Art Jerk

      The more I meet artists, the more I know that truly creative people can’t be contained. You won’t find creative genius nestled into a niche’ very often. The creative personality knows no boundaries of exploration, expression, or expulsion. I am convinced that every artist feels compelled to get their hands dirty, no matter what it is they’re digging.
       Here we have a couple of visual works done by the late Bill Burroughs. As with his poetry and spoken word the delivery seems dry and strangely calculated. Schizophrenic overtones run all over his pages, written or not. Which is probably why the particular style here is so reminiscent of Dada. A couple shotgun blasts through a few layers of cross-hatched wood grain create a compelling set of textures all the while making this work seem more American and more Burroughsian.
      In the piece “It Exploded”, my eyes try to follow the lines around the page for a while before the negative space suggests that the most telling action is perhaps a centralized splatter of ink. The visual rabbit trails I find myself taking in Burroughs’ work here are similar to some I’ve taken reading his words. The Burroughsian Experience in all mediums seems to take the reader/listener/viewer in all directions to explore the setting long before settling on a point.
       As I meet and discover artists, I am coming to the conclusion that we’re all dabblers. Many times the effect is that which art “critics”, “patrons”, and “curators” like to call “outsider art”. Unless these heavily titled blowhards are referring to Hinton’s crew of greasers, it seems they’re getting too comfortable. Regardless of how the work is received, it is clear to me that artists will always slip in and out of mediums, bringing fresh perspectives and well-oiled creative machines with them.
    -After all, if its not experimentation its not really art is it?