Ah, the signature. A simple indication that, yes you were there, and you did it. The signature is a strange mistress. Sometimes she is meticulous, thought out, and done up with a steady hand. Other times she is drunk, slapdash, and barely holding onto legibility. The nature of the signature spans many topics and cultural instances, but I am going to touch on one in particular: the artist's signature.
It was ages ago when I had my first run in with the aforementioned mistress. I was young. My grandmother was teaching me how to make art on my own. I ended up creating a charcoal and pastel bust of a Zebra. When I say bust I mean it. You could land an A380 on the neck of this sucker. If you don't believe me it is still hanging in my mother's laundry room. It still makes me cringe.
But back then I was beaming with pride over my new creation. It was perfect. I wouldn't have changed a thing if you asked me to. As I held it up off the table to get a better look my grandmother came over to change my life.
She said, "Are you finished?"
"Yep!"
"Well then sign your name."
"Why?"
At the time I did not have the experience, nor the vocabulary to explain to my grandmother that the word finished, to me meant, "add nothing else." She told me that if I didn't, no one would know that I did it and that we wouldn't want that would we? Reluctantly, I signed my name to the background underneath this massive striped neck. It wasn't ruined. I didn't throw a tantrum, or anything of the sort. It was just less than what I had hoped it would be. I spent some serious time getting the purple background just right. (I think it is purple. I would have to take another look to be sure.) Then I signed my -for all intents and purposes- lackluster signature with evidence of my unsteady and untrained hand. Bleh.
The signing of my work stopped becoming a conscious decision and more of a habit. It wasn't until college that I realized that everyone could care less if I signed my name or not. O wow. This is new. You mean to tell me that I don't have to sign my name? Well this changes everything. The reins were back in my hands. I could determine when a work was finished. I didn't need to wait until my namesake was stamped in the bottom right corner of a piece to call it complete.
With art school attendance came gallery attendance. It was quickly evident that almost every gallery uses labels. Sometimes the label was an entire wall or podium, but whatever form it took, there was an external signature to let you know (insert artist name) was here and indeed did this. Now I know you can't exactly call a printed label a signature -no matter how pretty the font is- but does it not satisfy the requirements my grandmother so stringently laid out for me? Yes it does. It does it without the bottom right corner of a piece becoming no more valued than the bottom line of an arduous insurance document.
I wish I would have been able to articulate to my grandmother my signature speech. I would have done it while standing on a gray studio chair and pointing a lot for emphasis. It would have went something like this:
Sign this?! For what do I have to gain by placing my name upon this piece? Surely, this Zebra with a lump in his throat cannot possibly share my name. Why then do you ask me to assign it to him? Does the background not already have a name? I learned it in school. Grapes, eggplant, popsicles, and Grimace are all purple. Purple is a fitting name to what now lays upon my page. It needs not another. Have I not already signed this work? With each brush stroke and finger smudge I have imprinted myself into this creation. This paper contains my very DNA. I do believe this well organized Double-Helix contains more of myself than my name could ever hope to convey! What then if this was a sculpture? Would the hidden overlays of my fingerprints not be enough to identify myself as the proprietor? My loving grandmother, my hands are my own. They act, at times, of their own accord. Much like our striped friend here, they do not need a name to be recognized as different. To answer your question, no. I will not sign my name. I have been penning out my signature on the paper from the moment I had sat down and touched it. I have signed it a thousand times.
She probably would have smiled, told me to get off the chair, and made me sign it on the back.
I may be opinionated, but I know when to compromise.