 |
| Juan Manuel Sánchez in his Vancouver Studio circa 2010 |
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color
and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence
from visual references in the world.[1] Abstract art, non-figurative art,
non-objective art, and non-representational art are all closely related terms.
They have similar, but perhaps not identical, meanings. Wikipedia
 |
| 5 April 2025 |
Since I began taking photographs for money in Vancouver around 1977 I always told people that I was a good technical photographer. Some suggested I was an artist. This I soundly denied. Why?
Vancouver is not really a place that promotes the arts particularly now in this first quarter of the 21st century. Out CBC tells us about bridge traffic. There are Ideas and Reclaimed in an otherwise dry cultural desert.
Because of this many who are artists, and then fail, become bitter. Bitterness is a terrible emotion for anybody. I knew a couple of local photographers who became bitter and left town.
Telling people I was not an artist was a safe way of pursuing my own photographic interests. They were personal projects. I was once invited to contribute to a seminar for Emily Carr Institute art teachers who seemed to be in some sort of depression. On my first day I asked the class (mature art and photography professors (all men)) how many of them had personal projects. No hands went up.
I believe I am an artist and this is because I had a mentor, Argentine painter Juan Manuel Sánchez. He said I was one. he then proceeded to give me an education in the arts. We were friends for about 10 years until he returned to Buenos Aires. I visited him a couple of times and then he died. He has left an important impression in me. I do my personal projects just for me and I have no intention or hoping for anybody to care.
In this last week I suddenly figured out that Sánchez would have smiled had I shown him the photograph shown here.
I was not sure that when I placed this blog in Facebook if their “community standards” would not have seen it as abstract enough and would have removed it.
