Tao of Guerra

Now before your feathers start to get ruffled, allow me to share a bit about myself. I grew up with a computer engineer for a father. This was back in the day when no other kids’ families had computers. I still remember him coming home with rolls of that old dot matrix printer paper and he and my brother would go through it all and check the code. When I was the ripe old age of nine, my father said to me, “Anyone who doesn’t learn how to use computers will be left behind in the 20th century when the 21st century arrives.” How true. Flash forward to today. You’re reading my blog, surfing the net, maybe paying bills, shopping, joining clubs, networking, etc., all by digital means. A computer is a tool, like a really cool paint brush, hammer, fork, or pen. It’s just another thing that people invented in order to achieve a task.

To counter this computer mindset, I shall introduce my mother. She’s from Spain (as am I), a culture steeped in tradition. Spain has produced many great artists who revolutionized art and helped to push it forward (begrudgingly or otherwise). I have a healthy respect for both tradition and innovation. Whether it’s art, food, graphic design, or sweeping a sidewalk, everyone has an individual way of approaching what they do.

So, with that out of the way, I’ll add my two cents (as is my genetic predisposition) on the subject of whether digital is a lower form of art. I think it’s a waste of time. Maybe those who dislike digital have issues with change born out of fear or indignation of new forms of art. Maybe it’s based on the assumption that since digital techniques are relatively new, they must be hunted down and cast aside like some outcast Frankenstein (or a painting of Frankenstein). Since art has always been a representation of something else (a portrait, landscape, thoughts, emotions, dreams, etc), the way we create art is in itself artificial. Even if you smash berries to create just the right shade and then use your hands to smear it on a cave wall, you’re still creating tools in order to illustrate something. Unless someone can use telepathy to implant images in another person’s mind, we have to use tools that we create. And if you are telepathic and have mastered this technique, please start a blog so we can learn how.


I often think about the first poor sucker who had the inspirational idea to start painting on cave walls. His (insert her/she throughout if you like) fellow cave people probably thought he was crazy, maybe that he was bad luck, or was challenging the very forces of nature! Was he pissing off the guys that drew in the dirt with sticks, who before them aroused the ire of those that drew in the dirt with their fingers? In other words, are people angry about the method, or are they just annoyed that someone is challenging tradition…yet again. Everything traditional was new at some point.

I’m not saying to drop traditional. I like to roll up my sleeves and get my hands full of paints once in while too. I think it boils down to certain people who like to see the same thing over and over again. At some point, someone developed a technique that was proven to work and achieved a certain look that they like. Great. You can continue to like that style, but the rest of us can both enjoy it and move on. We’re complicated like that. Use the old; dabble in the new. Feel free to experiment. Follow your curiosity. This will make whatever method you come up with something that you’re comfortable with and something that’s (dare we say it) original.

Comparing which method is better is like comparing Hokusai to a Dali. It makes no sense. Ukyo-e prints are different than oil paintings, yet they’re beautiful. The birth of crosshatching came about when artists had to etch their art on blocks to make prints. There was no other way to achieving tone. They cleverly used lines to fool the eye. Were there people at the time that considered this a lesser form of art? You bet your ass there were. The more you study history, the more you learn that every time there was something new, the artists that came up with it were ridiculed and ostracized. Take the Impressionists. They didn’t look like the contemporary art of their time, so they were left in the cold until a time came when they didn’t mind the differences. They didn’t judge the technique, the appreciated the art.

Most of the people that I hear argue that ‘traditional is better’ aren’t even artists. They’re not painters or illustrators, but they seem to want to define what ‘art’ is. Let’s look at film and photography. Why is this art? Both methods capture images using a mechanical device. No one labored over the image (we’re not talking makeup and changing the lights, just the actual act of taking a picture). No one says photography is a lesser form of art than painting, but photographs are not hand made images…kind of like digital art (did you like the way I brought that around?). I put more effort into a digital painting than a photographer puts into a photograph. I can be trying to find the right skin shade for the blush on a woman’s cheek in the time it takes them to snap 100 photos. Should writers ditch their computers and use a crow quill? Is it the method or the end product what we admire and enjoy? Where is the line drawn? Who’s to judge?