you're not an aesthetic Pinterest moodboard | Francis Bacon's scary pope, Pierre Bourdieu's distinction critique & a mini-list to get down n dirty with your inner ugly weirdo 💙
The world that stretches from beautiful to ugly is wider and more wondrous than the world that contains only what pleases at first. Work by Monet and Matisse and many others was considered ugly when the public met them. Now they’re the definition of beautiful. A wider world offers the artist far more. And that wider world offers the artist’s audience far more. Give ugly a seat at the table with everything else. Then eat up.
Thank you for this Richard, you're so right...definitions of beauty constantly shift. So as artists we do not use trends to classify or dictate the creation of our art...we just "go with God" so to speak.
I was kinda stuck in the odd use of the word pilgrimage to describe you staying somewhere for seven minutes. Also, this question. “What if, instead of anxiously curating our taste to signal cultural sophistication, we deliberately chose ugliness?” I think many artists are continually doing this, also goths, also the whole of early hipster culture before it got co-opted by mainstream. I think bitch magazine had a great article about it back in 2008 or so.
Yep, so true...a lot of subcultures have long embraced intentional ugliness as resistance or aesthetic principle...goths, early hipsters, riot grrrl, punk, outsider art. will look up the article!
such a curious, evocative to me piece. thank you Shannan. My first thought while reading, is Shrek, the being, the movie—I mean what/who defines what is beauty? Shrek and the Shrek society of ogres were the beautiful ones. Just putting it out there this a query, maybe challenge—isn’t “ugly,” the word, already pejorative? Tim Green, I believe he was the one, recharacterized “published” (not that that’s a negative word) to the word “curated,” but in doing so, he led the way toward a new meaning. Would the Beautiful Losers be willing to weigh-in, a contributor collaboration on a new word for the word "ugly ?—be the frontier of that change?. Words do shape thoughts we have, right? We are all writers here, so we likely believe that. Could we invent that new word?-- make a home away from the long-lived negative association(s) ? Any ideas? I’ll noodle on it too. Again thank you Shannan, somehow you always touch me where I live/light up.
Thank you for this Tara! I love the invocation of Shrek (truly a patron saint of redefined beauty lol) and that idea of language as an invitation to reimagine.
I do agree that "ugly" is a loaded word and yet I also think it's our duty as artists to unload words and unpack them and send them out into the world as strange little baby doves. What I mean to say is, "ugly" is a beautiful word...just feel the way it curls up out of your throat like a swallowed gulp but the opposite...it's a release and reversal both...
I remember someone emailed a while back saying they're unsubscribing from this newsletter because the name is "Beautiful Losers" and they're not a loser, haha.
But I love this name....none of us ought to ever be so self-important as to not be able to call ourselves beautiful losers or our art ugly. Uglieness, loserdome, beauty, success...these are all dancers in the great joyous performance that is the universe.
From a certain perspective, “ugly and awesome,” you are describing my life. Turn your head a little and it becomes a lyrical ballet. This piece sings to me, and I will dig in as soon as I return to Kaua’i. Another piece that rings this bell is The Scream
When I'm having trouble writing, I'll go work on some junk art, meaning literal junk: broken toys Frankensteined together with whatever other stuff is lying around. I'm not good at crafts. I use the wrong glue, wrong paint, other things I don't even know are wrong. It helps, not just my writing, but my life.
The world that stretches from beautiful to ugly is wider and more wondrous than the world that contains only what pleases at first. Work by Monet and Matisse and many others was considered ugly when the public met them. Now they’re the definition of beautiful. A wider world offers the artist far more. And that wider world offers the artist’s audience far more. Give ugly a seat at the table with everything else. Then eat up.
Thank you for this Richard, you're so right...definitions of beauty constantly shift. So as artists we do not use trends to classify or dictate the creation of our art...we just "go with God" so to speak.
I was kinda stuck in the odd use of the word pilgrimage to describe you staying somewhere for seven minutes. Also, this question. “What if, instead of anxiously curating our taste to signal cultural sophistication, we deliberately chose ugliness?” I think many artists are continually doing this, also goths, also the whole of early hipster culture before it got co-opted by mainstream. I think bitch magazine had a great article about it back in 2008 or so.
Yep, so true...a lot of subcultures have long embraced intentional ugliness as resistance or aesthetic principle...goths, early hipsters, riot grrrl, punk, outsider art. will look up the article!
such a curious, evocative to me piece. thank you Shannan. My first thought while reading, is Shrek, the being, the movie—I mean what/who defines what is beauty? Shrek and the Shrek society of ogres were the beautiful ones. Just putting it out there this a query, maybe challenge—isn’t “ugly,” the word, already pejorative? Tim Green, I believe he was the one, recharacterized “published” (not that that’s a negative word) to the word “curated,” but in doing so, he led the way toward a new meaning. Would the Beautiful Losers be willing to weigh-in, a contributor collaboration on a new word for the word "ugly ?—be the frontier of that change?. Words do shape thoughts we have, right? We are all writers here, so we likely believe that. Could we invent that new word?-- make a home away from the long-lived negative association(s) ? Any ideas? I’ll noodle on it too. Again thank you Shannan, somehow you always touch me where I live/light up.
Thank you for this Tara! I love the invocation of Shrek (truly a patron saint of redefined beauty lol) and that idea of language as an invitation to reimagine.
I do agree that "ugly" is a loaded word and yet I also think it's our duty as artists to unload words and unpack them and send them out into the world as strange little baby doves. What I mean to say is, "ugly" is a beautiful word...just feel the way it curls up out of your throat like a swallowed gulp but the opposite...it's a release and reversal both...
I remember someone emailed a while back saying they're unsubscribing from this newsletter because the name is "Beautiful Losers" and they're not a loser, haha.
But I love this name....none of us ought to ever be so self-important as to not be able to call ourselves beautiful losers or our art ugly. Uglieness, loserdome, beauty, success...these are all dancers in the great joyous performance that is the universe.
I want to embrace it all. 💙
From a certain perspective, “ugly and awesome,” you are describing my life. Turn your head a little and it becomes a lyrical ballet. This piece sings to me, and I will dig in as soon as I return to Kaua’i. Another piece that rings this bell is The Scream
You're so lovely, thank you David. and YES! The Scream's a great example, gosh love that painting
Some of us have dedicated ourselves daily anew to making ugly art. It’s my favorite thing. Great read.
Love that Josh and thank you for reading!!
When I'm having trouble writing, I'll go work on some junk art, meaning literal junk: broken toys Frankensteined together with whatever other stuff is lying around. I'm not good at crafts. I use the wrong glue, wrong paint, other things I don't even know are wrong. It helps, not just my writing, but my life.