Beautiful Losers

This evening I watched 'Beautiful Losers' which was recommended to us in our responsive session where we watched the 'Made You Look' documentary. The two documentaries have a very similar format but the difference in time is clear between the two. These are some main points that connected with me throughout the film and just some of my own thoughts too. 

• You can go over and over a line trying to make it straight and from a distance it might look straight but it never actually will be and that't the true beauty of it. 
• People devote themselves to a certain subculture, lifestyle or creative practice but then they often move on to something else. (could this relate to my COP essay where people identify themselves as being a part of a certain group but this is only a temporary identity)
• Your work will depend on how and where you discover your creativity.
• Things start small, people see it, people want it, you realise people like it and it grows. 
• 'Feed the organism'.
• What am I? Don't pull yourself into one box. (also relevant to COP, not being defined by one single thing, you are a mixture of lots of different things individual to you)
• Aspire to reach a range of people. It feels good to connect people through your work.
• Things can gain power from perceived power. 
• Most 'underground' things will become celebrated at some point. It whether you want them to be or not. 
• People's ideas of success are different. 
• Wanting people to know the work is yours will move on to wanting people to think it's theirs. (Barthes, death of the author, is the aim for us as creators to own it or would we prefer the consumer to feel like they own it?)
• It is your duty to tell your story and present your vision.
• The people in this documentary can't be labelled as 'beautiful losers', nor can they be labelled as just painters or just sculptors. They are just artists.  (This relates to COP because this looks at my theme of not being identified by a certain label, you don't fall into one category, you are a unique mixture of parts of a lot of categories. Looking at creative practitioners in this way is a smaller scale version of looking at the entire human race.)

Margaret Kilgallen

Her work stood out to me so I wanted to research into her a bit more. Her personal story was shared on the documentary and she shows true devotion to her family and her art. I think her confidence and personal strength shows in her artwork, she would paint straight onto a wall and be confident in her own abilities. Her use of shape and colour is all very strong. The meanings of her pieces are very loose, I struggle to understand them all  but I love how it looks like she is emptying her thoughts into her work but with such precision. 

"She would approach the wall with complete confidence, with a humility and a fierceness, but never fear." 

This film felt really slow at the beginning and I thought I wouldn't be able to watch it right to the end but it picked up and started talking about things I could actually connect with. I don't particularly see myself as part of a subculture (although that might be quite a blasé thing to say) so I struggle to connect with a lot of the things these practitioners were talking about. It has been interesting to watch and I found some of the things the practitioners said quite inspirational and encouraging. Clearly the 'Made You Look' documentary is more modern and speaks about the age we are living in now so I feel this is more relevant to me right now.