How do you communicate?

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First some thoughts on the nature of art and communication. Skip to the bottom of this post for the actual question...

We have trouble reading intent and emotional state in another person. We also often have trouble expressing ourselves in a way that is clear and effective to other people. In many ways, people with Asperger's Syndrome suffer from isolation simply because even in the presence of others, we cannot understand or make ourselves understood.

One of the most fundamental aspects of any art work is a process of communication. A film might be made primarily to entertain and amuse, but the process by which it does this is by COMMUNIATION of experiences. We watch a character living events that we can identify with, we live vicariously through them when their lives are communicated to us through the medium of film.

All my life I have struggled with the problems of communication. Photography is the form that best suits the sort of communication I am trying to do. I try to make photographs that find something in myself and express them in a way that makes sense to others. And yet I feel I still fail at this non-verbal language.

Over the years I have learned to express myself adequately through words. Even in college I had a great deal of difficulty forming proper sentences, but through many years of work, I have learned to use language to express ideas. I am an adequate non-fiction writer. I have written some fiction and some of it even worked well enough, but my verbal skills seem to fare better in reason and logic. I do not have a flare for literary writing.

But I want to understand and communicate aspects of life that cannot be expressed in words. A mood or a emotion, maybe, but not words. I want to communicate the experience of seeing a form or a shape and feeling a kind of harmony with the world. The juxtaposition of a hard shape against a soft one, or the clash of two strong colors. These things may not have meaning, but they do have value as an experience. This is what I am trying to communicate; that experience of chancing upon a vision and feeling at peace with the world.

And so the concept of art is very important to me. There is a great deal of work that goes into a lifetime of seeing and finding ways to effectively transmit what I experience to another person. I don't know if I have ever accomplished this and I'm not sure I ever will. Perhaps accomplishing it doesn't really matter. What matters is doing the work. Trying.

To all the other people on this forum struggling to communicate, what battles do you fight? Do you have a sense of what you are trying to say or do you, like me, work to communicate a thing that you cannot even articulate?

I don't express myself very well verbally. I don't have the lexicon to capture what is in me--words don't exist (that I know of) to describe what I see in my mind's eye and know is a *feeling*. I can't make images come out of my mouth. I have a hard enough time speaking sentences that mean what I mean them to mean. I just don't have the words, or they don't come to me in time.

Writing works better, simply because it is not communication in real-time. Text is visible, editable, controllable--so much easier to work with. I have the time to figure out the right words to use, and to place them in the proper order.

Even when I go to therapy, I don't talk--I just read to my therapist out of my diary.

But even writing doesn't quite capture what I need it to.

I used to draw and paint a lot, and I've been returning to those media lately hoping to find a form of expression that I'm good at and which is apt to capture what I mean to express. My skills have degraded a bit over the past few years, but I'm hoping to persevere at it and regain my skill and, hopefully, have again an effective form of communication. But I'm afraid that anything visual I create will just be interpreted by other viewers in ways that I don't intend--after all, my visual lexicon is probably not the same as everyone else's.

And if that is the case, then what is the point of trying to express myself at all? Any form of expression I use is subjective. Up for random unexpected misinterpretations by others who don't share my visual vocabulary.

To answer your question, I work to express something I cannot even articulate. And I have to thank you for reminding me that what matters is doing the work and trying. I have a tendency to forget that sometimes. So thank you.

As someone interested in both using words and working in graphic media I find I am not all that interested in communicating as more discovering what the possibilities are in the media. I am not interested in communicating with other people but rather communicating with myself. I write a lot of poetry which seemingly comes to me much easier than to other people. A poem usally takes from ten minutes to a half hour to write and then I forget it and go on to something else. I am not sure how I create these things. They seem more to interact among themselves with me more as a facilitator than a creator. I also cannot say as to whether they are any good but some people seem to like them. Here is an example:

TRAVELING EQUIPMENT

That delightful complex of convexities
We used to know
As Marilyn Monroe
Is, these days,
An odd shaped leather bag
Stuffed with dusty bones.
That pink loud baby
So often kissed
With a face like a clenched fist
That once was I
Before my cells, industrious,
Reconfigured me,
As it must
Into shape septuagenarian
Will progress my state
So I culminate
Back to dust.
A leather bag
Of dusty bones
Of the normal sort
Like luggage abandoned
At the airport.

And my art:

[img]http://[img][650:510]http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5503/bird1reduced.jpg[/img][/img]

Hi druidsbird,

Your comments on your reasons for writing are exactly the same as mine.

In regard to visual expression, I have come to the conclusion that if there is an audience for the kind of photographs I take, it is going to be very small. Whatever it is that I am seeking in myself or trying to express is simply of no use or interest to most people. But it may be valuable to some. It certainly is valuable to me.

I think art is a two stage process, the first being self exploration. You look at the world and you find a way to see it and reconstruct it in a way that makes sense to you.

The second stage is the audience's work. Once you are finished with an art work and you display it, it becomes the viewer's. At that point, they must either look for what they can find that is of value to themselves in the work or else move on to something else.

This isn't very satisfying. Getting a response is often very important to keeping going. I have a hard time feeling like it's worth the struggle when few people see my photographs and the few that do have little use for them. I sometimes feel like I am talking in an empty room.

Maybe I will have to content myself with recognizing that the audience for my work is only one person; myself. It's not great, but it's something.

But to your point that “I'm afraid that anything visual I create will just be interpreted by other viewers in ways that I don't intend” I don't think anyone can control how the viewer interprets the work. Everyone, even NT s, have to contend with this. Viewers may interpret your work in a manner utterly inconsistent with your intent, but I'm not sure that there is anything wrong with that. They have the right to their own identity and perception of the world and they will interpret your work with their own eyes.

I think in the past I may have wanted people to interpret my work the way I intended because I didn't really trust that I could do work that was worth looking at. Over time I have learned to accept that all I can do is to try to do the best work I can and then to hand it over to somebody else for them to accept or pass on.

Have you posted any of your artwork here or anywhere else. Do you think it might get a more useful reception from people on this forum? Anyway, I think it would be interesting to see what you do.

I don't know if it's relevant but here is a short (8 minutes) documentary I made a year ago on my mother's process of making some self portraits:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjCHPZ5mY0[/youtube]

http://thinkstupidthink.blogspot.com/

Nice. There's a rise and fall, like a smooth curve, to the construction of the poem. Very visual and evocative.

I like the chicken as well. Are you strongly influenced by Japanese art?

Lars

I find myself very much in agreement with your mother. A very good documentary.

That documentary is really making me start to think. Thank you for sharing it.

I destroyed all of my artwork a couple of years ago in a fit of "nobody understands me!" rage. Im making more now, nothing really meaningful yet.

I still write poetry though. So here's a poem I wrote recently. Not my best, but still my newest.

Cold Day Sonnet
by Wren

There is a girl who watches me,
she lives behind the glass
And her eyes stare right into mine
each time that I walk past
And her breath fogs the glass
as she whispers to me:
"One of these days, I am going to be free."

There is a girl who watches me,
I see her every day
And every day she talks to me
But I don't know what to say
And her words frost the glass
as she whispers them through:
"When I get free, I will come and find you."

The girl who lives behind the glass
is like a ghost, and thus
No matter how close I can get,
I know we'll never touch
And her words break my heart
as I slowly walk past:
"When I get out of here at last!"
My heart breaks as I watch
her slow, silent tears
They fall gently to stain
the cold ground every day
My hand touches the glass,
I lean close in and say:
"Come out of there girl! I will take you away!"

But it's the glass that has trapped her
And she tells me how deeply
it cuts when it shatters
I tell her scars fade,
that the cuts will not kill her
And I beg her "Break free! Come with me."
But the fear will not let her
And my tears stain the ground
as no matter how I love her
The girl behind the glass is trapped forever

The poem has a very odd desperate feeling and sounds autobiographical. As somebody probably with Asperger's(I have not been diagnosed) I often get that glassed in feeling.

Here is another one of mine.

INSTITUTIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL

In the halls of the museum
Things are not what they seem.
Appearances can be most deceiving.
If visitors come walking out
With their heads turned round about,
They may be entering, not leaving.
They can slide along the walls
Muttering soft plaintive calls
For lost children, mothers, cousins, aunts.
Because their torn and worn suspenders
Make them mighty poor contenders,
They shuffle by in descending pants.
But no fear deters, inhibits
When they peer at the exhibits
Of neolithic unspecific tools,
Of diadems of molded plastic,
Varicolored bright, elastic
Mounted on a pair of stuffed mules.
The whimper as they stumble;
Underneath their breath they mumble
Of suppers back at home gone icy cold.
Their feet are throbbing painfully
While they gaze gainfully
At toilet bowls filagreed in gold.
The guards keep them all in lines
With pointed fingers, painted signs,
Educating masses in esoteric ways
So they can, with open candor,
Look upon a lunar lander,
A Grecian urn, A Roman vase,
And contemplate its finer points,
Where it’s stiff, or has its joints
And discuss aesthetics endlessly for days.
Meanwhile, sister, with a blister,
Wandered off before they missed her.
Although they looked, they searched for her in vain.
A cannibal tour ate her
When she looked for the curator,
But they did it kindly, without pain.
Although their meal was hasty,
They proclaimed her juicy, tasty,
And carefully folded garments and her shoes.
They arranged themselves on benches,
Both the men and all the wenches
And retired for a peaceful snooze.
The parents, panicked, frantic,
Bellowed in a frightful antic
At the section for the lost and found.
Emotions there were placated.
When an executive donated
A pocket watch he had freshly wound.
More useful than a naughty daughter,
Gratefully they thought it oughter
Be more economical to keep.
They admired its construction,
Ceased their noise, stopped their ruction
And left for home without another peep.
But the halls are milling still
That the eager minds can fill
With intelligence from special science.
Biologic dioramas
Illustrate , in all its dramas,
Life on Earth in compliance and defiance.
Here’s a family of yeti
Munching down boiled spaghetti,
Herds of antelope on subway trains,
Gaily dressed wild raccoons
Playing baseball with baboons,
Giraffes with flutes tooting soft refrains.
Neither archaeology
Nor obscure theology
Is neglected in the halls of history.
A great wazir of King Tut’s,
A fussy old Egyptian putz,
Is portrayed in all his mystery.
He’s preparing several mummies
By inscribing on their tummies
Recipes for cookies and for fudge.
In the land of the dead
They will be sweetly fed.
He gives post mortal cuisine quite a nudge.
At the hall of dinosaurs
The kids, in glee, throw apple cores
To see if they can land them in the skull,
While the guards, high on pot,
Sometimes try a random shot
But mostly find the game deadly dull.
Meanwhile there’s a session
For a class in bone profession
To teach the average guy to make at home
From bottles, cans, and twisted wire
Shaped with glue and roaring fire,
Ingeniously adhered with plastic foam,
An articulated diplodoccus
To titillate and shock us
When it sips soup in our kitchen.
Culture due to arcane science
Requires strict, strange compliance
Allowing it to edify, enrichen.
At the planetarium
Enraptured people stiffly squat
Attentive to a tiny spot
Or several, when guides vary’em
To simulate celestial stars,
Sometimes Mercury or Mars,
Or , on occasion, if they goof,
A dot as brilliant as a laser
That certainly should be a quasar,
But pans out as a rainhole in the roof.
Now the closing time has come.
With a large brass band and drum
Lead the patrons out the front door.
Festooned with postcards, souvenirs,
And chewing gum stuck to their rears,
The crowds are stuffed up to the gills with lore.
They can discuss, without friction,
Themes and dreams of science fiction
And, at parties, be a monstrous bore.

And yes, I like both Japanese and Chinese art. But I have developed a personal technique of creating interesting random patterns and then resolving them into an image. Like this.

[img]http://[img][650:800]http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5711/redfemalefigurereduced.jpg[/img][/img]

Thanks for posting that.

I like the sense of the separateness of the narrator and the girl behind the glass, but also the interaction in each of the quoted statements.

I hope the work keeps coming.

Lars

I like the humor here. The cadence makes me think of the Raven by Poe but there is a surreal quality to how you describe the scene that makes me think of the short novel "The Street of Crocodiles" by Bruno Schultz

In regard to this image, I really like to color. It's an interesting technique of creating a random splatter then finding a way to make it work as an image.

Lars

I admire Poe for his rhythms and images. Here is an attempt at fooling around with it in a rather wild manner.

HOMAGE TO EDGAR ALLEN POE

Somewhere between the cracks of chronic comic cosmic cackling
Seeps blood and choosy boozie floozie oozy fluids down the wall
To pool and run across the floor and corridor
To convert the bureaucrats to acrobats in spats and hats
So they slip and trip and skip and drip
And dance in funny capers dropping all their papers
Stained and mashed and crushed and trashed to make a mess galore.
But upper echelons of bosses
Look up from their naughts and crosses
Hexed and vexed by jerky clerks
Who pirouette and dance quadrilles
Across the floor, on window sills,
And slither here and there and thither.
"Goddamn!" They slam their bulky hams with palms so sly -
Threaten with their power drills to make round holes above the eye.
The clerks all scream, "It's just a dream we're all a team
And don't ask why." And so they cower in the shower
Confounded over corporate power,
Wheezing, coughing, sneezing, freezing -
Hoping that they'll soon be coping as they gracefully go loping
'Round the wet and soppy soapy sloppy tessellated shower floor.

"Back to work!", the bosses rant, ties askew, eyes aslant,
"There"s things you do and things you can't!"
But workers wet and workers weary
Fed with practice, jammed with theory,
Red rimmed eyes and vision bleary,
Hungry for a chicken salad topped with sauce but rather pallid,
Stuffed their ears with rubber foam,
Crammed the stairs and elevators,
Tumbled down the escalators,
Grabbed the cabs put on their tabs
And headed straight for spouse and home.

The computer permits multiple tries at resolution of random patterns. Here are two tries on the same pattern.


[img]http://[img]http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9340/clownathepartyreduced.jpg[/img][/img]

[img]http://[img]http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5591/twomenreduced.jpg[/img][/img]

I am enjoying very much participating in this thread, talking with you two and sharing our work. I hope this thread lives forever.

Here's my next contribution.

Midsummer

how could you forget
how we once spent
a fading afternoon, side by side
laying together on the grass

and the early evening chill found us
closing on each other, like the closing petals
of the roses as the sun fell past

as the first ray of the full moon's light
lit on our faces, and we wept
for the first time safe, in the sleepy glow
for the first time we were no longer alone

my heart beat, (beat)
like a voodoo drum inside me
beating only for your poetry
i'll live for you if you live for me

we lay together all that night
and holding to you i was swept
deep into your dreaming eyes
that were fixed upon the starry skies
you were watching the moon as it passed us by
and we lay there in love til the sun rose again
i should only remember you then.


P.S. Poe was one of my biggest influences when I was beginning to learn how to write. He is still one of my favorites.

A delightful evocation. It inspired this quick sonnet for immunization.

LOOKING BACK

Love is not kind.
It twists and spins the senses
Conquering the mind
Where reason, logic condenses.
The world becomes eccentric,
All interest gravitates
In one dimension - femocentric.
All desire levitates.
Until, frequency, with shock,
Good sense gives revelation
Flow again to unlock
Reality and reservation.
But we most wistfully look back
To return to that evanescent lack.

Love the poem. There's truth and wisdom in it. And a lot of clever wording in everything you've shared so far. I'd like to read more of yours, I'm really enjoying them.

And thank you for the "immunization" as well. LOL! The shot hardly even hurt, and if it saves me the foolishness of ever allowing myself to get lovesick again then I owe you my eternal gratitude.

next contribution--a bit on the darker side, as most of my poetry is.

Art Notorious

my passionately brutal silence
my lust for loneliness
my inability to contribute to *your* success
and other such things are all targets for you
to spit out the disappointment you're choking to death on
what can I say
to that baby?
my flaws make good scapegoats
so many to choose from
I don't think i can help it
i am only human
from the chimps there is one trait that sets me apart
the pointless continued beating of my
dry and icy cold vestigial heart
(it mocks the dusty flapping
of the wings you never gave me)
and now i stand as nothing but the final, crumbling bastion
of the high-and-mighty eternal Holy Cause
of your protection

You draw on me with scalpels
an artist is my baby
i let you make me beautiful
to prove you really want me
(and you need me for your canvas,
cause no one else will feel this guilty)
around each eye you'll carve a
pretty, perfect spiral tracery
and on each palm a five-point star
remarkable in symmetry
and spider webs of thin and gauzy
lashes to coccoon me
and stitch-marks cross my lips
cause it's our secret what you do to me
art for it's own sake;
art because it makes my baby happy
and cause it makes me the very, very purest intonation
of the tune that makes you smile;
of the sound of your creation
art for it's own sake;
art because it makes my baby happy
art for it's own sake;
art because i think it means you love me

Great intricate images.
Here's my personal take.

SPLASH

The graphic dance
Of pencil, pen,
By pure luck,happenstance,
Can wander off, now and then
Into strangeness, occult paths
Freeing demons, wraiths and sprites
Opening symbolic maths,
Bursting into rainbow lights
To leave the hand, the mind the will
Frightened, shocked, mortified
To wonder whence came the skill
To leave the world transmogrified.
For mystery lurks always, waiting,
Leaping out, exhilarating.

A couple of my friends have put a few of my pieces on their sites if you are interested in more of my poetry.
http://www.familyhomefront.net/JanSandOne.html
http://www.artvilla.com/mair/sand.htm

And this one just for fun.

SOUND ABOUNDS

The noise of boys
Enjoys a royal lack of poise
Whereas the glittered twitter
Girls emit has, one must admit
That bit of wit to generate
Pandemic snit, sometimes fit
And sometimes merely bitter litter,
Ploys of misdirected verbal toys.

The howls of owls, mostly vowels
Contrasts with fowl's chicken clucks
And quacks of ducks, like the clacks
Of hockey pucks, well fortified
With consonants, much like cries
Of shifting continents which pop,
Also roar and thunder as land masses
Stumble , blunder, lifting mountains,
Squashing plains, generating hurricanes
Like a monster cosmic sneeze
To seize the trees and knock people
To their knees, soaking oaks
In windy pokes, quaking blokes
To their bowels so they rush
Inside to hide and wipe their faces
Dry with towels.

When eating leeks one should take peeks
At what squeaks and swiftly sneaks from baseboard holes -
Most likely mice or things not nice
Like moles and voles that move in shoals
To seek their goals - say, dried out rolls
That, left in bowls, stale, to look like
Crumpled poles or, perhaps, like parrot beaks.

Therefore, when sound gets out of bounds,
It's good advice to stuff your ears
With sticky rice, or perhaps it might suffice
To use a slice of worn out shoes that might bemuse
A crowd of peers, inspire jeers and sidelong leers
Whose social force would scare a horse.
But never mind, if they're not kind you can, of course,
Bury them in lemon rinds or other kinds
Of fruity skins collected out of garbage bins -
Which might result in raucous dins
Or other awful unlawful sounds.