“I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.”
Jackson Pollock The Healing Power of Art and Artist
Titling work is hard… In the past, I frequently titled a work only to retitled it later when I have exhibited the work. To me, that underscores that work does have a life of its own. The meaning changes as time, culture, and viewers’ experiences change. I guess the artist’s experience changes too.
This work is my latest, inspired by both the Greek myths and the book “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch. I settled on the title-Created. I think it could be Losing it too. Maybe soon, I will think of another.
A great article in The New Republic, Art with No Name, by Ruth Bernard Yeazell, discusses why many untitled works were produced in the 18th Century. As it examines the subject, it brings forward as art becomes more mobile the need to title a piece increases to provide an entrée into the work.
Titling, as E. H. Gombrich has observed, “is a by-product of the mobility of images,”; and before the rise of the art market, the growth of public exhibitions, and the development of the reproductive print, the mobility of images was distinctly limited.
