Irwin's Canyon

When you really like something, you study it. You return to it, spend time with it, and hold onto it even when it's no longer in front of you. It becomes familiar, something you recognize and want to be around. Or perhaps it was always a part of you, and encountering it simply brought that recognition into focus. What we call influence may sometimes be less about discovering something new than recognizing something we already possess.

I was thinking about this while watching skateboarding. Skaters return to the same spots, using the same stairs, rails, ledges, and other architectural features that countless others have skated before them. Some perform entirely different tricks, others attempt to improve upon what someone else has already done, and still others simply repeat an established trick. Younger skaters visit these same places, often hoping to accomplish exactly what they've watched someone else do. There's a shared appreciation for the location, the possibilities it offers, and the history of what's happened there. Repeating a trick doesn't necessarily diminish the accomplishment, and doing something different doesn't automatically make it better. The experience is meaningful regardless of whether someone got there first.

We're taught from an early age to learn through repetition, memorization, observation, and imitation. Much of formal education depends on everyone learning and repeating the same information. In sports, athletes improve by studying others, emulating their movements and techniques, and practicing established methods. We understand this as a natural part of learning, and we don't necessarily expect everyone to develop an entirely new way of playing the game. Skateboarding makes this particularly visible. Individual style emerges through participation in a shared activity, often through the repetition of movements that have been performed thousands of times before. Finding one's own way of doing something doesn't necessarily require inventing something new.

Yet in art, imitation carries a peculiar stigma. Although copying has long been part of artistic education, we're expected to eventually move beyond our influences and establish something unmistakably our own. Being derivative is generally considered a deficiency, something to overcome rather than embrace. But why must imitation be a temporary stage rather than a legitimate destination?

I've been making drawings consisting of words arranged in circular, radiating configurations, connected by a shared concept. I recently became more familiar with Mel Bochner's work and recognized some common interests in language, repetition, and the organization of words as visual material. Bochner made thousands of artworks over his lifetime, and I have no expectation of matching the scope of his practice. These particular drawings of mine may amount to only a handful. But I like them enough to want more. In fact, just today I made a tool to help construct a larger one. Learning that another artist has explored related territory hasn't diminished my interest. Nor does it make me feel obligated to change direction. If anything, it reinforces my attraction to the possibilities of the work.

We encounter art and its histories at different stages of our lives, and what matters most isn't necessarily what's new, but what's relevant to us at that particular moment. An idea, a form, or a way of working from another century can feel more immediate than something made yesterday. We don't encounter history in any prescribed order, nor do we necessarily recognize its significance the first time around. Our interests change, our understanding develops, and things that once seemed unremarkable can suddenly become meaningful. And so what if others have been there before.

I remember hearing Robert Irwin speak at Georgia State University in 2005. He said something to the effect that you wouldn't want to holler into a canyon and not hear an echo back. That thought has stayed with me. Perhaps discovering that someone else has explored similar territory isn't something to regret, but something to appreciate. The echo is evidence that there's something beyond ourselves, something to respond to and participate in. Rather than diminishing an idea, the recognition that others have shared it can make the experience more meaningful.

There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to make more of something you love. If someone admires Manet, why shouldn't they spend a lifetime making paintings that resemble his? Why can't there be more than one Manet, or more than one of any other artist? Such work might not be original in the conventional sense, but that doesn't mean it lacks beauty, sincerity, intelligence, or artistic value. And conversely, making something unlike anything else doesn't automatically make it interesting.

Consider the modular construction methods of Ursula von Rydingsvard and Leonardo Drew. Both build monumental sculptures through the repetition, accumulation, and assembly of smaller elements, often using wood as a primary material. Their approaches share an interest in the relationship between individual components and larger structures, geometric order and organic irregularity. The similarities are evident, but so are the differences. We can appreciate both without needing to establish which approach is more original or distinctive. Neither artist's work diminishes the other’s. If anything, their shared methods expand what we can experience through them. Why should an artist drawn to those same possibilities feel obligated to find an entirely different way of working simply because someone else got there first?

The commercial art market has a vested interest in maintaining distinctions between artists. Galleries, auction houses, and collectors benefit from recognizable identities, exclusive authorship, and the perception of scarcity. The mythology of singular genius reinforces these distinctions, attaching value not only to the work but to the idea that no one else could have made it. This doesn't mean individual vision is unimportant, or that the market invented the concept of originality. But it does raise questions about how much of our understanding of artistic value has been shaped by the need to distinguish, authenticate, and assign ownership to particular ways of making things.

I love a good Mondrian, but I also love a Marden. Their work shares certain formal concerns without producing the same experience. Similarity doesn't eliminate difference, just as difference doesn't guarantee significance. Artists inevitably bring their own experiences, sensibilities, and decisions to what they make, whether or not originality is their objective. Difference can simply be a consequence of making something rather than the reason for making it.

Perhaps artistic influence is better understood as affinity. We encounter something that feels familiar, something that expresses a sensibility we recognize in ourselves. Wanting to participate in that experience isn't necessarily an attempt to become someone else, nor does it require transforming what we admire into something sufficiently different to justify our involvement.

This isn't an argument against originality, individuality, or artistic genius. It's an argument for allowing originality and derivation to coexist without establishing a hierarchy between them. There is room for singular visions, shared sensibilities, repetition, and resemblance. Art doesn't have to distinguish itself from what already exists to justify its existence.

Sometimes we make something because we believe it hasn't been made before. Sometimes we make something because we wish there were more of it. Both seem like perfectly good reasons to make art.