Beyond the Doodle
Tags/ Posted by David Maclagannaked, your body a sheen / backlit, the thrust stage ornatecontinue reading this poem
Although the doodle is treated as if it were a natural, spontaneous and universal phenomenon, it is in fact an invention, a concept that emerged at a certain point and rapidly became extremely popular.
Clayton Eshleman’s Poetic Art
Tags/ Posted by David MaclaganNothing is louder than snow falling / on the roof in the middle of the night // when you’re young.continue reading this poem
The American poet Clayton Eshleman’s work, spanning forty-five years and including major works of translation (Cesaire, Vallejo) as well as editing, is much less well-known than it deserves to be. Rather than try to give some kind of an overview of his substantial achievement, which makes him in my opinion one of the most important living poets in the English-speaking world, I have decided to focus on Eshleman’s writing about painting, not only because of its unusual range and depth, but also in the hope that this will encourage some readers to explore his work further.
The Museum of Everything
Tags/ Posted by David MaclaganWrite poems because you have been shattered, because poetry is sacred and holy, because a poem left unwritten dies and you become a walking tomb, a whitewashed sepulcher.continue reading this poem
In its broadest sense, Outsider Art encompasses extraordinary artwork that is created by people with little or no training. The term has been current since Roger Cardinal coined it in 1972, and its prototype was the Art Brut (‘raw’ or unrefined art) created by people on the edge of mainstream society that was aggressively promoted by Jean Dubuffet just after the Second World War.
Creativity, Institutions, and Outsider Art
Tags/ Posted by David MaclaganHow did I come to feel nothing satisfies more than introspection?continue reading this poem
In the image of authentic creativity found in Art Brut, as promoted by Jean Dubuffet, genuinely creative art is motivated by insubordination, and by a maverick self-assertion that is profoundly anti-social. Institutions do not foster true creativity, even where they are supposed to (schools, colleges, academies).
