Themes that sneak past the artist

In the previous entry, I said all art conveyance themes. This got me thinking about the role of the artist in this presentation. What if [s]he insists her/his work is themeless, or that the consumers are "reading too much" into it? Does my statement still hold true/

Yes.

First scenario: The artist says the work is themeless. All art is a combination (over space or time or thought) of icons (streaks of paint, toned words, written words, notes, scenes...). Some thought process governs the way the artist puts these icons together. the most basic of these is aesthetic sense. If the artist does not ascribe at least beauty or ugliness to his work, and did not intend it to have that attribute, then he is not an artist at all. he is not creating art. He is publishing.

Second scenario: The artist says we are reading more than is there into her/his work. I do not doubt that often we see more of the art than the artist. But that just shows [s]he is not fully aware of all the forces at work in her/his head. Certain themes resonate with others not just because of their atributes, but because they are emanations of deeper, more pervasive ideas. In fact, they are projections of these uberthemes. The artist is haunted by the Uberthemes, and tries to express them. They come out as a combination of themes represented by a combination of icons in the work. The consumer sees the work, deconstructs it, and atimes glimpses the ubertheme, which then disguises itself as another of its projections.

Art is obviously a two-way process. The artist constructs and the consumer deconstructs. The artist makes art and the consumer finds art. I think the best artists are the best consumers. They are those able to find art anywhere. To deconstruct anything. I try to be that way. I overanalyse and overfeel everything (as this blogs ought to prove) because I so desperately want to overproduce. I have all these tools and I love to use them. I love to play with my world and see what I find.