefs and freedom all my work music art has very little to do with outside influence i have read a few things by poets not much i never was interested in the masters of art apart from turner and an artist called whistler a few japanees artists i have of course watched programs about artists fom monet to jackson pollock but everything i do comes from within i say in one of my songs
YOU AM WHAT YOU AM AND THE AM I AM IS ME

[Author-Poet Aberjhani]

A major part of any artist's creative path seems to be the discovery that he or she is in fact on such a path and then determining all the things it can mean to the individual and possibly to the world community at large. Your individual journey seems not only to have been a remarkable one but continues to unfold as such.

Aberjhani

[don dean]

thank you for droping by, we travel along doing out things thinking of all our actions thoughts motivations as seperate actions then one day we take time with maturity and realise that everythign we do now is in fact just a progression of all thats gone before i realised that all the genres and different mediums are now fused into one and are all in fact a part of what i do now sometimes the best way to go foward is to simply stand still i am not a person to wonder about my grandfathers where and who they are i do not share the preocupation or beliefe of having to know who my forfathers where what difference to me dose it make if my past parents where murderes thieves or princes or paupers or slaves it has no relivance to who i am as i am the sole person responcable for who i am and who i am is up to me not history but who i am now is shaped by my own personal history as such there is no point being ashamned or hung up about the past
One man telling me he needs to know his history
to have a sense of who he is
other man choking on a false sense
of his history
its not who we where yesterday
but who we are today
and who we will be tomorrow