Simple Complexity
Saturday, September 18, 2010 at 4:52PM 
Well here we are with the first post on the new stuckeyart.com website. Before I go any further I want to thank my designer for all the hard, hard work that has gone into creating this site. As you no doubt noticed when you got to the site it is very clean and very utilitarian. Meaning that it is obvious exactly how you should navigate the site and only presents you with what you absolutely need to reach its most important aspects and information. I requested that visitors be able to get a front page sample of previous work, be able to see a blurb from my most recent blog comments and view the studio live when I am streaming a broadcast.
I think that has been accomplished and what we have is a representative experience of my visual and informational philosophy. Thank you Ginger for all your hard work. While this site may look very basic in design it is exactly that feature that makes this design so difficult to obtain. It is an ironic truth about web design that simplicity, clean coding and functional design are the most difficult skills any designer can obtain.
When you browse to such a site you can be assured a talented designer was behind its creation. Such sites allow for future growth and changes with out the redesign common to templates. This is doubly so for Stuckeyart.com because we used Squarespace as our host for technical access scaling reasons. This required a lot of advanced work on her part and is to be congratulated for her talent and perseverance in sticking to her vision and design requirements.
Well enough on that. Lets talk about why this site exists beyond the obvious.
When you first land on the site you can quickly identify what it is and why it exists. There are many such art and artist sites. However, I wanted something different. Virtually every one of these sites seem to simply be a place you can go to see something. They never, or almost never, are reflections of the actual art and philosophy of the artist. I wanted the experience to reflect my artwork. To reflect me both as I am and as I hope to become during my journey.
It is both familiar and very different in equal measures. Its purpose is to communicate in an obvious manner what it represents but do so in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. I wanted to provide an experience in depth. Like my paintings I wanted the complexity of execution to be something not immediately obvious but to be realized as first-hand experience and exposure matured.
This may seem over the top or even exaggerating the idea behind the site. Maybe it is but I think not. I did not tell Ginger exactly what my purpose was. I let her go with the basic ideas I had. Like going to a canvas with an idea you begin to work. The composition, palette, and so on is well fixed in your mind. With skill and experience you can bring those ideas into being. However, like painting you must use tools and media for execution.
Sometimes the paint and the brush, no matter your skill, will express themselves as they will. You push them here and there. You mix and place other elements beside and in proximity. Ultimately you must accept that some things will be because they want to be and forcing your will only leads to disaster and failure.
Did I push Ginger here and there to get the result I wanted? Was her talent and skill like paint on a canvas where you are trying to bring your vision to life. Well at the possible risk of my life I would say yes. Did I always realize what was happening? No. I am not SO arrogant nor narcissistic to make that statement. What I will say is that it was a creative endeavor.
Making use of some one else's talent is very much like making use of a media like paint. It will be what it is. You cannot change its nature. You may have developed skill in using its nature to reflect your vision but it is what it is. Beautiful, complex and beyond your ability to create in all that complexity. Blend and mix it like a human being is blended and mixed by experience and education but you can never hope to make it yours and bend it to your will with fiat. Try and you will ruin the very objective and or object you are working to bring forth.
This not just a lesson for fellow artists or artisans to take to heart. It is a lesson we should all consider. It goes beyond just creation in its common usage. It is a concept, managers of people, inventors of objects and technology or software should always keep in mind.
No matter our ability or skill we must take great care to not just bend our media, be it paint or people, to our will. We must allow them to bend us as well to their will and even more importantly their nature. To do so risks destroying the very thing we desire to create.
You see? This post is pretty much reflective of my thought patterns. I may ramble a bit. Jump the shark here and there but in the end I try hard to tie it all together with my original thought.
Am I trying too hard to bend the words to my ideas? Maybe so. I will have to ponder that.
-STUCKEY-
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