Mixed media is trashy
Why do all mixed media art pieces look homemade and poor quality?
I love DIY. I love innovation and quirkiness and messiness and not being perfect.
But so much mixed media art looks like something you did while watching Love Island and not really paying attention to what was going on. Even when there is intention visible in a piece, the layering effect looks like something Aunt Gloria smashed together from thrift store art supplies. And even with portraits, which I enjoy most of all the mixed media I've seen.
Or like an over-done scrapbook page.
I don't know what it is about the mish-mashed, mis-matched pieces that gives me the ick so hard! Especially because in found art, I love that eclectic and homemade, spontaneous feeling.
As a single piece presented for consumption, it's kitsch. Not art.
I love zines, for example. Which you'd think would be on this edge, but not quite!
I don't want to be a bitch but mixed media doesn't look thought out or artfully designed.
I'm trying to create an art journal and it's a real problem for me that the idea of making things with lace, stamps, little bits of trash stuck together... ew.
I want to use my art journal to explore different media and learn the patterns and attributes of supplies I'm not familiar with. I want to be loose and impulsive and just try a lot of different things. And art journals that have that kitschy, over-patterned and involved look are intriguing! But my eyes don't have anywhere to rest and I end up just overwhelmed and distracted from the piece.
Maybe that's the key for my own work – making sure there is an actual composition and somewhere for your eyes to go. Rather than just wandering a chaotic pile of shapes.
It may be the case that I am stuffy and perfectionist and that I'll update my preferences, but I think the mixed media pieces lack a sophistication and clarity of message/feeling.
That said, I am immensely pleased with the watercolor base layer I developed last night for the first page of my art journal.
I do also want to incorporate writing, but not copy-paste stamps from elsewhere. Things from my head or that mean something to me.
Maybe that's the challenge? The quotes I see other artists choosing are over-used and boring to me?
Love and probably uneducated opinions,
Jordie
P.S. Even as I add the images into this piece, I am disagreeing with myself about the pieces lacking intentionality.