ROTHKO, C. (2004) Introduction by Christopher Rothko IN: ROTHKO, M. The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, xiv. 

“The true value of The Artist’s Reality is not the thoroughness of Rothko’s arguments or how consistently he wins his debates; rather, the treasure here is that we get a glimpse of an artist’s worldview, expressed in the written word and in considerable detail.” 

The Artist’s Reality: philosophies of Art is essentially 12 essays written by artist Mark Rothko that explore his ideas on art theories and philosophies. The reason I chose this quotation from the introduction by his son Christopher is because it is a good quote to contextualise the book. Rothko in his essays which are summarised in chapters, talks about the great masters of art, social and political art stances of the time and even how an artist should deal with making art. 

Rothko never meant for these ramblings to be published so the book itself is a little all over the place, and whilst his son Christopher did a fantastic job at editing the book, it is a little hard to follow consecutively. 

The book itself is almost like an advanced art theory lesson with the way Rothko discusses aspects that contributed to making modern art work. As an artist, already knowing these things it can be quite tedious to read but on the other hand as a Rothko fan, it is very interesting to read his views and opinions on what was happening at the time of him making artwork. 

“Traced” is the title name lecturer Andrew Carnie gave to us for a beginning to our first piece of work made at Winchester School of Art known as the passport project. The brief of which is self-explanatory, an identity art piece in which you get to tell other students about yourself using creative media. 

Andrew demonstrated a straight forward technique on how to fold paper in to a little booklet like that of a passport, a technique I decided to use to start with. I then set the handmade book aside and focused more on what I wanted to put inside it. Thinking about words, drawings and collages, I started with a self-portrait. I picked out some tracing paper and traced an image of myself from my phone, a technique I would not normally go for as I find it better as a practicing artist to free hand, but felt it fit with the title Andrew gave us. I liked the outcome, a simple black and white traced image of myself, it stands out on the first page as a very literal piece about myself. 

I was then stuck for ideas; did I want to be so open about myself in a little book made to present to a group of people I don’t really know? With this pondering came the 4th page of my passport, a sort of doodle page which expressed quite a lot about myself, my anxiety. In big bold words on a turned over page as if its hidden from everyone are the words ‘Struggle is good!’ a lecturer from my foundation course used to say to me and has stuck with me as important words to remember as an art student.  

On the rest of the pages I decided to put little things to do with myself such as my date of birth, my hometown and a thought bubble of little things that make up my identity. On the front page I kept It simple like a passport, with the title and my name. The back page has a big stop sign on it to indicate the end and my knowing of where to stop as sometimes in art we get a little lost and don’t always know when to call an art piece finished. 

Overall, I consider my passport finished, however there are many things I could do to improve it such as adding a few more details about myself. I took quite a literal approach to the passport idea and feel while it has little bits and pieces of my identity, it doesn’t really say much about my art style and whilst it was a really enjoyable little project, my interpretation of it feels quite adolescent when there were many other outcomes I could of done to suit my personal aesthetic.