I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Wednesday Writing, I consider my writing practice and skills and how to improve upon them.
Titling abstract paintings isn’t the same as titling a poem, but still, I find poet and author Maggie Smith’s thoughts on titling work useful.
For a poem, a title can do some of the work that then the poem itself doesn’t have to do. From Smith’s book Dear Writer:
Persona poem titles like “The Wife of Lot” and “The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison” tell the reader who’s speaking. “The Poem Speaks to Danger” tells the reader not only who’s speaking but also who’s being addressed. “Rain, New Year’s Eve” provides a significant date of metaphorical importance in the poem. The alternative is including that information in the poem itself, but exposition is the enemy of the lyric. It’s hard to sing and explain at the same time.
For a piece of abstract art, the title must do even more work. The visuals aren’t necessarily of anything in particular (although the Things Men Gave Me paintings do generally have representational elements). The title of an abstract painting can give the viewer an entry into an experience of the painting, a place to start. The title has the opportunity to do exposition that a purely abstract painting cannot.
My painting titles for the Things Men Gave Me paintings link the paintings to the essays. To fully understand the painting, you might read the essay first, then read the title of the painting, then view the painting. For example, the painting I Wanted That Ring is an abstract painting that features a large white ring. It can be read as a statement of the painter’s desire: she wanted to put a ring on her painting. But alongside the essay, it refers to the ring that she received from Elijah.
More interesting to me is the idea that someone might see the painting and then read the essay. Then the painting title should intrigue the viewer and invite them to wonder about the story of the essay. Ideally it will make the essay even more interesting to read, by setting up some question or wondering in the viewer/reader’s mind.
I usually start with a tentative title for a painting but sometimes it changes once the painting is done. As Smith suggests, titles often can’t be pinned down until a work is complete:
Titles can be tricky. Scratch that: Titles can be downright maddening. Typically the title is the last piece of a poem or essay (or book!) to click into place. If I don’t know where a piece of writing is going, or where it will end up, how could I know what the “right” title will be until it’s finished?
With the TMGM paintings, however, often the concept of the painting is pretty well set before I start. The title is part of the concept. With conceptual art, the idea or concept behind the work is more important than the actual material form of the art. The title helps communicate the concept.
For example, I’m about to start a painting titled I Ruined (A Road Trip to Santa Fe). It’s going to be a painting evoking a road trip to Santa Fe, but then the painting will be “ruined” with black marks and scratches. This painting contributes to the story of when I took a road trip to Santa Fe with a man named Christopher1, and along the way he told me, “You Ruin Everything.” The concept of the painting is that it was a painting of a trip to Santa Fe that then I ruined.
For this painting, the concept is as important as the execution of the actual painting.
I like titles that do good work for a painting. Smith writes, “The question I ask of any potential title, whether it’s a piece of mine or work by a student or an editorial client, is this: What work is the title doing on behalf of the piece?”
For the Santa Fe piece, the title tells the person to see a road trip to Santa Fe, and then see it ruined. It invites them to reflect on how a road trip might be ruined. If they see the painting first, they may be intrigued to know how I (that is, the protagonist of the essays, the character version of Anne) ruined a road trip to Santa Fe. As they read the essay they’ll ponder how it might happen. And if they’ve read past essays they might have some idea how the character of Anne might do that. I intend on turning myself into a character in the essays, one who makes mistakes, shows remorse, has a false goal (or maybe multiple false goals), and who works through serious conflicts and challenges on her journey.
This has been helpful to think about what work my painting titles can do for the essay they serve. The essays can probably do work for the paintings as well. I’ll have to think more about that.
- Not his real name. ↩︎