China//Target connection

Dan Spector

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Sep 21, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/21/00

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It has come out that Target (red + white bullseyes) is sponsoring the ripping
off of American artists/craftsmen by sending our stuff to China (Hi Chris!) for
mass reproduction.
Anyone with specific information, please post it.

--
Dan <arch...@earthlink.net>
http://www.archicast.com

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 22, 2000, 12:10:52 AM9/22/00

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Dan Dan Dan ...
now you've touched on a sore spot with me.

Target is not to blame for the fact that all resin statuary
manufacturing has gone overseas.
It was the manufacturers who did it, without consulting with Target
or anyone else. They did so in order to be able to offer a better
quality product at a lower price and earn a higher margin than was
possible using expensive American labor.

As far as the artisans and sculptors go, I can tell you from hard
experience that finding competent artists in the U.S. is almost
impossible.
The art schools here turn out sculptors without any of the requisite
skills or knowledge that commercial companies demand. They
have had their heads filled with ethereal nonsense about the
"meaning" of "art", about suffering and the whims of their muse,
-But they are given none of the career preparation that any graphic
art student takes for granted.
I have offered apprenticeships for nearly twenty years now, and I
have had very little luck finding talented people willing to stick it out
and learn their craft even when they are being paid for the
priviledge.
Some drift off because they find commercial work "beneath" them-
or because they simply can't finish what they start, or because they
have no interest in sculpting when it becomes an everyday thing
like a real job.
Or some, cruising along and making a fairly good wage for a
beginner, will decide that the corporate fat cats are getting rich off
of the fruit of their genius and raise their price fivefold in the middle
of an already bid job.
Only a few apprentices, out of the 40 , have gone on to have stellar
careers,earning as much as most lawyers do because they have
the right mental attitude about working proffessionally.

All in all, American sculptors tend to be either underskilled,
undertrained, unproffessional , or unwilling to do what needs
doing if there is no acclaim attached to it.

When I go to China, I have 30 sculptors who show up at the studio
everyday, who recognize and respect sculptors with superior skills
and who are eager to learn anything you can show them. They are
happy to have the job- which pays pretty well by Chinese
standards.
When it comes to the narrow focus of commercial resin design,
the average unschooled Chinese sculptor is miles better than the
average college educated American sculptor who walks into my
studio looking to acquire the skills they came out of school
missing.
So, Dan- ifn you want to wax political and get all activist over the
sculpture jobs moving overseas, aim your indignation at the Art
Schools who have completely failed the past several generations
of talented American sculptors.

Christopher

P.S. this should in no way be interpreted as a dissing of American
sculptors- who tend to be far more creative and innovative than
practical and multiskilled.
It is a dissing of the piss poor American sculptural arts eduction
system and the failure of the whole academic art esablishment.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Andrew Werby

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Sep 22, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/22/00

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Dan Spector wrote in message ...

[Do you have any more info on this? I'm not sure if you're upset because
they aren't producing the sculpture they have bought reproduction rights to
here in the US, as Christopher understands it, or because they are actually
stealing the copyrights- sending art off to be copied without compensating
the original artists for the reproduction rights. Which is it, and where did
you hear about it?]

Andrew Werby
http://unitedartworks.com

Cathy Morgan

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Sep 22, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/22/00

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There's probably information on this at
www.craftsreport.com, as Crafts Report has been reporting on
this right along. The Rosen Group is sponsoring a national
agency or committee to pursue lawsuits to defend US artists
against cheap imported copies of their work (that violate
their copyrights.) At least one such lawsuit is in
progress, maybe more. Target is the most often mentioned
violator.
Ironically, it seems as if this is because Target
decided to position itself as a retailer of finer quality
design, to distinguish itself from Walmart of Kmart.
Personally, I do find that items available at Target are
usually more attractive than items at other discount stores,
on average. However, Target's method of achieving this
retailing distinction has apparently led them into some
shady deals.

Andrew Werby wrote in message ...

Gary Waller

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Sep 22, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/22/00

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Chris,
You are painting with a pretty broad brush here, and referring specifically
to the US, but there are many more pieces to this rather messy puzzle.

- The movie, theme park, toy and fibreglass industries have been able to
build extremely talented and motivated teams of "commercial" sculptors. An
average wage $25 - $32 per hour, plus benefits, plus overtime, etc. China is
still a net importer of movies, pop music and theme parks. All efforts to
make of use of Chinese artists for these industries have been a disaster
(except for Jackie Chan - ask Elijah).

- In full appreciation of your considerable efforts and talent, do you
actually know anyone who has purchased a knick knack at a Target store? The
retail "giftware" market represents a very small portion of the overall arts
and sculpture landscape. Most artrepreneurs have chosen to produce painted
ceramics, using slip casting and plaster piece molds, for this market- a
scan of Ebay or local flea markets makes this abundantly clear. The resin
pieces allow for far more detail, thus competitive advantage, if the
manufacturer can beat the high mold and molding costs. A fine artist who
sells a bronze piece for say $3,000 would be returning a vastly greater
financial and cultural return to the local community than the whole years
worth of knick/knack sales of his/her local Target store.

- A visit to websites such as artcalendar and sunshineartist show that is a
tremendous amount of commercial savvy and free sharing of business
information among fine artists and craft artists. You do not see, for
example, "restaurant owners of America" cooperating and sharing at this
level. Of even more value, is that this sharing is the result of real world
information, not the usual classroom, theoretical bull preached by the
inexperienced and uninspired.

- I think you are dead on with the life style comment, lack of work ethic.
Many "artists" drift into this field through a lack of direction,
particularly in high school and college - but only rarely are they
successful. I guess many show up at the factory door in what is in their
mind " a last resort" - not a good attitude. Lack of work ethic is also a
comment I hear regularly from the computer field, the plaster field, the
painting field, the fibreglass field and many others. It is usually voiced
by grumpy old masterds who look with envy upon the newcomer who quits to go
two months on the snowboard circuit, or three months in Bali, or to live
quite happily on Welfare, etc. I could comment that the 9 to 5 routine is a
killer of creativity, but the work you are describing has very little
creative content, the commercial sculptors are handed highly detailed
working drawings (usually prepared by a U.S. designer/artist) and expected
to duplicate them to that person's desires and vision. The customer is
always right, and you should learn very quickly that any suggested
"improvements" are better off kept to yourself. Commerical sculptors at this
level are more properly labelled highly skilled "mechanics" rather than
artists or even artisans. A capitalist economy can never get enough good
mechanics, not matter what industry you should choose.

all for now!
--
Gary Waller Scul...@home.com
Vancouver. B.C.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 22, 2000, 8:14:45 PM9/22/00

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Gary-
yes I am painting with a broad brush- but I am not limiting it to just
the resin area. All the areas of representational sculptural casting
and design are suffering from inexpert technique and poor
training. The film industry you cite is rife with half trained artists
producing props that can be made to look good on film with
enough paint and good lighting- but when viewed with the naked
eye up close they look like crap.

While there are some islands of true brilliance and competence,
they stand out for their rarity. 80% of major film sculptural special
effects design goes to just 5 companies.

People who call themselves sculptors in this country often are
hard pressed to do even a poor rendition of , say, a human figure
or a wolf. When called upon to do anything realistic- they are totally
at sea except for the narrow focus of their own "fine art" interests.

They know virtually nothing of moldmaking- a crucial skill for any
sculptor. (even the average bronze foundry has virtually no real
skills at moldmaking- when 95% of what you cast is one off, there
is little incentive for improving mold quality.)

As regards the difference between creative talent and virtuosity- I
maintain that without significant virtuosity, a creative talent is like a
brilliant but illiterate writer with no tongue- full of great stories but
with no method to adequately express them.

I am not talking about "technicians", Gary.
I don't need technicians. Unlike the film industry folks who ARE
technicians who copy drawings and make static models that
PEOPLE MOVE on camera, I 'm speaking of talented artists who
understand the figure and know how to DESIGN good looking
sculptures that MOVE PEOPLE-
Designing small resin statuary is no different than designing big
marble statuary. It takes a creative artist to do it well.

Fer Christ's sake- I have met 4 degreed "figure" sculptors in the
last two months alone that came out of important figure sculpting
classes and had never even heard the term "controposto"-
This is like a musician coming out of Julliard without ever hearing
mentioned "pianissimo".

Gary- I may be knocking on the door of "old bastard". but I have een
trying to combat this ocean of ignorence since I was 18 years old. I
dropped out of college when it became clear that the professors
just didn't know how to do anything- that 75 percent of what they
"created" was half accidental.
The worst thing is that these "instructors" have infected
generations of "artists" with this lackadaisical attitude.

Whether you want to pursue a commercial career or a fine art
career, making art well requires knowledge and skills. Be they
sculptors or be they flatwork artists, the artists that are making a
good living making art are the creative artists that have managed
to learn their craft, so that they have control of their creations.

Christopher

P.S. yes- every disciplined craft is having the same crisis of poor
instruction. This is why it is up to those that have the skills to see
to it that those skills do not die with them.
I just wish that the academic culture would indoctrinate students
with an appreciation of training with experienced proffesionals
instead of pandering to elitist academics with no real Knowledge.

Okay - rant over
I feel better now.

Gary Waller

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Sep 23, 2000, 12:05:33 AM9/23/00

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Well put Chris,
I can sense your passion and have no doubt what you say is true.

It sounds like you would be in favor of some traditional trade
apprenticeship for commercial sculptors? But most apprentices are lured
purely by the $$$ - as in "when do I get my full rate?".

This exists in the plaster field. It is plasterers and carpenters, not
special effect houses, that do the bulk of movie scenery and theme parks
(if we include Hollywood, Brollywood (Vancouver) and the Disneycorp as the
majors) and there is a strong apprenticeship tradition in both of these
trades. We do have very few architectural sculptors however. There are
hundreds who can take a mold and cast from an existing piece, but very few
who can buildup a piece from scratch from either the classical proportion
formulas, or creating entirely new ornaments that suit a room or building
exactly. As a result this is a dying trade - ornamental plaster has become
synonymous with fussy, dusty old moldings. This will too will be the fate of
resin giftware without the infusion of fresh design and real skills.

We are both singing the same tune, but in different keys!
Keep the faith.

Helen Fleischer

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Sep 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/23/00

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On Fri, 22 Sep 2000 04:10:52 GMT, sculpt...@my-deja.com wrote:

>Dan Dan Dan ...
>now you've touched on a sore spot with me.
>
>Target is not to blame for the fact that all resin statuary
>manufacturing has gone overseas.

I think the big complaint with Target has been over copyright violation.
Rumor is rampant in other craft groups, on and off-line, about them
looking at American designer's stuff, turning it down after keeping it
for a long time, then coming out with Chinese made knock-offs in the
stores. But it may just be rumor. I have seen no specifics given and I'm
loath to make shopping decisions based on such vague rumors, especially
when Target is the nearest store to my home.

he...@min.net http://www.min.net/~helen
Helen "Halla" Fleischer,
Fantasy & Fiber Artist in Fairland, MD USA

Nancy Fisk

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Sep 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/23/00

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My Grandfather and his brothers were Architectural Sculptors, my Father
chose middle management. I inherited my Grandfathers tools but he passed
away when I was only 2 years old. I got a B.F.A. and know enough to know
that I don't know enough. Anyone need an apprentice in the Chicago area?
nancy

"Gary Waller" <scul...@home.com> wrote in message
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Dan Spector

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Sep 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/23/00

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Okay, an on-topic comment!
Chris told my girlfriend that anything that's posted online gets seen by these
companies and k-o'ed if wanted.
The other comments indicate that crappy resin casts sell whether they are good
sculpture or not. So why bother looking for what's good.

--
Dan <arch...@earthlink.net>
http://www.archicast.com

----------
In article <qdqmss0ail64jdos6...@4ax.com>, Helen Fleischer
<he...@min.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Sep 2000 04:10:52 GMT, sculpt...@my-deja.com wrote:
>

>>Dan Dan Dan ...
>>now you've touched on a sore spot with me.
>>
>>Target is not to blame for the fact that all resin statuary
>>manufacturing has gone overseas.
>

Akilli

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Sep 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/23/00

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Greetings,
This all just underscores the perils of the brave new world of
e-commerce. Once a design is made public, it is as always, fair game; now, the
geographic distribution has exploded, and the time for diffusion collapsed . On
the jewelry ng there was a post relating the horrors experienced by a jeweler
as she displayed her work on ebay. Apparently, another "individual" would
produce near identical designs almost as fast as she could debut hers. How
anyone could be so parasitic and still look themselves in the mirror is another
matter (Why are the arts such a perennial magnet for the un-numbered cunning
scum of the world?); but it is very difficult to prove copyright infringement
in matters artistic. Tweak it, and it's an original.
An article in the Sept. 21 New York Times about the struggle of young
furniture designers cited a deal with Target, as unrewarding as that may be, as
a goal for many. A point I found distressing, and illuminating, was that the
design should entail as minimal a skill level for manufacture as possible: this
because it is being farmed out to Indonesia (in the case of Crate and Barrel)
and China, where as Chris mentioned, some people had never held a wrench
before. This ideal of parsimony in materials and effort, at one time perhaps
motivated by aesthetics, helps to explain the dismal state of design as it now
exists. While I sympathized with the designer's plight, they are all
essentially competing with each other for the most efficacious combination of
tubes, rods, and perforated steel plate. There can only be a few winners in
that battle. I never heard anyone clamor for more satin stainless steel tubing
in their home, yet an overwhelmingly cynical market has enobled such a "look"
to the point that only an expert could differentiate your living room from an
Iraqi germ warfare plant.
If I knew the solution, I wouldn't be wasting my time typing this.
Making your designs copy-proof means making them sufficiently complex to
discourage easy rip-off, while an intriguingly involved object is unlikely to
be reproduced; but enough about my personal life.
Ethan Gross

Gary Waller

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Sep 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/23/00

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Hey Nancy

There should be lots of work in Chicago. Try the Operative Plasterers and
Cement Masons Union, local 143, Ph: (708) 749-3660. There is a big drive to
get more women into the building trades. Union companies are not doing a lot
of residential, etc., but they still get a lot of restoration and government
type work because many of these companies have been around for a long, long
time. The nice thing for an artist is that you can choose to work day in/
day out to pay a mortgage or raise a family or you can work when dispatched.
The only one who will know that you turned down a job so you can ???? will
be the dispatcher, and he/she doesn't really care.

There is a great magazine for low cost subcription Traditional Building, and
a website www.traditional-building.com to give you a taste of the players
and the type of work going on at this time in the U.S.A. Also research
European Art Nouveau architecture, you may get many ideas. There is a
recently published book "Art Nouveau Tiles" but the Dutch authors escape me,
this style would be very popular with the American public, especially if
updated with modern themes.

I am too small to require apprentices and also I have "perverted" many of
the plaster techniques to work fibreglass, this is becoming more of my
unique specialty. I hope some day to offer workshops on old plaster
techniques such as stucco duro, fresco, run molds, scagliola, etc. The bad
news is that I will probably be holding them in Mexico, so you have to have
enough money for a mini-holiday and a workshop.

Good luck. I will be on the lookout. I have experience molding and
duplicating glazed terra cotta. Let me know if you need any help.

--

WoN ereH

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Sep 23, 2000, 3:57:50 PM9/23/00

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Plenty of artists make a great living that can't or don't care to sculpt like
Michaelangelo. Concept is more important than skill. Skill is important only
as far as what's needed to get the concept done.

Debra

WoN ereH

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Sep 23, 2000, 5:27:04 PM9/23/00

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Ethan wrote:

>How anyone could be so parasitic and still look themselves in the mirror is
>another matter (Why are the arts such a perennial magnet for the un-numbered
cunning scum of the world?)

A very famous designer (who sold her company for 18 million a few years ago)
was, shall we say, heavily influenced by 3 of my designs. Several of my
friends called to say "Did you see so n' so's....Looks just like yours."
Everyone thought I should sue. Well, hers were different enough to make suing
impossible, I took it as a compliment, and more to the point, I had been
influenced by her work! That's how it goes. Seems visuals are memes too.
As for Target, I am very impressed with the quality they are attempting with
some of their chairs, and we all know about the Michael Graves for Target
stuff. Has anyone seen the incredible cordless phone he did for them? Had to
buy one though I didn't need it. Now that's good product design.

Debra

Gary Waller

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Sep 23, 2000, 10:34:38 PM9/23/00

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Forgot to add, if you want to know what any of the old plaster tools are
called, or what they are used for. I.m sure myself or Tom Battersby will be
able to help if called upon.

Akilli

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Sep 24, 2000, 12:32:42 AM9/24/00

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> Seems visuals are memes too.
> As for Target, I am very impressed with the quality they are attempting
>with
>some of their chairs, and we all know about the Michael Graves for Target
>stuff. Has anyone seen the incredible cordless phone he did for them? Had
>to
>buy one though I didn't need it. Now that's good product design.
>
>Debra

Debra,
First of all, stay away from memes; they only want you for your mind!
It is to your credit that you could accept that designer's perfidy with such
aplomb. I will not say what I would have done, as it might prove incriminating
in the future.
Although I believe the pursuit of novelty is essential, perhaps that is
merely a modern conceit, as is also that of "artist", and not intrinsic to the
creative impulse. I always look in wonderment at Egyptian art, unable to
imagine myself as executor of such rigid formulae. However, I don't think those
artisans chafed under its rules, comforted perhaps with the thought that, under
the merciless sun, the copyright lawyers of the Nile were shivering in poverty.

Ethan Gross

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 24, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/24/00

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Back when I lived in Chicago- aside from the company I
apprenticed at (which, no longer in the Lucchesi family, lost all
their fine italian masters) onr of the coolest companies going was
Rush Studios- they do mostly large museum quality display work-
one of two off; anything from life size dinosaurs to animatronic see
thru sharks with interactive internal organs.

....or did- this was 16 years ago- so they may be defunct, but they
had some grat sculptors and moldmakers and could do
ANYTHING.
Look em up and good luck.
christopher

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 24, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/24/00

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>Skill is important only
> as far as what's needed to get the concept done.

Debra

This staetment is indicative of precisely what is wrong with fine art
in America today, And partly why so few Americans buy any.

Concept is not everything, Debra. As in speech, without eloquence,
the most profound concepts can hardly be expressed and seldom
conveyed.
You can write something that manages to get an idea across, but
then again, writing it in a way that gets it across beautifully, using
language in a breathtaking fashion, is the reason some authors
are great and others never published, regardless of their concept.

To suggest that you only need enough skill to get the concept done
is like saying I only need enough words to write this sentence.
People with poor or limited skills limit themselves and their
expression as artists.
I often hear folks who can't make a figure take the convienient
stand that figure work is "unimportant" in today's art world; it is
comforting for people to believe that a skill they don't possess is
uneeded.

I can tell you from my experience that every skill I acquire (welding
is my next challenge) opens huge vistas of artistic expression and
generates ideas and concepts that were closed to me before I
learned the skills involved.
A good friend of mine who is a fabulous abstract sculptor spent a
summer in my shop because he needed a temporary job. During
that summer he learned moldmaking- a skill he had never needed
to create the assemblage pieces that made up the body of his
work.
He told me later that knowing moldmaking transformed his entire
vision of his work and what was possible. The skill itself took his
art in new and unanticipated directions.

In visual art eloquence is knowledge and control of your media. To
limit your knowledge to one medium or even to the minimum
knowledge of a medium that is needed for a given work, is simply
limiting yourself creatively.

This is the real pitfall, Debra:
Ignorence, by definition, just doesn't know and therefore can't
imagine what its missing.
Christopher

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 24, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/24/00

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Great post , Ethan-

I can say that I agree whole heartedly with your indictment of the
"design" biz in general, which seems to focus almost exclusively
on making every succesive generation of products with less
material than the last.
As if we are all begging to buy one more cleverly designed piece
of extruded and folded 'whatever' .

I can say that one of the few furniture mass producers I saw in
China made very high quality stuff- if you asked them to ( They
import all their poplar from the Carolinas.)- but most 'designers'
aren't even asking, they just want it cheap and fast.

The Internet is a great way to allow every scum on earth to have
immediate access to your designs, and while immitation may be
the sincerest form of flattery, it can also be the most insidious
form of poverty.

Nancy Fisk

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Sep 24, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/24/00

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I got the smaller detail tools from Granddad's WWII airplane building days.
I use some of them for clay sculpture. Granddad made these tools himself
and made what he needed to do the work . I think he named each item this
one and that one. The big tools my Dad still has.
thanks

nancy
"Gary Waller" <scul...@home.com> wrote in message

news:2Ldz5.5569$pG1....@news1.crdva1.bc.home.com...

somej...@my-deja.com

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Sep 24, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/24/00

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In article <20000923155750...@ng-ch1.aol.com>,
won...@aol.com (WoN ereH) wrote:

Certainly concept is not Everything. But it is a lot of the equation.
Eloquence is certainly needed to make a memorable speech, but a
background in
Shakespearean grammer is not really necessary when speaking about art.

**True enough. Where Shakespearean grammer could be considered really
necessary however, is if you came out of writing school and applied for
an apprentice job with some guy called "writingman," and he made his
living doing pastiches of Elizabethan plays. If you didnt know anything
about Shakespeare--there would be a problem.

I think the original point he made was that there were these students
coming out of art school who did not even have a basic knowledge of
traditional sculptural techniques coming to him, arrogantly believing
they were qualified to be his apprentice(unless of course the problem is
that he is just a really nasty boss :-).
Imagine going to writing school or taking a course of the history of
English literature and having the instructors dismiss anything prior to
1900 as old hat.
When I was taking some art history courses, the sculptural works of the
Renaissance and Baroque periods were lumped together and dismissed in a
few minutes so we could go into an in depth analyses on 'artists' who
had used dirty diapers in wall murals.

The concepts hidden between the folds of those diapers were not so
profound that it justified dismissing a few hundred years of religious
and mythological themed art IMHO.

And I am highly skeptical of the notion that all these students are
coming out of art school with a deficency in skills but a surplus in
concepts.

Akilli

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Sep 24, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/24/00

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>
>Though I realize the odds are daring, I would love to create an iconographic
>image, a visual meme. The Mona Lisa being one of the greatest.
>

Debra,
I don't think most artists would mind birthin' a meme, myself included;
but your choice of the Mona Lisa is telling. A meme will only survive in an
environment receptive to it, although its purpose is to fashion an even more
congenial one. Why didn't you chose Keith Haring instead of Leonardo? Haring's
work has the iconic edge right now - or how about the smiley face?
Refering to another posting of yours, I agree that we have to keep our
minds open as to what art is or will be, as technology provides new avenues.
Few people would deny that films are (or can be) art, though few in it's
infancy would have forseen it. As in painting and sculpture however, even
film-makers have turned their backs on the "irrelevant past" - just try getting
most people under thirty to watch a B&W movie (they cause brain cancer you
know!) - so that cultural reference does not extend back more than, to be quite
generous, a generation.
The19th century French painter William Adolphe Beaugereau was at one
time the highest paid artist in the world. Forty years ago, you could have
bought one of his canvases for 50 bucks (possible exaggeration), now they're
going for millions. Did he suddenly become a lousy painter and then get good
again - all from the grave? All you can do is your best, and if conditions are
right (or you make them so - another devilish question), you too can be MEME
FOR A DAY. Or a millenium.

Ethan Gross

WoN ereH

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Sep 24, 2000, 11:45:20 AM9/24/00

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>>Skill is important only
>> as far as what's needed to get the concept done.
>Debra

Christopher wrote:

>This staetment is indicative of precisely what is wrong with fine art
>in America today, And partly why so few Americans buy any.

I believe few Americans buy art because few Americans know what art is. They
buy plenty of posters and knick knacks. They spend fortunes on fashion.
However, many very creative people earn huge sums in video, fashion, design.
Paintings and bronzes were 'art' in the century before, and especially the
century before that. They are highly collected. Perhaps 'art' of this century
may go beyond that.

>Concept is not everything, Debra. As in speech, without eloquence,
>the most profound concepts can hardly be expressed and seldom
>conveyed.

Certainly concept is not Everything. But it is a lot of the equation.

Eloquence is certainly needed to make a memorable speech, but a background in
Shakespearean grammer is not really necessary when speaking about art.

>You can write something that manages to get an idea across, but

>then again, writing it in a way that gets it across beautifully, using
>language in a breathtaking fashion, is the reason some authors
>are great and others never published, regardless of their concept.

Obviously. But then, plenty of people get there point across just fine using
simple words. That too, is considered a sign of good writing. Some concepts
would be muddled by frilly language.

snip

I often hear folks who can't make a figure take the convienient
>stand that figure work is "unimportant" in today's art world; it is comforting
for people to believe that a skill they don't possess is
>uneeded.

Perhaps. Personally however, I can "copy" reality as well as most. But I find
that boring. A camera can do that far better. I much prefer to use my brain
to extract the essence of the thing. Even if I am working figuratively.
Something a camera can't do as well. I recently went to an art show where
everything was so realistic down to age spots on the skin. So what? Dwane
Hanson did it better anyway. It gave me a new appreciation for abstract.

>I can tell you from my experience that every skill I acquire (welding
>is my next challenge) opens huge vistas of artistic expression and
>generates ideas and concepts that were closed to me before I
>learned the skills involved.
>A good friend of mine who is a fabulous abstract sculptor spent a
>summer in my shop because he needed a temporary job. During
>that summer he learned moldmaking- a skill he had never needed
>to create the assemblage pieces that made up the body of his
>work.
>He told me later that knowing moldmaking transformed his entire
>vision of his work and what was possible. The skill itself took his
>art in new and unanticipated directions.
>
>In visual art eloquence is knowledge and control of your media. To
>limit your knowledge to one medium or even to the minimum
>knowledge of a medium that is needed for a given work, is simply
>limiting yourself creatively.

I too have tried almost every medium there is. Even when I was 'poor' I spent
a couple hundred dollars a month on art supplies. My parents had an art gallery
and sold supplies when I was a kid. I haven't done welding though. I prefer
to pay someone else to do that to my specs.

>This is the real pitfall, Debra:
>Ignorence, by definition, just doesn't know and therefore can't
>imagine what its missing.

The real pitfall is thinking you already know so you miss learning something
new.

Debra

WoN ereH

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Sep 24, 2000, 11:58:33 AM9/24/00

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Ethan wrote:

> First of all, stay away from memes; they only want you for your mind!

Though I realize the odds are daring, I would love to create an iconographic

image, a visual meme. The Mona Lisa being one of the greatest.

>It is to your credit that you could accept that designer's perfidy with such

>aplomb. I will not say what I would have done, as it might prove
>incriminating
>in the future.

I agree that most of his other pieces for Target are rather silly. But this
particular phone is a classic. You can be assured. It's a sculptural blob
hanging from a metal 'rope'. Too cool.

> Although I believe the pursuit of novelty is essential, perhaps that
>is
>merely a modern conceit, as is also that of "artist", and not intrinsic to
>the
>creative impulse. I always look in wonderment at Egyptian art, unable to
>imagine myself as executor of such rigid formulae. However, I don't think
>those
>artisans chafed under its rules, comforted perhaps with the thought that,
>under
>the merciless sun, the copyright lawyers of the Nile were shivering in
>poverty.

The Egyptians were obsessed with surviving death. They wanted their visual
memes to survive them, and they did. Can you imagine art without that
reference? Impossible.

Debra

WoN ereH

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Sep 24, 2000, 7:47:19 PM9/24/00

to

Ethan wrote:
> I don't think most artists would mind birthin' a meme, myself included;
>but your choice of the Mona Lisa is telling. A meme will only survive in an
>environment receptive to it, although its purpose is to fashion an even more
>congenial one. Why didn't you chose Keith Haring instead of Leonardo?
>Haring's
>work has the iconic edge right now - or how about the smiley face?

The smiley face is definitely a meme. But Mona has lastest far longer than I
imagine Keith Haring will. I prefer the 1000 year meme to the 100.

>As in painting and sculpture however, even
>film-makers have turned their backs on the "irrelevant past" - just try
>getting
>most people under thirty to watch a B&W movie (they cause brain cancer you
>know!) - so that cultural reference does not extend back more than, to be
>quite
>generous, a generation.

Not too many shoot film anymore, it's all digital isn't it? It will be 3d
within 20 years, so flat imagery may go the way of black and white.

> The19th century French painter William Adolphe Beaugereau was at one
>time the highest paid artist in the world. Forty years ago, you could have
>bought one of his canvases for 50 bucks (possible exaggeration), now they're
>going for millions. Did he suddenly become a lousy painter and then get good
>again - all from the grave? All you can do is your best, and if conditions
>are
>right (or you make them so - another devilish question), you too can be MEME
>FOR A DAY. Or a millenium.

Going even further back, about anything from the 1600's is worth something now.
And will only get more rare. But most stuff won't last that long. Vinyl
turns to mush, paintings rot, metal is remade into the fashion of the day.
We're sitting on some pretty big piles of refuse. Fortunately, much of it can
be recycled. Only the meme worthy survives.

Debra

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 25, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/25/00

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> I think the original point he made was that there were these
>students
> coming out of art school who did not even have a basic
>knowledge of
> traditional sculptural techniques coming to him, arrogantly
>believing
> they were qualified to be his apprentice(unless of course the
>problem is
> that he is just a really nasty boss :-).

Actually, I offer apprenticeships because I have the opportunity to
offer training to anyone who is really interested. I do not expect an
apprentice to know much of anything, ( that's the whole point) But,
regretably, the only way I can afford to pay them to learn is if they
can produce something at least minimally salable to the kind of
clients who hire sculptors to work annonymously on knick knacks.

This kind of stuff is just an easy source of money for varied work
that is good to train people on and that won't impact their future in
fine art since their names don't go on the products. Most of my
more professional former apprentices use the skills they learned
here to pursue fine art careers, falling back of commercial
commissions as needed, to make ends meet.

As regards the arrogance of art grads- I don't see a lot of that
either. I see a bunch of aimless, easily intimidated drifters who
haven't a clue about how to put their schooling, or their talent, to
productive use.

Oh, and I'm am not in the least sense a nasty boss- annoying, yes,
but never mean.

> And I am highly skeptical of the notion that all these students are
> coming out of art school with a deficency in skills but a surplus in
> concepts.

Actually, a deficiency in concepts, too. When was the last time the
fine workmanship in a work of art staggered you? When was the
last time you were really shocked by anything shockingly "new"?

Please don't anyone think I am speaking of the skills and
techniques that mattered in the last century. To suggest that
having a food processor renders the kitchen knife of yore obsolete
is purest idiocy. If you know how, you can use a lowly, thousand
year old technology like the kitchen knife to prepare even the most
nouvelle of cuisines.
Similarly, knowing how to manipulate materials to produce forms
is the very soul of sculpture, and the less you know, the less power
and eloquence you have in your chosen field.

I am speaking of BASIC skills that everyone who calls themself a
sculptor ought to know after 4 years of intensive and expensive
education.

Knowing the shakespearean art of moldmaking is not the point,
nor is being able to make a passable rococco cherub.
Moldmaking today is about the lastest formulations of silicones
and plastics, and working effectively with modern plastics is just
as cutting edge as using modeling software and rapid prototyping
machines; still very much a contemporary and essential skill.

And, from time to time, being able to whip up a decent cherub can
mean the difference between earning a living and being a
dilettante artist with a joe job.

Everywhere I look in the fine art landscape today, I see people
struggling to recreate and re-discover the techniques and
procedures that were once the common coin of every art institute
graduate.
I am honestly startled that there is even debate on this subject. I
can't imagine the mindset of thinking that less skill and less
understanding makes for a better artist or better art.

The most successful art form in human history is Cinema.
Like all artistic outlets, 90% of films that are made are crap- but do
you honestly think that the really great films would have been just
as good with mediocre execution? Of course not, here in this
country we insist on technical competence from even the most
banal purveyors of motion picture entertainment.

It is only when a great concept is expertly executed that a fim, or
artwork of any kind aspires to true excellence.

Christopher

Gary Waller

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Sep 25, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/25/00

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When was the last time the
> fine workmanship in a work of art staggered you? When was the
> last time you were really shocked by anything shockingly "new"?
>

How about that new Royal Academy exhibition in London right now? One piece -
an extremely detailed sculpture of the Pope, with staff and full regalia,
felled by a smoking meteorite - it seems that cinema and fine art are in
convergence.

Kromkowski

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Sep 25, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/25/00

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In article <20000924114520...@ng-fi1.aol.com>, won...@aol.com (WoN
ereH) writes:

>Perhaps. Personally however, I can "copy" reality as well as most. But I
>find
>that boring. A camera can do that far better. I much prefer to use my brain
>to extract the essence of the thing. Even if I am working figuratively.
>Something a camera can't do as well. I recently went to an art show where
>everything was so realistic down to age spots on the skin. So what? Dwane
>Hanson did it better anyway. It gave me a new appreciation for abstract.
>

I tend to agree, but of course there are plenty of representational works that
are moving to me. Although, I'd have to say that I've never been moved by
representational animal art and it would seem that taxidermist have got that
niche cornered. I also don't think that we should discount the misogyny and
exploitation of women as objects. A lot of great tits and ass were sculpted in
the past because Larry Flint and Hugh Heffner weren't publishing back then. So
called "erotic art" sells a lot (check out what sells on ebay), but that
doesn't make it great.

J. D. Kromkowski
Kromk...@aol.com

Kromkowski

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Sep 25, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/25/00

to

Great thread.

I agree with Christopher when he opinies that the more skill the more the
artist is not limited. Skill, i.e., the ability to put the "things of the
work/elements" exactly where the artist wants them is critical to consistant
high quality art. It (skill) is necessary but insufficient in and of itself.

But equating skill merely with figurative representation is way too limiting.
By analogy to the functional ceramic world, it's like saying the handbuilding
and and use of moldmaking is evidence that the ceramist can't throw. Which
might be true but is not necessarily true. Indeed the opposite might be true,
the thrower may make zillions of unneeded (and uninspiring) coffee cups, milk
pitchers, gravy boats, bowls and plates, because they have no skill in
handbuilding or the use of molds or no vision of anything non-functional.
Likewise, even the most talented figurative sculptor may be just a copyist,
lack the capacity to weld or assemble, or lack any other vision.

Moreover, the emphasis on "concept" is also overblown. It often is an excuse
for not only lack of skill but lack of "form". Or "Concept" is just a misnomer
for "intended idea", but the road to crappy art is paved with good
"intentions." Sometimes, I see a "conceptual" piece devote of "formal" quality
and therefor not evidencing specific choice in the presentation of the visual
elements and I think why the heck didn't the artist just write an essay that
begins with the chosen title (maybe they don't have the skill to write an
essay?).

Of the three, "Form", "Skill" and "Concept", "Form" is the most important, in
my view. Without "skill", it's hard to get a good "Form" and when the "Form"
is good or great the whole "concept" is merged therein creating a
contemplative. Sometimes mere representation gets in the way of "form".

As far as protection of copyrights:

I don't think that there is any evidence whatsoever that copyrights have made
art in any way better. Nor is there much long term evidence that they have made
the life of artists in the aggregate more financially secure. And certainly no
evidence that the individual artist who has become financially secure due to
copyright protection has thereafter made better art. Moreover, I find no basis
for allowing copyrights to last after the death of the artist.

I think in general artists should reject the whole notion of copyrighting for
financial gain except for the protection of attribution: copies must reference
the original creator.

John D. Kromkowski
Kromk...@aol.com

In article <8qkd47$kp$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>>Skill is important only
>> as far as what's needed to get the concept done.
>
>Debra
>

>This staetment is indicative of precisely what is wrong with fine art
>in America today, And partly why so few Americans buy any.
>

>Concept is not everything, Debra. As in speech, without eloquence,
>the most profound concepts can hardly be expressed and seldom
>conveyed.

>You can write something that manages to get an idea across, but
>then again, writing it in a way that gets it across beautifully, using
>language in a breathtaking fashion, is the reason some authors
>are great and others never published, regardless of their concept.
>

>To suggest that you only need enough skill to get the concept done
>is like saying I only need enough words to write this sentence.
>People with poor or limited skills limit themselves and their
>expression as artists.

>I often hear folks who can't make a figure take the convienient
>stand that figure work is "unimportant" in today's art world; it is
>comforting for people to believe that a skill they don't possess is
>uneeded.
>

>I can tell you from my experience that every skill I acquire (welding
>is my next challenge) opens huge vistas of artistic expression and
>generates ideas and concepts that were closed to me before I
>learned the skills involved.
>A good friend of mine who is a fabulous abstract sculptor spent a
>summer in my shop because he needed a temporary job. During
>that summer he learned moldmaking- a skill he had never needed
>to create the assemblage pieces that made up the body of his
>work.
>He told me later that knowing moldmaking transformed his entire
>vision of his work and what was possible. The skill itself took his
>art in new and unanticipated directions.
>
>In visual art eloquence is knowledge and control of your media. To
>limit your knowledge to one medium or even to the minimum
>knowledge of a medium that is needed for a given work, is simply
>limiting yourself creatively.
>

>This is the real pitfall, Debra:
>Ignorence, by definition, just doesn't know and therefore can't
>imagine what its missing.

>Christopher
>

sj1...@my-deja.com

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Sep 25, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/25/00

to

Kromkowski wrote:

I tend to agree, but of course there are plenty of representational
works that
are moving to me.

**Its funny because I find alot of abstract expressionism quite boring.
I have never bothered with it because there seemed to be no challenges.
Representational art making provides so much more in what can be
explored or imagined--despite the invention of cameras.

Although, I'd have to say that I've never been moved by
representational animal art and it would seem that taxidermist have got
that
niche cornered.

***What? Are you kidding? Taxidermy and wildlife art are two separate
things. Opposites in fact.
It tends to provoke a different reaction than modern wildlife art. You
may be able to admire the skill that goes into refitting and posing the
animal corpse--but its still an animal corpse--and the very real
association with death cannot be easily ignored(especially if you have
ever been in a taxidermist's shop--terrible smell). Wildlife art as we
know it today--such as the work of Bateman and others is a rejection of
the notion that Nature should be portrayed in a human dominated fashion.
Paintings of the previous two centuries usually showed animals either
being hunted down or slaughtered. Taxidermy itself was a relatively
crude "artform" until early in this century.
But it never has gained acceptance as an art form because of the death
element and the great cheating aspect associated with it. Half the work
is done by the animal's parents. A wax museum figure would be closer to
art.
I know that in this day and age "bodily fluids" are seen as part of the
art making process--there's even a guy genetically engineering rabbits
and dogs that glow in the dark.

If this man is an artist--than so was Hitler and Stalin.
Everything is art then.
War is art. Murder is art. Rape is art. Child abuse is art.

Which is fine, if you are into that sort of thing, but I'll stick with
the kind of art that at the very least doesnt smell bad.

I also don't think that we should discount the misogyny and
exploitation of women as objects. A lot of great tits and ass were
sculpted in
the past because Larry Flint and Hugh Heffner weren't publishing back
then. So
called "erotic art" sells a lot (check out what sells on ebay), but that
doesn't make it great.

**So you are saying that sculptors like Bernini or Cellini were
pornographers and they displayed work so people could masterbate in
front of them?
Shouldnt you actually be talking about painters?

If that is what you think alot of representational art and sculpture
is all about--than I guess I should just pity your blindness.

cya

SJ

(this account will self destruct-eventually)

Andrew Werby

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Sep 25, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/25/00

to

Kromkowski wrote in message
<20000925142703...@nso-dd.aol.com>...
>Great thread.

[Target must bring something out in people, I guess.]

>
>I agree with Christopher when he opinies that the more skill the more the
>artist is not limited. Skill, i.e., the ability to put the "things of the
>work/elements" exactly where the artist wants them is critical to
consistant
>high quality art. It (skill) is necessary but insufficient in and of
itself.
>
>But equating skill merely with figurative representation is way too
limiting.
>By analogy to the functional ceramic world, it's like saying the
handbuilding
>and and use of moldmaking is evidence that the ceramist can't throw. Which
>might be true but is not necessarily true. Indeed the opposite might be
true,
>the thrower may make zillions of unneeded (and uninspiring) coffee cups,
milk
>pitchers, gravy boats, bowls and plates, because they have no skill in
>handbuilding or the use of molds or no vision of anything non-functional.

[What usually happens, is that diverse skills cross-polinate and reinforce
each other, so that an sculptor who has mastered ceramic throwing (to use
your example) in addition to hand-building can have the option of using this
different sort of form, perhaps in a way that those seeking to make
functional ware never would consider. ]

>Likewise, even the most talented figurative sculptor may be just a copyist,
>lack the capacity to weld or assemble, or lack any other vision.
>
>Moreover, the emphasis on "concept" is also overblown. It often is an
excuse
>for not only lack of skill but lack of "form".

[You seem to be saying that all three are necessary, in which case I agree.
For me at least, the most successful works of art exhibit craftsmanship
within the context of the concept, which should be interesting and related
to the form in which it is expressed. I also give extra points for novelty,
while sometimes a new idea takes a little working out, and deserves to be
considered on its own terms.]

Or "Concept" is just a misnomer
>for "intended idea", but the road to crappy art is paved with good
>"intentions."

[Or dumb concepts.]

Sometimes, I see a "conceptual" piece devote of "formal" quality
>and therefor not evidencing specific choice in the presentation of the
visual
>elements and I think why the heck didn't the artist just write an essay
that
>begins with the chosen title (maybe they don't have the skill to write an
>essay?).

[See Thomas Wolfe's essay "The Painted Word".]

unread,

Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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> But equating skill merely with figurative representation is way too
>limiting.

I used figurative modeling as one example only. Moldmaking, both
rubber and plaster- throwing, casting, welding, metal fabrication,
all of these are essential skills that a sculptor should have at least
a basic grasp of.
I will say that, in the academic environment, only figure modeling is
really effective as a method of assessing a student's ability to
"see" what it is he or she is looking at. The figure is both
sufficiently comlpex to challenge one's grasp of form, and familiar
enough to make the student's grasp of form evident.

I am not championing figurative art- I am championing the use of
figurative modeling to learn a skill that can be applied to the
perception, understanding and expression of any form in any
medium.

> Likewise, even the most talented figurative sculptor may be just
>a copyist,
> lack the capacity to weld or assemble, or lack any other vision.

I disagree with this, somewhat- It is impossible to be a talented
figurative sculptor without some real vision and creative ability.
This is because truly good figure work is never a "copy" of reality,
rather, its an abstract of reality in a subtle and often difficult to
discern sense. Great figure work looks more real than reality
because it plays upon how people think about the figure and how
the figure affects us and using this understanding effectively
requires a great deal of ability.

But, as with all other arenas of art, bad figurework is almost
endemic in today's world- principally because the average figure
drawing or modeling class has devolved into a teach yourself free
for all with no real explanation or understanding imparted of the
figure as an assemblage of forms.

> Moreover, the emphasis on "concept" is also overblown. It often
>is an excuse

> for not only lack of skill but lack of "form". Or "Concept" is just a

>misnomer
> for "intended idea", but the road to crappy art is paved with good

> "intentions." Sometimes, I see a "conceptual" piece devote of

>"formal" quality
> and therefor not evidencing specific choice in the presentation of
>the visual
> elements and I think why the heck didn't the artist just write an
>essay that
> begins with the chosen title (maybe they don't have the skill to
>write an
> essay?).

Right on target!

> Of the three, "Form", "Skill" and "Concept", "Form" is the most
>important, in
> my view. Without "skill", it's hard to get a good "Form" and when
>the "Form"
> is good or great the whole "concept" is merged therein creating a
> contemplative. Sometimes mere representation gets in the way
>of "form".

I would modify this to say that all 3 are required in any great work.
Even any merely good work. Understanding of form is certainly
crucial, but that and 3 bucks will buy you a cup of starbucks.
Form understood remains unrealized without skill. And concept is
where it all begins.

> As far as protection of copyrights:
>

> I don't think that there is any evidence whatsoever that copyrights
>have made

> art in any way better. Nor is there much long term evidence that
>they have made
> the life of artists in the aggregate more financially secure. And
>certainly no
> evidence that the individual artist who has become financially
>secure due to
> copyright protection has thereafter made better art. Moreover, I
>find no basis
> for allowing copyrights to last after the death of the artist.

Oddly enough, I agree with this last- in particular I think that the
perpetual copyrights of such images as John Wayne and Mickey
Mouse are economically and creatively stifling. When was the last
time Warner or Disney created a memorable cartoon figure? Why
bother as long as the copyrights hold out?
However, copyrights have made some artists far better off, but only
those who are organized and flex the collective muscle to enforce
them.
Musicians and authors are very well served by copyright laws.

This is just one more area where art education is failing sculptors,
There is no national organization that represents sculptors in legal
issues because sculptors are not educated to think of themselves
as professionals.

Christopher
P.S. Kromkowski, you're a lawyer, howzabout you represent us all?

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <20000925142702...@nso-dd.aol.com>,

> I also don't think that we should discount the misogyny and
> exploitation of women as objects. A lot of great tits and ass were
>sculpted in
> the past because Larry Flint and Hugh Heffner weren't
>publishing back then.

What? was your wife reading over your shoulder or do you really
believe that PC malarky about exploitation of women?

Look, Men have been making images of women since the
inception of art because women are truely and essentially
beautiful inside and out to any man of substance.
It ain't objectification, its glorification, and every real woman
understands the power she has over men- that's why all the
original gods were goddesses and also why most men actually
want, but won't buy, erotic art; because his wife won't let him.
Christopher

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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I
> But you didn't provide any evidence contrary to my position above.
>Art is not
> better because of copyright protections.

Making art better is not the intention of copyright law. Making a
living is.

> Starving is Bullshit, no matter what. I don't buy that myth, and I
>also think
> a lot of art is way overpriced which leads to the starving artist
>syndrome.

This is true. Artists want enormous sums for not that much work.

>
> If we're really interest in protecting the fruit of the artist's labor,
>then
> why doesn't the artist get a cut of each resale of a piece at higher
>prices.
> E.g., I sell a piece for $500 just to get it out of the studio. The
>owner then
> resales it for $2000.00 and then its resold for $5000.00. Unless,
>I just lease
> the piece (which I have done in order to retain rights), the
>copyright laws
> serve no protection on the fruits of my labor which were obviously
>worth more
> than the $500.00 I got.

Kromkowski- First of all- the selling of an artwork does not transfer
copyright unless you specifically sign the rights over. Graphic
artists can even sell such evanescent rights as the right to "First
Magazine Publication" while selling the same image in 15 other
similarly narrow definitions, all while retianing full copyright, so,
don't worry about "leasing" vs selling. Unless specified in contract,
the creator always retains the rights.
Secondly- In both California and New York States there are laws
that provide the copyright holder with a percentage of any increase
in value on the resale of the work by a third party. Here in California
you would be entitled to portion of both the $2000 and $5000 sale
mentioned in your example above.
These laws are seldom enforced because the sale must occur
within California or New York and because artists have no
organization to police the resale of art and the proper payment of
royalties. (i.e. what ASCAP does for musicians)

> (I also think patents
> stifle progress, could you imagine if the wheel or lever was
>patented by the
> inventor.)

He didn't need to patent it- he just ran over the competition. When
Florentine bankers first invented double entry bookkeeping they
kept it a state secret for 60 years- they were they only guys in
europe who actually knew whether they were profiting or not on a
given deal and this secret propelled Florence into the forefront of
the renaissence.
Jeez, Kromkowski, If it weren't for patents nobody would invent
anything. The capitalist system works because it is predicated on
evolutionary concepts of enlightened self interest. Civlization
progresses because a few individuals realize that they can
materially improve their status and that of their progeny by
inventing and marketing some convienience that people will pay
for. All through history people have fought wars and flung lawsuits
to protect anything that made them money. Any other system that
has been tried has failed miserably.

> Let's also consider two artists: A and B. Both produce a fine
>piece of work.
> A then hustles (i.e. does more labor) to get in mass produced. B
>sit on his
> ass and does nothing, but sues some entrepenour who has
>done some labor to get
> B's work (properly attributed) into mass production.

OR....A does a fine work and wants to hustle and put it into mass
production but has no large source of ready cash to pay the costs
of manufacture, distribution, and marketing. So he gets a job
unconnected to the creative process in order to garner the funding
for his idea. A's life is dominated by the making of money and the
myriad tasks involved in hustling his work into mass production.

Meanwhile B gets a call from a scupulous entreprenuer who offers
B 5% of proceeds in exchange for the right to mass market his
creation. B cashes the check every month and walks into his
studio to spend his time creating more art.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qs1mq$6p3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, frank...@my-deja.com writes:

>Correct me if I am wrong but in california you do get a commission if
>your work is resold and the buyer must be made known to you.

I have no idea if that's correct. It isn't the case in Maryland. I definately
support that type of legislation in lieu of copyrights.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qsh7i$ib5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>I am not championing figurative art- I am championing the use of
>figurative modeling to learn a skill that can be applied to the
>perception, understanding and expression of any form in any
>medium.

Ok, with this I agree, in general. Although, familiarity can lead to not
seeing too. So arguably creating 3D still lifes is as good a pedagogy.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qsh7i$ib5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>P.S. Kromkowski, you're a lawyer, howzabout you represent us all?

Sure. Maybe it's time to abandon my attempts to keep the one work of mine
separate from the other. But one needs to be licensed in each State (which
means taking quite a few bar exams) and I'm only licensed in the State of
Maryland.

I personally think good leasing agreements (and I am a litigator, so going to
court to enforce them is all right by me) rather than the sale of work is what
is required. But I'm not at all interested in enforcing copyrights.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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Great story, illustrating an excellent point.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qsjoh$k7r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>Jeez, Kromkowski, If it weren't for patents nobody would invent
>anything. The capitalist system works because it is predicated on
>evolutionary concepts of enlightened self interest. Civlization
>progresses because a few individuals realize that they can
>materially improve their status and that of their progeny by
>inventing and marketing some convienience that people will pay
>for. All through history people have fought wars and flung lawsuits
>to protect anything that made them money. Any other system that
>has been tried has failed miserably.

I am a capitalist. But people invent things for the same reason people do art,
creative compulsion. How do you explain the spreadsheet, Linux, the
trampoline, and the violin, to name a few.

There can be successful and just capitalism without patent monopoly. Henry
George explored such a system in Progress and Poverty (1879), just stop taxing
labor and capital and only tax land value.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qsh7i$ib5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>> Of the three, "Form", "Skill" and "Concept", "Form" is the most
>>important, in
>> my view. Without "skill", it's hard to get a good "Form" and when
>>the "Form"
>> is good or great the whole "concept" is merged therein creating a
>> contemplative. Sometimes mere representation gets in the way
>>of "form".
>I would modify this to say that all 3 are required in any great work.
>Even any merely good work. Understanding of form is certainly
>crucial, but that and 3 bucks will buy you a cup of starbucks.
>Form understood remains unrealized without skill. And concept is
>where it all begins.
>

I agree, but I leave room for the tradition of the happy accident (probably as
a result of starting as a cermacist and knowing the fluidity of the glazing
process). However, I concede, even here it takes skill to recognize when there
has been the happy accident rather than just a screw up. But the skill here is
not about mere manual dexterity.

Kromkowski
Kromkowski

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qsjoh$k7r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>Kromkowski- First of all- the selling of an artwork does not transfer
>copyright unless you specifically sign the rights over.

1. Yes, I know this. I was simply saying that the NY and CA laws are more
important, in my opinion than copyrights.

2. You noted that the purpose of copyrights was not to make art better but to
allow artists a living. This may well be true, but I think that improving the
quality of art is the more important purpose and I don't think that copyrights
are really doing the trick. There may be more artist making a living but there
are more artists and more people, so I think the percentage of successful (in a
financial sense which of course bears no relation to historical successfullness
in terms of "quality") artists may actually be less, AND what copyrights have
done is made money for a lot of non-artists. Even where in music and
literature (where copyrights have been ostensibly the most successful), there
are a lot of rich middle men, parasites, and publishers, who bought copyrights
from unsavy or hungry artists.

So my point (and we may agree) is that on the whole the copyright experiment
has not added too much of value, if any, to civilization and should be junked.
What exactly to replace it with, I'm not sure, but what I am sure is that if
copyrighting disappeared tommorrow art would go one and there would be continue
to be great art, too. And there might even be less poor art.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qsjoh$k7r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>> Let's also consider two artists: A and B. Both produce a fine
>>piece of work.
>> A then hustles (i.e. does more labor) to get in mass produced. B
>>sit on his
>> ass and does nothing, but sues some entrepenour who has
>>done some labor to get
>> B's work (properly attributed) into mass production.
>
>OR....A does a fine work and wants to hustle and put it into mass
>production but has no large source of ready cash to pay the costs
>of manufacture, distribution, and marketing. So he gets a job
>unconnected to the creative process in order to garner the funding
>for his idea. A's life is dominated by the making of money and the
>myriad tasks involved in hustling his work into mass production.
>
>Meanwhile B gets a call from a scupulous entreprenuer who offers
>B 5% of proceeds in exchange for the right to mass market his
>creation. B cashes the check every month and walks into his
>studio to spend his time creating more art.

Yes, yes; this is the THEORY. But _in the aggregate_, there is no evidence
that it really amounts very much improvement, if any, to the state of art or
the overall condition of artists, on the _whole_. We also know that for B to
get a call, there is a lot of hustling of galleries, collectors, etc. that has
to been done. And society gets no guarantee that the schmoozer artist is any
better even though its in Target, Walmart, etc.

Kromkowski

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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In article <8qsho5$ina$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>
>What? was your wife reading over your shoulder or do you really
>believe that PC malarky about exploitation of women?
>
>Look, Men have been making images of women since the
>inception of art because women are truely and essentially
>beautiful inside and out to any man of substance.
>It ain't objectification, its glorification, and every real woman
>understands the power she has over men- that's why all the
>original gods were goddesses and also why most men actually
>want, but won't buy, erotic art; because his wife won't let him.

My warnings about objectification doesn't have anything to do with being PC. I
don't think women should be deified either. Equality means equality. As for
what "most men" want, (even if that's true which I doubt and think is just a
line to cover up stunted adolescence in a small although not insignificant
amount of the population many of whom have been "art" patrons throughout
history), I'm not interested in being "average", I aspire to something better.

All women are not beautiful nor all they are arousing; nor is "beauty" the same
as "arousing". Arousal can be a cheaper and easier emotion to create and hence
is always in danger of being both crude, baneful and ultimately easily boring.

On a somewhat different note: Christopher, would you agree that it is arguable
that the good clothed figure requires more skill to create. So maybe students
should really be working on creating mounds of cloth of different weights and
textures, instead of the nude figure, as a skill development exercizes.

Kromkowski

Akilli

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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This may exhibit a stunning naivete; but if artsits were able to make an
actual living, they wouldl produce better work. While I absolutely agree that
the art schools have been factories of vacuousness, market forces compel the
rush job. This was not always the case: an artisan in the past may have rarely
been wealthy, but they were a distinct , stable, and maybe even essential
element of society.
I can walk a few blocks and visit a dozen galleries, each displaying
walls of enormous canvases which make Jackson Pollock look like Jan Van Eyck.
An artist cannot be shown unless they now profer a gallery bursting body of
work, and can demonstrate the ability to churn out new material at a breakneck
pace. Hence the minutes, sometimes hours, devoted to each piece. I have to
believe that many of these people, if given the time, and financial security,
would and could do finer work, though some skills may be wanting.
Not everyone is a fraud, though many pretend to be.
There's plenty of money out there to be spent on art, but little
education or impulse. One thing to be said for nobility is that they had taste,
were willing to wait (generally), and willing to pay (generally). New money
derives its values from popular culture, and is completely inarticulate as to
what constitutes a successful work of art.
If you detect a whiff of snobbery here, then inhale deeply and
gratefully.

Ethan Gross

Battersby

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Sep 27, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/27/00

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sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:
> >What? was your wife reading over your shoulder or do you really
> >believe that PC malarky about exploitation of women?

About the same thing I thought when I read that bullshit.

Kromkowski wrote

> All women are not beautiful nor all they are arousing; nor is "beauty" the
same
> as "arousing

> Kromkowski

This will change when you get older. That's one of the good things about
aging.

--
T. M. Battersby, stuccoist.
http://www.battersbyornamental.com
tbatt...@satx.rr.com

WoN ereH

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Sep 27, 2000, 7:00:09 AM9/27/00

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>> I believe few Americans buy art because few Americans know
>>what art is.
>This is a genuine conceit. Few Americans agree with your concept
>of what art is. ( mine, too) but this does not indicate that they, the
>majority, are wrong or in any way deficient in their understanding.

After I wrote this out I wondered who would jump on it. Yes, obviously, I've
been around art my entire life. I have an 'eye' as they say. Though no doubt
that eye is still my own 'educated' opinion. I don't expect people who have
never even had an art appreciation class to see art the same way I do. Doesn't
stop me from wishing they did. :) My DH, a writer who was around music in his
youth, not art, can now very easily go to an art exhibit and immediately
identify 'good' art, from hearing me talk about it and being around it so much.
So, it must not be that big of a mystery, just few people are exposed to
enough of it.

>I agree. All great writers write very simply and evocatively. But this

>is simply evidence of their mastery of >language. I am reminded of the story

of >an english student who, having met

>Steinbeck in a bar in Santa Cruz, (snip)

Or it may be that they have listened to language since a child, have a love of
reading, and therefore have gained an 'ear' for it. Academia is for people who
don't have the time or inclination to educate themselves IMHO. Perhaps with
robotics this time will become available to more people.

>Yes, but you can do it if called upon. This ability is more important
>to what you do that you admit or realize.
>One can not abstract nor extract the essence of a thing if one can
>not visually understand the thing in the first place. If you can't
>model a passable figure, then you can't truely "see" what you are
>looking at.
>Representational work should dominate art schooling because it
>can readily be "judged" for ability, and the lerning of how to do it
>well is nothing more than the learning of how to accurately see
>what the heck your looking at and how to control your fingers. After
>school, do whatever you please with the skill and vision that craft
>gave you.

I think art education should teach you how to draw, and sculpt, from reality,
to be sure. But it also needs to expose the person to tons of art. And as you
say, some moldmaking classes are needed if you want to be a sculptor. But
these are easily things one can teach oneself. You can't teach someone how to
be curious. Why I suppose only 2% of art grads make a living in the arts.

Debra

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 27, 2000, 8:14:17 PM9/27/00

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> My warnings about objectification doesn't have anything to do
>with being PC. I
> don't think women should be deified either. Equality means
>equality.

Ain't no such animal as equality. In this world, one sex has
something the other can not do without and can not get on their
own, as a result, whatever women want in this world, the men of
the world bend to accomodate. Its just a matter of
telecommunications and education enabling diverse and isolated
groups of women to formulate some general consensus on what
it is they want. It always takes them a while, because they must
confront the generation of women and men that their mothers
raised to think differently, but they get what they want because, god
help us, we want them, and they can really do without us.
History is about nothing other than how society has tried to
accomodate and support the needs of women and their children.
Men have been and remain fairly expendable.

>As for
> what "most men" want, (even if that's true which I doubt and think
>is just a
> line to cover up stunted adolescence in a small although not
>insignificant
> amount of the population many of whom have been "art" patrons
>throughout
> history), I'm not interested in being "average", I aspire to
>something better.

Please, you don't turn your head to look at women? Men are like
sight hounds, visually driven.
I think that art in itself was invented by men to express something
about the beauty they saw in the female form that words were
inadequate to convey, about the beauty they saw in some animal
they were chasing after to feed their children.

That sense that something can be so beautiful that we ache for it-
this entire perspective is rooted in our organic response to
women.
This yearning to hold a certain shape in our eye for just a moment
longer, this delight in form for the form's sake, exists
independently of our need for sexual reproduction. This is the well
spring from which all artistic feeling grew, and that is what truely
fine figure work explores- The deepest root level of our brains
where we love and long for no conscious reason.

> Arousal can be a cheaper and easier emotion to create and
>hence is always in danger of being both crude, baneful and
>ultimately easily boring.

I agree- figure art can be made to be baldly prurient, and as such
its appeal is mere titilating and quickly a bore. But figure work that
focuses on the nuance of the pure form rises well above this and
is ever fresh and inspiring.
Of, course- as was before mentioned, 90% of everything is crap,
and that certainly includes 90% of the figurework produced.

> On a somewhat different note: Christopher, would you agree
>that it is arguable
> that the good clothed figure requires more skill to create. So
>maybe students
> should really be working on creating mounds of cloth of different
>weights and
> textures, instead of the nude figure, as a skill development
exercizes.

I could not agree more. Interestingly, the function of well executed
drapery is to REVEAL the form of the figure, not conceal. And
drapery is a challenge in and of itself. (drapery refers to any
technique of simulating cloth wrapped around the figure, even
tailored and fitted garments, not just togas and the like.)

The academies of old spent nearly as much time on drapery study
as they did on figure study.

again- We all have a built in facility for, and familiarity with, the
human form. By learning to accurately approximate this shape we
teach ourselves how to see the world more accurately and hone
our motor skills at controlling our expression using the very
subject that we are best equipped at evaluating with some
semblance of objectivity.
This skill absolutely applies to any other vision of form.
And- as a bonus, it gives us a skill set that is, at the very least,
commercially salable.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 27, 2000, 8:23:24 PM9/27/00

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> And as you say, some moldmaking classes are needed if you
>want to be a sculptor. But
> these are easily things one can teach oneself. You can't teach
someone how to
> be curious. Why I suppose only 2% of art grads make a living in
the arts.
>

Honestly, tho, Debra, when you lay down 30 or 50 thousand
dollars for an art education, don't you think they have an obligtion to
know and teach the skills you will certainly need?
It is terribly epensive and disheartening to try and tech yourself
moldmaking. The materials cost and how many beginners can
stand to seeone after another of their fragile original artworks
destroyed by the mistakes of trial and error.

I am all for self eduction- I just wish that standard education made
it clear to students that really educating yourself means finding
someone who is competent and willing to be your mentor.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 27, 2000, 8:49:04 PM9/27/00

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You keep saying that copyright laws are not improving art.

THIS IS NOT AND NEVER WAS THE INTENT OF COPYRIGHT LAW
IN ANY WAY.

I can offer you evidence that copyrights do help artists earn a living.
When I was making a mere 5% on the sale of limited edition
Western themed metal castings, amounting to an average of $25
per sculpture sold, these royalties literally doubled my already
large income.
Yes of course other people got even more money. But look at what
they kicked in:

I did the original design in clay.

They molded it, made masters and did the tooling, produced
production molds, jigs and tools, cast the sculptures in parts,
chased, polished, assembled, plated, partinaed, finished,
packaged, distributed, advertised and collected the receipts.
Every piece we marketed required an investment of nearly $70,000
from this company- and not every piece paid this investment back
in sales.

This is the clue to capitalism- everybody, and I mean everybody, is
worth no more than a percentage of the wealth they generate for
someone else.
Arnold Swchartzenegger gets 20 million per picture because
someone else is making 80 million.
Bill Gates runs a company that generates Hundreds of billions in
sales and supports75% of the second largest industry in the world
today.
Your best possible strategy in this world is to find some way to
make someone else rich or to make some large group of people
collectively richer.

As far as art improving- it doesn't.

It changes and evolves- but the best art of every age remains just
as great, and the best of what is made now casts no shadow on
the greatness that preceded.
Art is still at the same pinnacle of human excellence that it attained
with the best paintings on the cave wall at Lascaux.
christopher

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 28, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/28/00

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Sorry Debra-

Can't agree with you.
Women evolved an aesthetic sense, yes,
but, as you point out, in cave days it primarily revolved around
adorning themselves and creating an appealing and comfortable
environment.

What was their purpose in doing so?

Why, to attract the attention and affection and loyalty of men, of
course- who women learned early to be visually driven.

In evolutionary biology, each sex has or acquires what the
opposite sex wants so that they can manipulate the opposite sex
to their personal genetic advantage.

Women learned how to focus on their appearance and the
apperance of their nests in order to appeal to men's visual
aesthetic while men had to learn how to acquire the security and
status that women wanted.
This is what gave society balance; that each sex offered the other
the object of their desire. ( in todays' world, women's ability to
provide their own security has shifted the balance of power in
women's favor, but only for educated women)

Even today, women (in general) vie with one another as rivals over
their attractiveness to men. Just watch the faces of women in a
restaurant when a really gorgeous woman of 25 walks in in a skin
tight dress.
For the most part, women still tend to pay attention to aesthetic
issues in a competitive sense, and try to outdo each other in their
ability to create attractive and well appointed homes.

Whereas, early men generated art for no apparant breeding
advantage, simply because they focused almost entirely on what
things looked like. Men painted the walls in secret for themselves
to look at, whereas women painted themselves for men to look at.
Men carved horses on the handles of their atlatls for themselves to
look at, whereas women made their nests as attractive as
possible for the purpose of making a man happy enough to stay
and provide her and her children with security.

Men's aesthetic sense was a side effect of being wired to respond
to the appearance of women. Art for the sake of the art was
invented by men to express the fact that they experienced visual
yearning.
Women acquired an aesthetic sense as a tool to manipulate men
to their advantage.

This is the fundemental difference between the sexes. Men just
want women- everything they do that is constructive and half of
what they do that is destructive is aimed at the goal of attracting the
attention of women.

Women, however, do not particularly want men. They want more of
what the men represent, what the men can bring to the table. What
women want is children and a safe environment for them.
In this sense, women are the primary civilizing force of humanity.
We have streetlights and sidewalks and suburbs because of
women.
Because women want security, which is a complex and variable
concept, women have developed a far more cerebral approach to
life in general. They are more manipulative and strategic in their
thinking than are men.
Compare soap operas to wrestling- both have the fight between
good and evil, but look at how incredibly complex the interwoven
underhanded manilpulation is in the aveage soap. Men, being
more simple minded, just can't keep track of it all. A body slam
they get.
This is why the woman's genes contribute more to the overall
intelligence of their children. Women simply think more about
more.

In art today, women artists are often more cerebral in how and
what they are trying to express in their art than are male artists,
who still tend to focus more on the pure pleasure of form.

I love the art women produce because it is often more challenging
intellectually. I love the art that men produce because it so often
expresses men's uncomplicated and unreasoning delight in form.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 28, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/28/00

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Everyone is familiar with the human form, but this is definietely
NOT seeing it. The trouble with familiarity is that it involves
assumptions and from that point you are only seeing what you
imagine that you know.

The task of the artist is to rise above familiarity and make NO
assumptions about what he or she is looking at, to really separate
the processes of prior knowledge from active seeing.

I have to say that figure work is a superior training paradigm to any
still life or other subject matter. The figure represents more than
just an infinitely challenging complexity and subtlety of form- it is
also readily comparable to actual people, it is a subject with
emotional appeal and interest to every human being because it
represents US ourselves. It also incorporates dynamism and
motion, from which arise concepts of rhythm, balance, and
movement as well as such considerations as open composition,
in whiich the art interacts with the viewer or the world outside of the
artwork, or closed composition, in which the art exists in a space
of its own. The former is heroic and involving, the latter
introspective and calm.
Because all art is essentially about us as human beings, about
our experience and response to experience, the human figure is
always the best place to begin to learn about the elements that go
into forming the visual language of how we understand art.

Yes, I agree- the skills I am referring to are not simply the motor
skills of dexterity- I am more concerned with the intellectual and
cognitive skills of seeing and understanding. Of why one figure
pose is more evocative than another, why the rhythm flowing thru
this design is compelling while another may be boring.
As you say, this is the key to knowing the difference between a
happy accident and a grievous mistake.
As we discussed before- in choosing which random events will
remain, and which will not, the artist is still exercising complete
control of a work.

As to the copyright issue- All of your complaints about the copyright
system are founded in the fact that it does not work well unless
there is a policing agency looking out for the interests of the
copyright holders.
Your system of attributtion, Kromkowski, is IN FACT exactly what
copyright law is already doing; establishing who created what and
empowering that person to derive profit from the commercial use
of that creation.
You don't need to have a licence in every state to organize an
artists copyright protection foundation, nor to agitate and lobby for
laws giving artists a financial stake in the speculation on their
work. As an organization spreads form state to state you enlist
other artist/lawyers to aid in the legal issues of each state.
Join forces with the guy running Sculptor.org and put together a
quasi union like the screenwritters guild, only for artists.

In short, DO something to make the copyright laws act in the way
that WOULD improve the lot of the lowly artist in this society. We
are becoming ever more tied to the marketing and manipulating of
visual images, now is the time to assert and demand the financial
compensation that this industry is worth.

If you build it- they will sign up.

Or, at least, I will.
christopher

WoN ereH

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Sep 28, 2000, 11:19:46 AM9/28/00

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Christopher, you really don't know women as well as you think you do.

>Please, you don't turn your head to look at women? Men are like
>sight hounds, visually driven.

It is women who strive to make a beautiful home, much more than men. Most men
were perfectly happy with a cave. It is the women that found the cave walls
lacking and want to decorate them and put up curtains and a bear skin rug.

>I think that art in itself was invented by men to express something
>about the beauty they saw in the female form that words were

>inadequate to convey, about the beauty >they saw (snip)

Gimme a break. Who wears the jewelry even in primitive tribes? Women like to
be beautiful, not just for men, as men think, but for the mirror as well.
Women have, I believe, (but then, I'm a bit biased perhaps), much more evolved
aesthetic sense. For instance, my neighbor is a transexual. Wanted to be a
woman his whole life and finally did 'it'. But, being a woman is a lot more
than what's between your legs. His yard is a mess. His dog sleeps outside on
the dirt. Women aren't usually like that. Of course, women LOVE men, despite
their flaws, 'cause they're so cute. ;)

Debra

WoN ereH

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Sep 28, 2000, 6:01:36 PM9/28/00

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I don't know how you read my post when they don't show up on my server, but
assuming you can:

>Sorry Debra-
>
>Can't agree with you.

Sorry Christopher. I can't agree with you.

>Women evolved an aesthetic sense, yes,
>but, as you point out, in cave days it primarily revolved around
>adorning themselves and creating an appealing and comfortable
>environment.
>
>What was their purpose in doing so?
>
>Why, to attract the attention and affection and loyalty of men, of
>course- who women learned early to be visually driven.

I disagree. Men could care less what the cave looked like. Women care about
such things. Sure, it is biological, but there y' go.

>In evolutionary biology, each sex has or acquires what the
>opposite sex wants so that they can manipulate the opposite sex
>to their personal genetic advantage.

Art does not serve a biological purpose. It is a by-product of the brain
designed to think creatively for survival.

>Women learned how to focus on their appearance and the
>apperance of their nests in order to appeal to men's visual
>aesthetic

Bull.

>while men had to learn how to acquire the security and
>status that women wanted.
>This is what gave society balance; that each sex offered the other
>the object of their desire. ( in todays' world, women's ability to
>provide their own security has shifted the balance of power in
>women's favor, but only for educated women)

The male set it up this way for their own benefit because they were stronger,
and could therefore do so. Now that minds matter more than muscles, things are
changing.

>Even today, women (in general) vie with one another as rivals over
>their attractiveness to men. Just watch the faces of women in a
>restaurant when a really gorgeous woman of 25 walks in in a skin
>tight dress.

Bull again. Women read fashion magazines because they love to look at beauty.
Women look at a really gorgeous woman not because she's in a skin tight dress
but to see what she's wearing and how she wears it. Men could care less what
she's wearing, only if it's skin tight or otherwise revealing or 'sexy'.

>For the most part, women still tend to pay attention to aesthetic
>issues in a competitive sense, and try to outdo each other in their
>ability to create attractive and well appointed homes.

You really don't have a clue do you?

>Whereas, early men generated art for no apparant breeding
>advantage, simply because they focused almost entirely on what
>things looked like. Men painted the walls in secret for themselves
>to look at, whereas women painted themselves for men to look at.

Bull.

>Men carved horses on the handles of their atlatls for themselves to
>look at, whereas women made their nests as attractive as
>possible for the purpose of making a man happy enough to stay
>and provide her and her children with security.

Bull.

>Men's aesthetic sense was a side effect of being wired to respond
>to the appearance of women. Art for the sake of the art was
>invented by men to express the fact that they experienced visual
>yearning.
>Women acquired an aesthetic sense as a tool to manipulate men
>to their advantage.

Dream on.

>Compare soap operas to wrestling- both have the fight between
>good and evil, but look at how incredibly complex the interwoven
>underhanded manilpulation is in the aveage soap. Men, being
>more simple minded, just can't keep track of it all. A body slam
>they get.
>This is why the woman's genes contribute more to the overall
>intelligence of their children. Women simply think more about
>more.

Are you contridicting yourself now?
And I don't think it's been proven whose brain contributes more of the
intelligence genetically. Another blanket inaccuracy.

>In art today, women artists are often more cerebral in how and
>what they are trying to express in their art than are male artists,
>who still tend to focus more on the pure pleasure of form.

More bull.

Regards,
Debra

Andrew Werby

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Sep 29, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/29/00

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sculpt...@my-deja.com wrote in message <8r0a53$mao$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...

>As to the copyright issue- All of your complaints about the copyright
>system are founded in the fact that it does not work well unless
>there is a policing agency looking out for the interests of the
>copyright holders.
>Your system of attributtion, Kromkowski, is IN FACT exactly what
>copyright law is already doing; establishing who created what and
>empowering that person to derive profit from the commercial use
>of that creation.

[Except his system would strip away the artist's right to be compensated
when some third party takes the image he or she has sweated blood to make
and prints it on toilet paper - as long as the artist's signature is there,
I guess. All that bottled-up rage would make our art better, I'm sure...]

>You don't need to have a licence in every state to organize an
>artists copyright protection foundation, nor to agitate and lobby for
>laws giving artists a financial stake in the speculation on their
>work. As an organization spreads form state to state you enlist
>other artist/lawyers to aid in the legal issues of each state.
>Join forces with the guy running Sculptor.org and put together a
>quasi union like the screenwritters guild, only for artists.

[Somehow, I don't see our friend Mr. K as being this crusading
artist/lawyer. Maybe we can start a movement to revert to Roman law- where
it was a criminal offence to take money (horrors!) for defending or
prosecuting an individual in court. Has Law really gotten any better since
the days of Cicero?]

>
>In short, DO something to make the copyright laws act in the way
>that WOULD improve the lot of the lowly artist in this society. We
>are becoming ever more tied to the marketing and manipulating of
>visual images, now is the time to assert and demand the financial
>compensation that this industry is worth.
>
>If you build it- they will sign up.
>
>Or, at least, I will.
>christopher

[Musicians and composers have ASCAP and BMI; why shouldn't artists have an
organization policing their rights? I suppose Artists' Equity is as close as
we come, but I haven't heard much from them lately. By the way, Christopher,
how's it going in the fight with Equalization? ]

Andrew Werby
http://unitedartworks.com

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 29, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/29/00

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> Men could care less what the cave looked like. Women care
>about such things.

The former is untrue- Aside from the fact that cave paintings were
done by men- (which were not residential caves, they were
ceremonial caves ) Yes , Men are not driven to make the cave look
nice, but men definitely prefer aesthetic surroundings.
A woman who could keep a nice cave and make her man fine
clothes out of hides was highly sought after because men do
value those things. i'm a man, trust me.

Men never developed the urge to make the cave look nice
because the cave is not the man's territory- it is the woman's nest.
Every man understands that a man's home is really his wife's
castle. All pretense of male domination was and is reserved for
public display outside of the house.
Because a woman decorates her own nest- men never needed to,
just as women didn't need to risk her life killing competing tribes
or game animals because men did that service for her.

> Art does not serve a biological purpose. It is a by-product of the
>brain designed to think creatively for survival.

Your thesis is flawed and unsupported by example.
Apes think creatively for their survival, yet do not produce art,
despite having essentially the same cerebral, visual, and
finger/thumb systems.
They do lack symbolic language, tho.
Artistic expression, therefore, is tied to language as it is also a
symbolic representation of thought meant to convey ideas from
one mind to another. As a method of communiction, it certainly
serves a distinct biological function in enhancing survival.

As I stated- women's aethetic sense definitely evolved as a
survival tool as they used it to make themselves and the support
skills they had to offer more attractive to men. This improved
societal cohesion and gave women greater power to control
events. This is an obvious biological advantage.

> >Women learned how to focus on their appearance and the
> >apperance of their nests in order to appeal to men's
> >visual aesthetic
>
> Bull.

Hardly a cogent argument in refutation. Explain to me the cruelty of
women to other women over issues of attractiveness and dress if
they are not engaged in a competition for masculine resources.
Catty behavior is well documented and honest women own up to
its existence. ( not to say that all women behave so, but a majority
do)

> >while men had to learn how to acquire the security and
> >status that women wanted.
> >This is what gave society balance; that each sex offered
> >the other the object of their desire.
> >( in todays' world, women's ability to
> >provide their own security has shifted the balance of power in
> >women's favor, but only for educated women)
>
> The male set it up this way for their own benefit because they
>were stronger,
> and could therefore do so. Now that minds matter more than
>muscles, things are
> changing.

Now this is true bull, Debra. Men have no more control over their
lives than do women. When ever men hear women say something
like this they have to laugh-- like any man anywhere as any control
over his wife. Or ever has.
Society EVOLVED and any evolutionary biologist will tell you that
women have the upper hand because they have and nurture the
babies, the only real objective of living at all for both sexes. Men
are only stronger in order to afford their women and children
protection.

On the Titanic, it was the big strong men who went into the sea,
and the boats were full of women and a few children. How was
that to the big males' benefit? They certainly could have shoved the
women aside and taken the boats, but they didn't.
No matter how much they wanted to live- the condemnation of
society would have been worse, and what kind of society would
condemn a strong man for surviving in place of a woman? The
kind where the safety and lives of women had preference. And who
taught the men that ethic? Women.

> Women read fashion magazines
>because they love to look at beauty.
> Women look at a really gorgeous woman
>not because she's in a skin tight dress
> but to see what she's wearing and how she
>wears it. Men could care less what
> she's wearing, only if it's skin tight or
>otherwise revealing or 'sexy'.

Oh, come on, Debra! leaf thru cosmo some time. I don't deny that
women like to look at beauty- but the beauty of fashion and decor
is all about themselves. Women do look at well dressed women
competitively, Debra- comparing themselves to one another.
Women know that men would rather they walk around naked, and
if men really got their way, being so strong, women would go about
naked.
But let a nearly naked woman with a nice rack walk in and see the
acid looks the other women throw at her. They ostracize and
condemn her because she is a threat to their established or
prospective relationships with men. ( because men are sight
hounds)

Just as men, who compete with each other physically and
financially, and have developed social "rules" to establish what
constitutes "fair play", so too have women, who compete with each
other for men, established rules as to what constitutes fair play.
Because a woman's youth won't last forever, young women being
particularly sexual is frowned upon by the established matriarchy.
Overly sexual young women are no threat to a man, Debra, they
are a threat to the security of older, more powerful and established
women because they are unfairly appealing to men's weakness
for female beauty.

> >For the most part, women still tend to pay
>>attention to aesthetic
> >issues in a competitive sense, and try to
>>outdo each other in their
> >ability to create attractive and well
>>appointed homes.
>
> You really don't have a clue do you?

Be honest and look at the society in which you live. Look at the
difference between men's magazines and women's. The former is
full of pictures of women naked and nearly so, and the trappings of
affluence that might attract nearly naked women, while the later is
full of pictures of women dressed up as suggestions of how the
reader should look and tips on make up exercise and home decor.
Try and find pictures of beautiful naked men, and when you do its a
gay magazine.
Now, a well built man is a beautiful thing from the point of view of
form, yet women won't shell out 5 bucks to gaze at them.
Men are taken by the beauty of women, while women focus on
their own personal beauty.
Focusing on naked women certainly doesn't give men any
advantage over women, but when women focus on their
attractiveness, it certainly can give them an advantage with men.

Please, Debra, just be honest about the fact that women compete
to attract men. You offer no real argument because there isn't one.

Because men want women, and women want power and security
to ensure the survival of their children, men compete vigorously to
acquire the toys and trappings of affluence and status that women
want. This entire effort is driven by the desire to attract the attention
of the most beautiful women of the highest quality.

> >Compare soap operas to wrestling- both
>>have the fight between
> >good and evil, but look at how incredibly
>>complex the interwoven
> >underhanded manilpulation is in the
>>aveage soap. Men, being
> >more simple minded, just can't keep track
>>of it all. A body slam
> >they get.
> >This is why the woman's genes contribute
>>more to the overall
> >intelligence of their children. Women
>>simply think more about
> >more.
>
> Are you contridicting yourself now?

How am I contradicting myself? I have stated from the start that
women developed an asthetic sense as a tool to take advantage
of the fact that men were born with a nearly compulsive reaction to
visual stimulus. One sex developed an aesthetic sense conscious
of its potential whereas the other sex was merely hardwired with a
response to beauty.
The obvious result is that women are more cerebral and strategic
about art and its uses.

> And I don't think it's been proven whose
>brain contributes more of the
> intelligence genetically. Another blanket
>inaccuracy.

Yes, in fact, it has been shown that the mother's IQ has a
significant correlation to the IQ of her child, whereas the father's
has almost none.

Please don't assume from this discussion any suggestion that I
think the aesthetic sense of one gender superior to the other. I
merely find them different and have tried to analyze this difference
from the point of view of the origin of aesthetic expression. I have
no political ax to grind nor am I reacting to feminist agitprop, either
pro or con.

Also-I fully recognize that this analysis has dealt with the common
denominator of human behavior. Generalities are, by definition,
indistinct. This is because they deal with the aggregate trend of
widely variying human responses.
Like chaos theory predicts- the indvidual unpredictability and
variation of response to stimulus will, given enough samples,
generate a "Strange Attractor" that reveals something of the nature
and forces driving the system. This is the realm of statistics and
generalizations regarding human beahavior.
There are many people of both genders who transcend these
limitations, or whose behaivior falls on the wispiest edge of the
cloud that forms the strange attractor of human society.

I believe most of them, men and women, are in the arts. It is their
very position on the rim of the cloud that allows them to more
accurately see the cloud entire, and comment upon it thru their art.

Christopher

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Sep 29, 2000, 3:00:00 AM9/29/00

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>By the way, Christopher,
> how's it going in the fight with Equalization? ]

We have lost the preliminary round, but expected to- we are now
gathering evidence that the SBE operates in a manner calculated
to deny citizens the right to due process. We have one other end
run to attemot to get into tax court- but that too might be stopped by
the civil servants. If so, its just more fuel on the fire we will
ultimately light when we go public with the awful truth.
Last resort is bankruptcy, which is the only other way a citizen can
get before a judge and prove that the State has no right to the
money they are demanding. Of course, by then you have been
financially ruined.

The whole sheang will be a matter of a year o two to come to a
head.
I would like to prove in court (or the legislature) that when artists
perform work for hire they are doing contract labor as stated in
federal copyright law.

Wish me luck- I may be calling on all sculptors and visual artists if
we succeed in compiling evidence to support a class action.

Dan Spector

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Oct 1, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/1/00

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Chris Chris Chris
The original problem here was I heard that Target was the worst about something
like, asking Am. artists to submit pieces for possible purchase of rights,
keeping them a long while, sending them back with a No Thanks, and then-- lo and
behold, on Target's shelves, there they are. Why you chose to r & r about resin
manufactories and skill levels I don't know.
So be sore.

> Dan Dan Dan ...
> now you've touched on a sore spot with me.
>
> Target is not to blame for the fact that all resin statuary
> manufacturing has gone overseas.
> It was the manufacturers who did it, without consulting with Target
> or anyone else. They did so in order to be able to offer a better
> quality product at a lower price and earn a higher margin than was
> possible using expensive American labor.
>
> As far as the artisans and sculptors go, I can tell you from hard
> experience that finding competent artists in the U.S. is almost
> impossible.
> The art schools here turn out sculptors without any of the requisite
> skills or knowledge that commercial companies demand. They
> have had their heads filled with ethereal nonsense about the
> "meaning" of "art", about suffering and the whims of their muse,
> -But they are given none of the career preparation that any graphic
> art student takes for granted.
> I have offered apprenticeships for nearly twenty years now, and I
> have had very little luck finding talented people willing to stick it out
> and learn their craft even when they are being paid for the
> priviledge.
> Some drift off because they find commercial work "beneath" them-
> or because they simply can't finish what they start, or because they
> have no interest in sculpting when it becomes an everyday thing
> like a real job.
> Or some, cruising along and making a fairly good wage for a
> beginner, will decide that the corporate fat cats are getting rich off
> of the fruit of their genius and raise their price fivefold in the middle
> of an already bid job.
> Only a few apprentices, out of the 40 , have gone on to have stellar
> careers,earning as much as most lawyers do because they have
> the right mental attitude about working proffessionally.
>
> All in all, American sculptors tend to be either underskilled,
> undertrained, unproffessional , or unwilling to do what needs
> doing if there is no acclaim attached to it.
>
> When I go to China, I have 30 sculptors who show up at the studio
> everyday, who recognize and respect sculptors with superior skills
> and who are eager to learn anything you can show them. They are
> happy to have the job- which pays pretty well by Chinese
> standards.
> When it comes to the narrow focus of commercial resin design,
> the average unschooled Chinese sculptor is miles better than the
> average college educated American sculptor who walks into my
> studio looking to acquire the skills they came out of school
> missing.
> So, Dan- ifn you want to wax political and get all activist over the
> sculpture jobs moving overseas, aim your indignation at the Art
> Schools who have completely failed the past several generations
> of talented American sculptors.
>
> Christopher
>
> P.S. this should in no way be interpreted as a dissing of American
> sculptors- who tend to be far more creative and innovative than
> practical and multiskilled.
> It is a dissing of the piss poor American sculptural arts eduction
> system and the failure of the whole academic art esablishment.

>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

--
Dan <arch...@earthlink.net>
http://www.archicast.com

----------

Lauri Levanto

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Oct 1, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/1/00

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sculpt...@my-deja.com wrote:

> (...)
>
>
> Be honest (Debra) and look at the society in which you live. Look at the

> difference between men's magazines and women's. The former is
> full of pictures of women naked and nearly so, and the trappings of
> affluence that might attract nearly naked women, while the later is
> full of pictures of women dressed up as suggestions of how the
> reader should look and tips on make up exercise and home decor.
> Try and find pictures of beautiful naked men, and when you do its a
> gay magazine.
>

men's magazines live on pictures, women's magazines on short stories:
I believe the difference is deeper in the brain construction.
Men are visual creatures (in general) and secuced by looks.
Females are seduced by words.
The physical dominance of males is more than equalized
by the verbal dominance of their wives.

-lauri

>

Andrew Werby

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Oct 1, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/1/00

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sculpt...@my-deja.com wrote in message <8r3540$ltr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...

Please don't assume from this discussion any suggestion that I
think the aesthetic sense of one gender superior to the other. I
merely find them different and have tried to analyze this difference
from the point of view of the origin of aesthetic expression.

[I wonder, then, if presented with a series of unattributed artworks, you
could accurately differentiate between those made by men and those made by
women? From the foregoing, it seems like you should be able to, no? Are you
ready to take the Art Gender Challenge?]

Andrew Werby
http://unitedartworks.com

Gary Waller

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Oct 1, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/1/00

to

Thought some scientific evidence might be useful, this just in:

"Cell Migration"

All babies start out with the same number of raw cells which, over nine
months, develop into a complete female baby.

The problem occurs when cells are instructed by the little chromosomes
to make a male baby instead.

Because there are only so many cells to go around, the cells necessary
to develop a male's reproductive organs have to come from cells already
assigned elsewhere in the female.

Recent tests have shown that these cells are removed from the
communications center of the brain, migrate lower in the body and
develop into male sexual organs.

If you visualize a normal brain to be similar to a full deck of cards,
this means that males are born a few cards short, so to speak. And some
of their cards are in their shorts.

This difference between the male and female brain manifests itself in
various ways.

Little girls will tend to play things like house or learn to read.

Little boys, however, will tend to do things like placing a bucket over
their heads and running into walls.

Little girls will think about doing things before taking any action.

Little boys will just punch or kick something and will look surprised if
someone asks them why they just punched their little brother who was
half asleep and looking the other way.

This basic cognitive difference continues to grow until puberty, when
the hormones kick into action and the trouble really begins. After
puberty, not only the size of the male and female brains differs, but
the center of thought also differs.

Women think with their heads.

Male thoughts often originate lower in their bodies where their ex-brain
cells reside.

Of course, the size of this problem varies from man to man.

In some men only a small number of brain cells migrate and they are left
with nearly full mental capacity but they tend to be rather dull,
sexually speaking.

Such men are known in medical terms as "Painters."

Other men suffer larger brain cell relocation. These men are medically
referred to as "Sculptors."

A small number of men suffer massive brain cell migration to their
groins.

These men are usually referred to as..... "Mr. President."

Author unknown

WoN ereH

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Oct 1, 2000, 1:57:08 PM10/1/00

to

>... Aside from the fact that cave paintings were

>done by men- (which were not residential caves, they were
>ceremonial caves )

The evidence suggests that entire families lived in the caves during their
decoration. Men, women and children, all participated. Even the children's
fingers found in the clay. How do you account for that then?

>A woman who could keep a nice cave and make her man fine
>clothes out of hides was highly sought after because men do
>value those things. i'm a man, trust me.

Is it not true that in most families, the men are the handy ones? This is
changing as women are 'allowed', even encouraged finally, to try such things.

>Every man understands that a man's home is really his wife's
>castle. All pretense of male domination was and is reserved for
>public display outside of the house.

Another inaccurate generalization. Never heard the saying "A man's home is his
castle"?

>> Art does not serve a biological purpose. It is a by-product of the
>>brain designed to think creatively for survival.

>Your thesis is flawed and unsupported by example.
>Apes think creatively for their survival, yet do not produce art,
>despite having essentially the same cerebral, visual, and
>finger/thumb systems.
>They do lack symbolic language, tho.
>Artistic expression, therefore, is tied to language as it is also a
>symbolic representation of thought meant to convey ideas from
>one mind to another. As a method of communiction, it certainly
>serves a distinct biological function in enhancing survival.

There are plenty of people who can't talk who can still nonetheless draw. So
much for another of your broad innaccurate generalizations.

>As I stated- women's aethetic sense definitely evolved as a
>survival tool as they used it to make themselves and the support
>skills they had to offer more attractive to men. This improved
>societal cohesion and gave women greater power to control
>events. This is an obvious biological advantage.

As if only women do this.

>> >Women learned how to focus on their appearance and the
>> >apperance of their nests in order to appeal to men's
>> >visual aesthetic
>>
>> Bull.
>
>Hardly a cogent argument in refutation.

Call em like I see em.

>Explain to me the cruelty of
>women to other women over issues of attractiveness and dress if
>they are not engaged in a competition for masculine resources.
>Catty behavior is well documented and honest women own up to
>its existence. ( not to say that all women behave so, but a majority
>do)

Apparently you've been hanging out with some insecure women. There are plenty
of societies where the women happily live together, helping each other, nursing
each other's children even. Until very recently, many cultures picked out the
girl's husbands when they were still a child. Competing for a man is fairly
new.

>> >while men had to learn how to acquire the security and
>> >status that women wanted.

Duh.

>> The male set it up this way for their own benefit because they
>>were stronger,
>> and could therefore do so. Now that minds matter more than
>>muscles, things are
>> changing.
>
>Now this is true bull, Debra. Men have no more control over their
>lives than do women. When ever men hear women say something
>like this they have to laugh-- like any man anywhere as any control
>over his wife. Or ever has.

I'm talking about up till now. The cave man was stronger than his wife. The
muslim society. The european society. Look beyond your own little cul de sac.

>> Women read fashion magazines
>>because they love to look at beauty.
>> Women look at a really gorgeous woman
>>not because she's in a skin tight dress
>> but to see what she's wearing and how she
>>wears it. Men could care less what
>> she's wearing, only if it's skin tight or
>>otherwise revealing or 'sexy'.
>
>Oh, come on, Debra! leaf thru cosmo some time. I don't deny that
>women like to look at beauty- but the beauty of fashion and decor
>is all about themselves.

>Women do look at well dressed women
>competitively, Debra- comparing themselves to one another.

You really don't have a very high opinion of women is what it boils down to if
you think women are so one dimensional.

>Just as men, who compete with each other physically and
>financially, and have developed social "rules" to establish what
>constitutes "fair play", so too have women, who compete with each
>other for men, established rules as to what constitutes fair play.

Like I said before, you don't know much about what goes outside your own little
world. Not all societies are so shallow.
Even female monkeys, when not around male monkeys, behave totally differently,
cooperatively. Not ONLY because they are no longer forced to compete for the
top male's affection so he won't kill their baby (the real reason the top male
monkey wins is his size and strength) but because female monkeys like the
company of other female monkeys. Just like women like the company of other
women.

>Because a woman's youth won't last forever, young women being
>particularly sexual is frowned upon by the established matriarchy.
>Overly sexual young women are no threat to a man, Debra, they
>are a threat to the security of older, more powerful and established
>women because they are unfairly appealing to men's weakness
>for female beauty.

You're a jerk. Maybe if one's husband is always looking at young babes with
lust it will upset her. I don't have that problem. I even point out women to
him that look like they are pouring it on cause I find it amusing.

>> >For the most part, women still tend to pay
>>>attention to aesthetic
>> >issues in a competitive sense, and try to
>>>outdo each other in their
>> >ability to create attractive and well
>>>appointed homes.
>>
>> You really don't have a clue do you?
>
>Be honest and look at the society in which you live. Look at the
>difference between men's magazines and women's. The former is
>full of pictures of women naked and nearly so, and the trappings of
>affluence that might attract nearly naked women, while the later is
>full of pictures of women dressed up as suggestions of how the
>reader should look and tips on make up exercise and home decor.
>Try and find pictures of beautiful naked men, and when you do its a
>gay magazine.
>Now, a well built man is a beautiful thing from the point of view of
>form, yet women won't shell out 5 bucks to gaze at them.
>Men are taken by the beauty of women, while women focus on
>their own personal beauty.
>Focusing on naked women certainly doesn't give men any
>advantage over women, but when women focus on their
>attractiveness, it certainly can give them an advantage with men.

Puleeze. Women are looking at OTHER beautiful women in those magazines, not
themselves. The only guys I know that look at pictures of naked women on a
regualr basis either have no real woman to look at, and/or unsure of their
masculinity. Why most of these magazines are read by very young guys.

>Please, Debra, just be honest about the fact that women compete
>to attract men. You offer no real argument because there isn't one.

I offer no real argument because I never said women don't do this. But you are
sadly mistaken if you think that is the only reason a women dresses well, fixes
up her home, educates herself, creates art, and so on.

>Because men want women, and women want power and security
>to ensure the survival of their children, men compete vigorously to
>acquire the toys and trappings of affluence and status that women
>want. This entire effort is driven by the desire to attract the attention
>of the most beautiful women of the highest quality.

You don't know quality women is what I think.

>Yes, in fact, it has been shown that the mother's IQ has a
>significant correlation to the IQ of her child, whereas the father's
>has almost none.

Really? Sounds interesting. Please state your source.

(snipped a bunch of further sophmoric ramblings)

Debra

sculpt...@my-deja.com

unread,

Oct 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/2/00

to

I
> The evidence suggests that entire families lived in the caves
>during their
> decoration. Men, women and children, all participated. Even the
>children's
> fingers found in the clay. How do you account for that then?

Nope- the painted caves show evidence of being secret
ceremonial and not "lived" in.

> Is it not true that in most families, the men are the handy ones?
>This is
> changing as women are 'allowed', even encouraged finally, to try
>such things.

Many things are now changing due to the advent of technology
allowing us to redefine our roles in a society made more secure
than was ever imaginable. However- we still are struggling with
the fact that a culture thousands of years in the evolving, and
behavoirs written into our genes, are proving difficult to discard just
because a different reality is very suddenly "possible" right now.
The feminists of the 1970's are faced with the fact that their little
girls (for the most part) really would rather play with barbie dolls
than play football.
That teenage girls of this post feminist era who have the looks, will
use their looks to get what they want from boys, rather than earn
them the hard way. Young women with attractive bodies are
handed a power. You can not hand a person a power and expect
them not to use it to their own advantage.

> >Every man understands that a man's home is really his wife's
> >castle. All pretense of male domination was and is reserved for
> >public display outside of the house.
>
> Another inaccurate generalization. Never heard the saying "A
>man's home is his
> castle"?

Which is the generalization? You take the quote out of context. It
was a political remark made in England, referring to the Magna
Carta, defending the notion that not even the King had the right to
take a man's property or tresspass upon his lands without due
process or just cause. This notion of individual soverienty was the
basis of all freemason movements thruout Europe and culminated
in the Declaration of Independence.
It was not meant as an Identification of the gender of the person
who held strongest sway within the domicile.
Debra, the truth is that women rule the household. Ask any man-
even those in China, Italy, Denmark, Kenya, and just about
anyplace else you can find.

> There are plenty of people who can't talk who can still
>nonetheless draw. So
> much for another of your broad innaccurate generalizations.

There are no people who are unable to talk, really- Human beings
are born with a language facility hardwired into the brain. Deaf
people have been shown to use the language centers of the brain
to process sign language. Severly brain damaged people lacking
a language center might be trained to draw by fully functioning
people who have such an interest, just like a chimp or elephant
can be trained to draw. The question is, do they do it
spontaneously? Without coaching? And does what they draw
symbolize anything?
Further, your response fails to address the point- that Language
and Art are the result of the ability to think about experience
symbolically.

And, about broad generaliztions- I am not the one pointing the
finger at a gender and claiming that they have exerted complete
control over society for a thousand years, Debra; you are. I find my
position to be far more complex and precise than your general
knee-jerk PCisms. You accuse me of the crime you yourself are
most guilty of.

> >As I stated- women's aethetic sense definitely evolved as a
> >survival tool as they used it to make themselves and the
> >support
> >skills they had to offer more attractive to men. This improved
> >societal cohesion and gave women greater power to control
> >events. This is an obvious biological advantage.
>
> As if only women do this.

Women essentially are (discounting the rare gender switched
male) Men do not utilize visual aesthetics to exert control over
women. As Lauri pointed out- women, being more verbal and
cerebral in their sense of aesthetics respond more to words and
ideas than to images. Thusly, men tend to wax poetic and behave
romantic and make displays of status to exert control over women.

> >> >Women learned how to focus on their appearance and the
> >> >apperance of their nests in order to appeal to men's
> >> >visual aesthetic
> >>
> >> Bull.
> >
> >Hardly a cogent argument in refutation.
>
> Call em like I see em.

Look into Cosmo and tell me what you see. 'How to' articles all
about how to manipulate men. Make up tips and sexy clothes
tailored to maximize your attractiveness and camoflage your flaws
sold as wrenches for a woman's tool kit.

> >Explain to me the cruelty of
> >women to other women over issues of attractiveness
> >and dress

> Apparently you've been hanging out with some insecure women.

> There are plenty
> of societies where the women happily live together, helping each
>other, nursing
> each other's children even. Until very recently, many cultures
>picked out the
> girl's husbands when they were still a child. Competing for a
>man is fairly
> new.

Oh please, Debra. Read a little more about other cultures and stop
falling for the PR western women publish about themselves. Yes,
of course women work together happily, as long as everybody
follows the evolved rules of conduct regarding who belongs to
whom. Just as men work well together as long as all the guys
understand the heirarchy of power within the group. It is only when
someone steps out of line that the underlying assumptions are
revealed and the ostracization begins. Women competing directly
for the best prospects, or their mothers competing for the best
prospects on their behalf is the same thing.

> >> >while men had to learn how to acquire the security and
> >> >status that women wanted.
>
> Duh.

This you get, but not fact that women strive to offer men what
appeals to them?

> >> The male set it up this way for their own benefit because they
> >>were stronger,
> >> and could therefore do so. Now that minds matter more than
> >>muscles, things are
> >> changing.
> >

> >Now this is true bull, Debra. Men have no more control over .

> > their lives than do women. When ever men hear women
> >say something like this they have to laugh--
> >like any man anywhere as any control
> >over his wife. Or ever has.
>
> I'm talking about up till now. The cave man was stronger than
>his wife.

Yet he did not rape her. Because sex alone is not what men really
want, Debra. What men really want is for women to desire them.
This is why they romance a woman instead of forcing her. ( again,
generally ) A man would like to think that his woman feels for him
what he feels for her. A visceral longing.

> The muslim society. The european society. Look beyond your
>own little cul de sac.

Debra, you imagine men are in control- but the vast majority of
men have NO POWER over anything in this world. A few
individuals have some control.
Believe me, every dispassionate analysis of other cultures (even
those done by women anthropologists) has revealed that
societies always provide for the women the safest and securest
possible environment in which to raise children for the ecosystem
in which they lived.
Culture ain't about fairness or freedom- its about a balance struck
between what men demand and what women demand. Desert
societies are as harsh and spare as the desert they intend to eek
survival from. This doesn't mean that Muslim women don't have
their needs met. You are imposing your narrow definition of what a
woman's life should be like on another culture.

> You really don't have a very high opinion of women is what it
>boils down to if
> you think women are so one dimensional.

I have hardly painted women as one dimensional when I say that
they are more cerebral than men, just as powerful if not moreso
than men, and make more and better use of their aesthetic sense
than men.

The fact that I do not agree with your victim image of womanhood
should be interpreted as thinking far more highly of women than
do you. I see women as powerful and capable throughout history-
whereas you see them as helpless pawns. So who has the higher
opinion?
Please do not ascribe to my thoughts on this matter your own
sterotype of what men who don't toe the PC line feel about women.
I like women much better than men- but women are not perfect
unselfish angels put upon by the evils and avarice of men, Debra.
They are complex human beings who may think differently than
men, but still act in their own best interest.
The reason I don't find women one dimensional is entirely
because of what I have been talking about- women's goals are far
more complex than men's, therefore, their solutions to attaining
these goals are far more varied and subtle than is readily
apparant.

> >Just as men, who compete with each other physically and
> >financially, and have developed social "rules" to establish what
> >constitutes "fair play", so too have women, who compete with
> >each
> >other for men, established rules as to what constitutes fair play.
>
> Like I said before, you don't know much about what goes outside
>your own little
> world. Not all societies are so shallow.
> Even female monkeys, when not around male monkeys, behave
>totally differently,
> cooperatively. Not ONLY because they are no longer forced to
>compete for the
> top male's affection so he won't kill their baby (the real reason
>the top male
> monkey wins is his size and strength) but because female
>monkeys like the
> company of other female monkeys. Just like women like the
>company of other
> women.

Geez, Debra- if you're going to conjure up Jane Goodall why don't
you read her conclusions about primate behavior?
Males compete for dominence because the females WON'T mate
with anyone but the strongest. BUT they WILL philander with a
likely contender to create confusion in the next dominant male as
to whose baby she has. Every biology study, book and film makes
clear that FEMALE CHOICE of mate is what drives all male
competition in EVERY species.
Males in many mammalian species kill off other males' offspring
because most females won't come into heat while nursing- they
must make the best of their brief dominance if they are to have a
chance of leaving offspring at all. Especially when resources are
limited. Similarly, it has been found that a mother will kill her own
offspring when starvation looms if the babies are unlikely to
survive her death. If she has the best chance of survivng on her
own- she can always have more offspring later. its gene survival in
operation, Debra.
You tend to present only as much information as will fit an
anthropomorphic view of women as sweet collaborators and men
as vile dominators.
The less generalized truth, Debra, is that both genders both
collaborate and contend in social species within their own
genders and this interplay creates hierarchies of power within
each gender group. There are alpha females as well as alpha
males.
Men like the company of other men as well- in spite of the
competition they engage in.
But your image of women sitting together in sisterly solidarity is
over simplified and whitewashed. Watch a soap opera sometime,
the format preferred by average women, and witness honestly the
catty backstabbing and social manuvering that women find
entertaining. This does go on, Debra. Women form alliances and
cliques, just like men, its just more verbal than physical.
I could go on and on about all the less than admirable things that
men do as well, but, I think that territory was pretty well covered
during the past 15 years of male bashing in the media. (most of it
at least partly deserved)

> >Because a woman's youth won't last forever, young
> >women being
> >particularly sexual is frowned upon by the
> >established matriarchy.
> >Overly sexual young women are no threat to a man, Debra, they
> >are a threat to the security of older, more powerful and
> >established
> >women because they are unfairly appealing to men's
> >weakness for female beauty.
>
> You're a jerk. Maybe if one's husband is always looking at young
>babes with
> lust it will upset her. I don't have that problem. I even point out
>women to
> him that look like they are pouring it on cause I find it amusing.

Please understand that in speaking of the aggregate behavior of
men and women I am not referring to you in particular. As an artist
I already stated that you fall far outside the mainstream of human
behavior. Of course there are exceptional people, both men and
women.
But Debra, there are many books written about how women treat
other women, I am not making this up. Women wield social
approbation and condemnation in dictating which behaviors are
acceptable and which not. The whole PC movement is driven by
what women think is acceptable or not.

> Puleeze. Women are looking at OTHER beautiful women in
>those magazines, not
> themselves. The only guys I know that look at pictures of naked
>women on a
> regualr basis either have no real woman to look at, and/or
>unsure of their
> masculinity. Why most of these magazines are read by very
>young guys.

Debra- you have no idea how often men look at images of women,
both naked and not.
Just because a man's wife will not allow him to have Playboy in the
house don't mean he doesn't indulge from time to time. The very
fact that men must make their enjoyment of such things hidden is
evidence of women's power in society.
On the internet, half of all internet sites are pornographic in nature,
tallying up millions of hits every day- don't kid yourself into thinking
that its just a handful of youngsters responsible.
Women wield such social power that men will act as if they are
against this sort of thing because if you don't toe the PC party line,
you don't get a woman. Witness the fall of nearly every
televangelist.

Oh, and women don't look at images of other women for the
pleasure of seeing a woman- the magazine is SELLING
CLOTHING- Those are just fantasy images of how women wish to
see themselves. Of the apparrel and accessories they want to buy.
To compete within their gender and for the attention of males. (just
as men look at the pictures of Porches and BMWs they wish they
could buy tocompete with men and attract women)

> I offer no real argument because I never said women don't do
>this. But you are
> sadly mistaken if you think that is the only reason a women
>dresses well, fixes
> up her home, educates herself, creates art, and so on.

I never said it was the only reason, Debra. I said it was the
evolutionary origin of the tendency to behave in this fashion.
Women evolved an aesthetic sense as a tool- but it is still an
aesthetic sense- they obviously create beauty to satisfy some
deeper drive- I am just pointing out that the manner in which they
express it still has the underpinnings of its evolutionary origin.
Women dress well as much to satisfy an aesthetic sense of self
as to compete with other women or attract men. However, I
maintain that women, being complex, most often dress well for all
three reasons at once.

> >Because men want women, and women want power and
> >security
> >to ensure the survival of their children, men compete vigorously
> >to
> >acquire the toys and trappings of affluence and status that
> >women
> >want. This entire effort is driven by the desire to attract the
> >attention
> >of the most beautiful women of the highest quality.
>
> You don't know quality women is what I think.
>

Debra, I know women of the highest quality. I count them among
my closest friends.
You're unwillingness to consider that women are like any other
evolved creature, with behaviors driven by gene survival, is myopic.
I am not disparaging you, nor name calling, nor making
assumptions about who you do and do not know.
I am not condemning women nor men. Neither am I exulting either
gender.
I am simply portraying women (and men) as each contributing to
the fabric of society, each demanding of the other what is most
important to them, each using whatever tools or insights they have
available to achieve their personal goals. And each thinking and
responding to the world differently based upon what each must
have to survive.
This is the view of science. Its not emotionally loaded.

Please don't take it so politically.

Helen Fleischer

unread,

Oct 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/2/00

to

On 01 Oct 2000 17:57:08 GMT, won...@aol.com (WoN ereH) wrote:

>The evidence suggests that entire families lived in the caves during their
>decoration. Men, women and children, all participated. Even the children's
>fingers found in the clay. How do you account for that then?

"If you stick your finger up there one more time, I'm going to cut it
off!" perhaps?

Sorry, I find myself being very literal this morning. I'm sure you
meant finger marks, right? At least I hope so! ;)

he...@min.net http://www.min.net/~helen
Helen "Halla" Fleischer,
Fantasy & Fiber Artist in Fairland, MD USA

WoN ereH

unread,

Oct 2, 2000, 11:34:04 AM10/2/00

to

Actually, I think the conversation is getting rather stupid:

>> The evidence suggests that entire families lived in the caves
>>during their
>> decoration. Men, women and children, all participated. Even the
>>children's
>> fingers found in the clay. How do you account for that then?
>Nope- the painted caves show evidence of being secret
>ceremonial and not "lived" in.

I said they were "lived in" while they were being decorated, not "lived in"
with a white picket fence. I just saw a program this weekend about this.
Entire families lived for extended periods in the caves -- while they were
being decorated. Sorry, you're wrong about it being only a man's thing.

>> Is it not true that in most families, the men are the handy ones?
>>This is
>> changing as women are 'allowed', even encouraged finally, to try
>>such things.
>Many things are now changing due to the advent of technology
>allowing us to redefine our roles in a society made more secure
>than was ever imaginable. However- we still are struggling with
>the fact that a culture thousands of years in the evolving, and
>behavoirs written into our genes, are proving difficult to discard just
>because a different reality is very suddenly "possible" right now.
>The feminists of the 1970's are faced with the fact that their little
>girls (for the most part) really would rather play with barbie dolls
>than play football.
>That teenage girls of this post feminist era who have the looks, will
>use their looks to get what they want from boys, rather than earn
>them the hard way. Young women with attractive bodies are
>handed a power. You can not hand a person a power and expect
>them not to use it to their own advantage.

I guess you don't know how obsessed teenage boys are about fitting in, just
like girls are. In the past, it was men who wore the make-up. Now it's the
women. That's how teenagers are. Girls, boys. Yes, of course girls have
inherent differences from men. When did I ever say they didn't? You're
totally confused about what you are even arguing about.

>> >Every man understands that a man's home is really his wife's
>> >castle. All pretense of male domination was and is reserved for
>> >public display outside of the house.
>>
>> Another inaccurate generalization. Never heard the saying "A
>>man's home is his
>> castle"?
>Which is the generalization? You take the quote out of context. It
>was a political remark made in England, referring to the Magna
>Carta, defending the notion that not even the King had the right to
>take a man's property or tresspass upon his lands without due
>process or just cause. This notion of individual soverienty was the
>basis of all freemason movements thruout Europe and culminated
>in the Declaration of Independence.
>It was not meant as an Identification of the gender of the person
>who held strongest sway within the domicile.
>Debra, the truth is that women rule the household. Ask any man-
>even those in China, Italy, Denmark, Kenya, and just about
>anyplace else you can find.

Blah blah blah. What a bunch of who cares? Every man I know feels the home is
his 'castle.' Why do you think men have historically gone off to work everyday
like a fool? Cause he could come home and be the king of his home. Changes
there account for the divorce rate. There are distinct differences between men
and woman. I think we can agree on that. However, I disagree with your global
assessments of how women are only interested in captivating men. That may be
the main thing on the mind of a 16 year old, but women do mature. Maybe our
society encourages too many women to still go around acting like 16 year olds.
But it is not the norm for women to be that way IMHO. How could I raise a
daughter if I was always in competition with her? It is the nutcases that do
that. I adore her.

>> There are plenty of people who can't talk who can still
>>nonetheless draw. So
>> much for another of your broad innaccurate generalizations.
>
>There are no people who are unable to talk, really- Human beings
>are born with a language facility hardwired into the brain. Deaf
>people have been shown to use the language centers of the brain
>to process sign language. Severly brain damaged people lacking
>a language center might be trained to draw by fully functioning
>people who have such an interest, just like a chimp or elephant
>can be trained to draw. The question is, do they do it
>spontaneously? Without coaching? And does what they draw
>symbolize anything?
>Further, your response fails to address the point- that Language
>and Art are the result of the ability to think about experience
>symbolically.

Probably. But monkey's are more than happy to sketch aren't they? Doesn't
resemble anything, but they do put marks on paper. Anyway, since when are you
such a scholar on brain mechanisms? Are you quoting someone? I'd be happy to
read further on this. I know much work is being done now to further
understand the creative mind.

>And, about broad generaliztions- I am not the one pointing the
>finger at a gender and claiming that they have exerted complete
>control over society for a thousand years, Debra; you are. I find my
>position to be far more complex and precise than your general
>knee-jerk PCisms. You accuse me of the crime you yourself are
>most guilty of.

Whatever. I don't know what the hell you're even blabbing about half the time
you're so self-contradictory.

>> >As I stated- women's aethetic sense definitely evolved as a
>> >survival tool as they used it to make themselves and the
>> >support
>> >skills they had to offer more attractive to men. This improved
>> >societal cohesion and gave women greater power to control
>> >events. This is an obvious biological advantage.
>>
>> As if only women do this.
>Women essentially are (discounting the rare gender switched
>male) Men do not utilize visual aesthetics to exert control over
>women. As Lauri pointed out- women, being more verbal and
>cerebral in their sense of aesthetics respond more to words and
>ideas than to images.

She pointed out that women's magazines are more about words than men's
magazines. Maybe some are. But "fashion" magazines are what I referred to. I
wonder what the main readership of Time or Newsweek is. Of course, magazines
about Money are just so the guy can win over women, right? Sheesh. Everybody
is such a robot to you, why even bother waking up in the morning?

>Thusly, men tend to wax poetic and behave
>romantic and make displays of status to exert control over women.

Oh well, what have you done about this of late?

>> >> >Women learned how to focus on their appearance and the
>> >> >apperance of their nests in order to appeal to men's
>> >> >visual aesthetic
>> >>
>> >> Bull.
>> >
>> >Hardly a cogent argument in refutation.
>>
>> Call em like I see em.
>
>Look into Cosmo and tell me what you see. 'How to' articles all
>about how to manipulate men. Make up tips and sexy clothes
>tailored to maximize your attractiveness and camoflage your flaws
>sold as wrenches for a woman's tool kit.

Well, Cosmo is aimed at single women. I don't read it. Women are just as
interested in looking great to impress other women, to feel good when they look
in the mirror, as they are in impressing other men. That's the way women are.
Very aesthetically inclined. That's how our argument started.

>> >Explain to me the cruelty of
>> >women to other women over issues of attractiveness
>> >and dress
>
>> Apparently you've been hanging out with some insecure women.
>> There are plenty
>> of societies where the women happily live together, helping each
>>other, nursing
>> each other's children even. Until very recently, many cultures
>>picked out the
>> girl's husbands when they were still a child. Competing for a
>>man is fairly
>> new.
>Oh please, Debra. Read a little more about other cultures and stop
>falling for the PR western women publish about themselves. Yes,
>of course women work together happily, as long as everybody
>follows the evolved rules of conduct regarding who belongs to
>whom. Just as men work well together as long as all the guys
>understand the heirarchy of power within the group. It is only when
>someone steps out of line that the underlying assumptions are
>revealed and the ostracization begins. Women competing directly
>for the best prospects, or their mothers competing for the best
>prospects on their behalf is the same thing.

It is you who are too tunnel visioned by western society. American society is
an aberration. Millions of people are on prozac just to cope with the
abberation of it. You seem to be falling for the advertising ploys. Gotta
have this to get the girl. Gotta have that to get the guy. That's why the
society is so confused, materialistic, and unhappy. Humans need to live in
cooperative tribes to be happy. The current 'beliefs' of people like you are
not conducive to that.

>> >> >while men had to learn how to acquire the security and
>> >> >status that women wanted.
>>
>> Duh.
>This you get, but not fact that women strive to offer men what
>appeals to them?

OBVIOUSLY. But that is not the ONLY reason we do things. We are not that
simplistic.

>> >> The male set it up this way for their own benefit because they
>> >>were stronger,
>> >> and could therefore do so. Now that minds matter more than
>> >>muscles, things are
>> >> changing.
>> >
>> >Now this is true bull, Debra. Men have no more control over .
>> > their lives than do women. When ever men hear women
>> >say something like this they have to laugh--
>> >like any man anywhere as any control
>> >over his wife. Or ever has.
>>
>> I'm talking about up till now. The cave man was stronger than
>>his wife.
>Yet he did not rape her. Because sex alone is not what men really
>want, Debra. What men really want is for women to desire them.
>This is why they romance a woman instead of forcing her. ( again,
>generally ) A man would like to think that his woman feels for him
>what he feels for her. A visceral longing.

Yea, doesn't that contradict half your argument? I.e. that he can only win her
with money? People are not as simplistic as that now are they?

>> The muslim society. The european society. Look beyond your
>>own little cul de sac.
>
>Debra, you imagine men are in control- but the vast majority of
>men have NO POWER over anything in this world. A few
>individuals have some control.
>Believe me, every dispassionate analysis of other cultures (even
>those done by women anthropologists) has revealed that
>societies always provide for the women the safest and securest
>possible environment in which to raise children for the ecosystem
>in which they lived.
>Culture ain't about fairness or freedom- its about a balance struck
>between what men demand and what women demand. Desert
>societies are as harsh and spare as the desert they intend to eek
>survival from. This doesn't mean that Muslim women don't have
>their needs met. You are imposing your narrow definition of what a
>woman's life should be like on another culture.

Ba-lo-ney. Muslim women are beat for recreation. A man that doesn't beat his
wife is looked down upon. You're way off here Christopher.

>> You really don't have a very high opinion of women is what it
>>boils down to if
>> you think women are so one dimensional.
>I have hardly painted women as one dimensional when I say that
>they are more cerebral than men, just as powerful if not moreso
>than men, and make more and better use of their aesthetic sense
>than men.
>
>The fact that I do not agree with your victim image of womanhood
>should be interpreted as thinking far more highly of women than
>do you.

What?!! You're the one making women out to be only capable of creating art to
impress men, decorating their home to impress men, feeling good about their
looks to impress men, you are so full of it if you think you can now turn that
around and say you think so much more highly of women than I. Gimme a
brrrreak.

>I see women as powerful and capable throughout history-
>whereas you see them as helpless pawns. So who has the higher
>opinion?

When did I ever say that? You are so full of sh*t.

>Please do not ascribe to my thoughts on this matter your own
>sterotype of what men who don't toe the PC line feel about women.
> I like women much better than men- but women are not perfect
>unselfish angels put upon by the evils and avarice of men, Debra.
>They are complex human beings who may think differently than
>men, but still act in their own best interest.
>The reason I don't find women one dimensional is entirely
>because of what I have been talking about- women's goals are far
>more complex than men's, therefore, their solutions to attaining
>these goals are far more varied and subtle than is readily
>apparant.

I'm glad I was able to convince you. But your now trying to say it was your
argument to begin with is laughable. Sad, but laughable.

Sorry Christopher, I never said it was ALWAYS that way. I was merely defending
the fact that it is NOT always that way.

Watch a soap opera sometime,
>the format preferred by average women, and witness honestly the
>catty backstabbing and social manuvering that women find
>entertaining. This does go on, Debra. Women form alliances and
>cliques, just like men, its just more verbal than physical.

Duh now. But that is not REAL life. That is how it is sometimes. Not ALL the
time.

>I could go on and on about all the less than admirable things that
>men do as well, but, I think that territory was pretty well covered
>during the past 15 years of male bashing in the media. (most of it
>at least partly deserved)

Some of the time. Not ALL of the time. My entire 'argument' with you has been
that you say there is only one motivation and there plainly is not only one.
We are not bugs.

>> >Because a woman's youth won't last forever, young
>> >women being
>> >particularly sexual is frowned upon by the
>> >established matriarchy.
>> >Overly sexual young women are no threat to a man, Debra, they
>> >are a threat to the security of older, more powerful and
>> >established
>> >women because they are unfairly appealing to men's
>> >weakness for female beauty.
>>
>> You're a jerk. Maybe if one's husband is always looking at young
>>babes with
>> lust it will upset her. I don't have that problem. I even point out
>>women to
>> him that look like they are pouring it on cause I find it amusing.
>
>Please understand that in speaking of the aggregate behavior of
>men and women I am not referring to you in particular. As an artist
>I already stated that you fall far outside the mainstream of human
>behavior. Of course there are exceptional people, both men and
>women.
>But Debra, there are many books written about how women treat
>other women, I am not making this up. Women wield social
>approbation and condemnation in dictating which behaviors are
>acceptable and which not. The whole PC movement is driven by
>what women think is acceptable or not.

Oh now you're blaming women for the "whole PC movement"? I think we both
agree that men have certain motivations, appealing to women, and women have
certain motivations, appealing to men. But you don't seem to understand, that
is not the only thing that drives people. Male or female, it is the genes that
strive for existence. It is not the male, female as much as you think, it is
the genes running the show. But even then, as humans, we are able to overcome
even this fundamental drive. That is the amazing thing.

Anyway, I gotta go do some work, so I'll just have to snip the rest. I'm sure
it's pretty much the same ol same ol.
Regards,
Debra

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Oct 2, 2000, 11:47:12 PM10/2/00

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Give me the artist's statements on intent to go with them and I'ld
give it a try.
Andrew- I am not suggesting that women and men make vastly
different artwork- only that they approach the process from
opposite ends.
Men tend to see something in a human figure, for example, that is
subtly different from what women tend to see.
A good experiment is to watch good quality "chick" flicks and
compare them with similar stories made by Male directors and
writers.

There is a substantive difference between the two styles of
cinematic styory telling- a perspective shift that leaves most men
bewildered.

This is evidence that women decode reality differently and perceive
aesthetics differently than do men. For men art can be merely
pretty- but, I think for women art is much more of a communication,
more of a language

Women tend to read more meaning into images and events than
do men, and more complex meaning.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

unread,

Oct 3, 2000, 2:35:34 AM10/3/00

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I

> Actually, I think the conversation is getting rather stupid:

Then stop using perjoratives and try to scare up a defined position.

> I guess you don't know how obsessed teenage boys are about
>fitting in, just
> like girls are. In the past, it was men who wore the make-up.
>Now it's the
> women. That's how teenagers are. Girls, boys. Yes, of course
>girls have
> inherent differences from men. When did I ever say they didn't?
>You're
> totally confused about what you are even arguing about.

Debra, How many teenage sons do you have? I have two; 16 and
18. Oh,! and I actually was one, so, believe me, I know all about it.

Boys want to fit in with their gender groups and within particular
cliques within that gender group. So do girls within their groups.
This has nothing to do with girls using their appearance to attract
the interest of boys.
Every boy learns quick that girls pay more attention to your
behavior than your looks. Many a butt ugly asshole in school had a
cheerleader on his arm. This simple fact illustrates that women
are not visually driven- they are mentally driven, ergo, their
aesthetic sense is an intelectual one.

> Blah blah blah. What a bunch of who cares? Every man I know
>feels the home is
> his 'castle.'

I am willing to bet that you haven't asked even one man you know
whom he feels holds sway in the home. Like the Chinese
saying,"the woman sets the tone for the household.

>Why do you think men have historically gone off to >work everyday
> like a fool? Cause he could come home and be the king of his
>home.

Nope- most men stay at work late because at work they feel
important, useful, and respected, while at home they are treated
like a doofus who can't do anything right.
The henpecked husband and pussywhipped male is the cultural
stereotype, Debra- not the king and lord of the castle.

> Changes there account for the divorce rate.

We all know that in 9 out of 10 divorces the woman gets the castle,
right? Oh, yeah, Debra- men absolutely rule the world.

>There are distinct differences between men
> and woman. I think we can agree on that. However, I disagree
>with your global
> assessments of how women are only interested in captivating
>men.

Debra Debra Debra, turn down the feminist ire just long enough to
read what I write clearly, because I write clearly.
I never said that women were only interested in captivating a man!

What I said was that what women desire is SECURITY. Emotional,
financial, physical, security.
Men are almost entirely incidental to this drive.
To paraphrase Camile Paglia, Women look at men as success
objects just as men look at women as sex objects.
Now that women are more able to acquire the finacial security
aspect on their own, men have lost ground in terms of what they
bring to the table.

Debra- there is an economy to love- whether you acknowledge it or
not, evaluations take place and exchanges are made. Twas ever
thus.
Please understand that I do not see this as a bad thing. I think
relationships would fare much better if everyone discarded the
notion of "unconditional love" which only generates self centered
jackasses.
Rather, I think women are offering men something wonderful and
fine and that a woman has every reason to expect something in
return. Like a decent and supportive ally.
In a balanced society, men also have a right to expect something
in return for what they bring to the partnership.
Love works best when both parties wake up each morning and
resolve to be worthy of the day's trading.

> Maybe our
> society encourages too many women to still go around acting
>like 16 year olds.
> But it is not the norm for women to be that way IMHO. How could
>I raise a
> daughter if I was always in competition with her? It is the
>nutcases that do
> that. I adore her.

I am sure you do, but you are exceptional.
For mothers and pubescent daughters to fight viciously is the real
norm and the more stressful the dynamic between mother and
daughter, the sooner the onset of menses.
But really, Debra- it is not about men, its about power and
authority. Girls are raised to be bossy- and there is only room for
one Queen in each home.
Remember- women competing with other women for men is not
really about the men, its about the potential status and power they
represent.

>
> Probably. But monkey's are more than happy to sketch aren't
>they? Doesn't
> resemble anything, but they do put marks on paper.

Only when they are taught to, Debra- . Captive animals will enjoy
doing anything that elicits a response from their keepers. Flinging
their crap ain't performance art, either.

> Anyway, since when are you
> such a scholar on brain mechanisms? Are you quoting
>someone? I'd be happy to
> read further on this. I know much work is being done now to
>further
> understand the creative mind.

I don't have the time to be writing this much less going back
through 16 years of back issues of Scientific American or Discover
or Nat.Geographic. I live in San Diego- one of the pre-emminent
centers for cognitive and brain studies. Articles are published
weekly. then there is my library, and, of course PBS.
It really is amazing how much a man can learn when he doesn't
clutter up his head with sports gibberish.

> >And, about broad generaliztions- I am not the one pointing the
> >finger at a gender and claiming that they have exerted complete
> >control over society for a thousand years, Debra; you are. I find
> >my
> >position to be far more complex and precise than your general
> >knee-jerk PCisms. You accuse me of the crime you yourself are
> >most guilty of.
>
> Whatever. I don't know what the hell you're even blabbing about
half the time
> you're so self-contradictory.

No I am not. ....Or perhaps I am..., oh, nonsense, I am not. am.

Not. I haven't contradicted myself, Debra. I am not responsible for
the stereotyped assumptions you leap to concrning my thinking or
my meaning simply because i am not spouting the new age party
line about the purity of women and the villiany of men.

> >Women essentially are (discounting the rare gender switched
> >male) Men do not utilize visual aesthetics to exert control over
> >women. As Lauri pointed out- women, being more verbal and
> >cerebral in their sense of aesthetics respond more to words
and
> >ideas than to images.
>
> She pointed out that women's magazines are more about words
>than men's
> magazines. Maybe some are. But "fashion" magazines are
>what I referred to. I
> wonder what the main readership of Time or Newsweek is. Of
>course, magazines
> about Money are just so the guy can win over women, right?
>Sheesh. Everybody
> is such a robot to you, why even bother waking up in the
>morning?

Essentially, men want power and money to both attract a good
quality woman AND to secure the status and survival of their
progeny.
The latter objective is where women and men's needs coincide.

Issues of survival, advantage, and genetic legacy have shaped not
only our bodies and minds, but also the cultural software that we
run on our minds.
See, you seem to think that an understanding of this somehow
"lessens" human beings, whereas I do not.
Debra, as human beings we DO transcend this biology. Art and
Love and comprehension CAN rise above the drives and needs
that formed us. There is altruism, and selflessness.
But, Debra, these moments are rare.
We alone among all animals have the capacity to anlyze our
behavior and identify these forces at work.
We can never truely rise above our animal past until we
comprehend the effect of that past on us here and now.

> >Thusly, men tend to wax poetic and behave
> >romantic and make displays of status to exert control over
>women.
>
> Oh well, what have you done about this of late?

Wrote my woman a love letter just 3 days ago- supported her
sudden decision to quit her job and took her out to celebrate it.
Bought her unique hand crafted earrings at our favorite gallery.
Forgave and forgot some minor injury.
Told her I adore her.

> It is you who are too tunnel visioned by western society.
>American society is
> an aberration. Millions of people are on prozac just to cope with
>the
> abberation of it. You seem to be falling for the advertising ploys.
>Gotta
> have this to get the girl. Gotta have that to get the guy. That's why
>the
> society is so confused, materialistic, and unhappy. Humans
>need to live in
> cooperative tribes to be happy. The current 'beliefs' of people
>like you are
> not conducive to that.

I see- and your belief that men are dominating women in all other
societies IS conducive. Here you are contradicting yourself-
essentially saying that we evolved to work best in a tribal
environment, yet denying the force of evolution in all other
respects.

Listen- cooperation in social species is a mirage, A dog pack
works together for survival, but let the alpha male wake up one
morning looking a little peekid and all hell breaks loose. Alpha
males and females maintain their dominace thru intimidation and
threat and violence. Human tribes are no different.

Debra- you don't know the first thing about other cultures.
You imagine that things in "Happy Tribes" were hunky dorey and
this just proves how little you really know of human suffering. All
the human breeding advantage behaviors that we have discussed
are magnified a hundredfold in a tribal environment., where gene
survival is the ONLY game in town.

Cultures are evolutionary.
They are collections of ideas meant to enhance survival, with the
darwinian exception that the animal that has a certain culture
doesn't have to die for a given idea to be selected out.
Minds can be CHANGED- and so cultures evolve far faster than
biology, simply because if a better Idea comes along, people can
adopt it in lieu of a less effective one.
People seldom discard one cultural idea for a worse one- usually
they want proof it works before adopting it.

Throughout history cultures have been in competition, determining
which collection of what ideas best provided for the common
survival ofr its proponents.

The western culture you live in, Debra, is the pinnacle of human
cultural evolution. As such, I can promise you that things in all
previous cultural variations pretty much sucked in one way or
another.
Martin Luther King Jr. said that the "arc of heaven is long, but it
bends toward justice".
And so it does. If you think tribes better, why are you not oiff living
with one? No computers?

> >> I'm talking about up till now.
> >The cave man was stronger than
> >his wife.
> >Yet he did not rape her. Because sex alone is not what men
> >really
> >want, Debra. What men really want is for women to desire
> >them.
> >This is why they romance a woman instead of forcing her. (
> >again,
> >generally ) A man would like to think that his woman feels for
> >him
> >what he feels for her. A visceral longing.
>
> Yea, doesn't that contradict half your argument? I.e. that he can
>only win her
> with money? People are not as simplistic as that now are they?

Men win women thru offerring security, Debra. This is an abstract
concept far more complex and far reaching than mere money
alone.

> >Culture ain't about fairness or freedom- its about a balance
> >struck
> >between what men demand and what women demand. Desert
> >societies are as harsh and spare as the desert they intend to
> >eek
> >survival from. This doesn't mean that Muslim women don't have

> >their needs met. You are imposing your narrow definition of .

> >what a
> >woman's life should be like on another culture.
>
> Ba-lo-ney. Muslim women are beat for recreation. A man that
>doesn't beat his
> wife is looked down upon. You're way off here Christopher.

You are so full of sweeping generlizations- Debra! Have you read
the glorious Koran? Ever had muslim friends? Spent any time
reading about Muslim history? I have. You do not know what you
are talking about.
Sure there are extremists- there are American men who beat their
wives- and there are women that are a trial to live with.

You're nothing but a cultural imperialist looking down your nose at
other people's solutions to their social systems, then in the next
breath championing the same kind of primitive cultures as being
happy tribes.
Make up your mind.
Jeez, Debra, talk about naivete!

> >> You really don't have a very high opinion of women is what it
> >>boils down to if
> >> you think women are so one dimensional.
> >I have hardly painted women as one dimensional when I say
> >that
> >they are more cerebral than men, just as powerful if not moreso
> >than men, and make more and better use of their aesthetic
> >sense
> >than men.
> >
> >The fact that I do not agree with your victim image of
> >womanhood
> >should be interpreted as thinking far more highly of women
> >than
> >do you.
>
> What?!! You're the one making women out to be only capable of
>creating art to
> impress men, decorating their home to impress men, feeling
>good about their
> looks to impress men, you are so full of it if you think you can
>now turn that
> around and say you think so much more highly of women than I.
>Gimme a
> brrrreak.

Reread my posts Debra- I never said that that is all women are
capable of. I said that women's sense of aesthetic evolved as a
tool to take advantage of the fact that men are wired to respond to
visual stimuli. EVOLVED, like a million years ago! That's all. I never
limited the uses to which women put that tool.
I did point out that because women think of it as a tool,and not just
an expression, that women have made more effective use of their
aesthetic sense thuoughout history.
And Just how are these ideas disparging to women? Well, they
aren't- both genders evovled tools and techniques to manipulate
their environments to their advantage. Environments that
prominently featured the opposite sex.

> >I see women as powerful and capable throughout history-
> >whereas you see them as helpless pawns. So who has the
> >higher opinion?
>
> When did I ever say that? You are so full of sh*t.

That is the only possible conclusion following from your belief that
men have dominated women throughout history. Women as victim
of man- not capable of exerting any control over the society she
must suffer.

> >Please do not ascribe to my thoughts on this matter your own
> >sterotype of what men who don't toe the PC line feel about
> >women.
> > I like women much better than men- but women are not perfect
> >unselfish angels put upon by the evils and avarice of men,
> >Debra.
> >They are complex human beings who may think differently than
> >men, but still act in their own best interest.
> >The reason I don't find women one dimensional is entirely
> >because of what I have been talking about- women's goals are
> >far
> >more complex than men's, therefore, their solutions to attaining
> >these goals are far more varied and subtle than is readily
> >apparant.
>
> I'm glad I was able to convince you. But your now trying to say it
>was your
> argument to begin with is laughable. Sad, but laughable.

Have you been arguing that women exert more control on society
than men? That's what I am saying. Are you agreeing? I don't think
so.
It took you all the way to this point to recognize what my position
is? Debra- you really can't think very clearly can you?

> >But your image of women sitting together in sisterly solidarity is
> >over simplified and whitewashed.
>
> Sorry Christopher, I never said it was ALWAYS that way. I was
>merely defending
> the fact that it is NOT always that way.
>
>> Watch a soap opera sometime,
> >the format preferred by average women, and witness honestly
>>the
> >catty backstabbing and social manuvering that women find
> >entertaining. This does go on, Debra. Women form alliances
>>and
> >cliques, just like men, its just more verbal than physical.
>
> Duh now. But that is not REAL life. That is how it is sometimes.
>Not ALL the
> time.

The behavior is latent, Debra- it only occurs when conditions
demand it. In the presence of a perceived threat.

> >I could go on and on about all the less than admirable things
> >that
> >men do as well, but, I think that territory was pretty well covered
> >during the past 15 years of male bashing in the media. (most of
> >it at least partly deserved)
>
> Some of the time. Not ALL of the time. My entire 'argument' with
>you has been
> that you say there is only one motivation and there plainly is not
>only one.
> We are not bugs.

Almost all the time, yes.
Examine your motives Debra- honestly.
If you act unaware of the genetic component driving the behavior
then you will invent some rationalization to explain it. A lot of culture
is just the accepted cover story explaining to ourselves why we do
such strange things.

As I said, people can rise above their animal natures, but not that
very far above and not all that often.

> >But Debra, there are many books written about how women .

> >treat
> >other women, I am not making this up. Women wield social
> >approbation and condemnation in dictating which behaviors
> >are
> >acceptable and which not. The whole PC movement is driven
> >by
> >what women think is acceptable or not.
>
> Oh now you're blaming women for the "whole PC movement"? I
>think we both
> agree that men have certain motivations, appealing to women,
>and women have
> certain motivations, appealing to men. But you don't seem to
>understand, that
> is not the only thing that drives people. Male or female, it is the
>genes that
> strive for existence. It is not the male, female as much as you
>think, it is
> the genes running the show. But even then, as humans, we are
>able to overcome
> even this fundamental drive. That is the amazing thing.

Now you are co-opting my argument. Okay- think hard now- how
do genes get you to reproduce them? by most strongly
influenceing breeding , mating, and nurturing behaviors. A
moment ago you said we are more than bugs.
now you say we are no more than chains of nucleaic acids!
Fer cryin out loud, make up your mind!

unread,

Oct 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/3/00

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In article <39D75C9A...@nokia.com>, Lauri Levanto
<lauri....@nokia.com> writes:

>Females are seduced by words.

List of the most well known Finnish poets and author includes how many women?

More unfounded stereotyping.

Kromkowski

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Oct 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/3/00

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In article <8r35j4$mbb$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>I would like to prove in court (or the legislature) that when artists
>perform work for hire they are doing contract labor as stated in
>federal copyright law.
>

And when the artist gets hurt and wants workers' comp. or gets in trouble for
not paying Self-Employment tax on the money earned as an ostensible independent
contractor, or want unemployment when they get fired, then what are they.
There are financial risks to being contract labor so as to preserve copyright
protection which might be worth very little.

Kromkowski

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Oct 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/3/00

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In article <8r3540$ltr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>Your thesis is flawed and unsupported by example.
>Apes think creatively for their survival, yet do not produce art,
>despite having essentially the same cerebral, visual, and
>finger/thumb systems.
>They do lack symbolic language, tho.
>Artistic expression, therefore, is tied to language as it is also a
>symbolic representation of thought meant to convey ideas from
>one mind to another. As a method of communiction, it certainly
>serves a distinct biological function in enhancing survival.

Sloppy.
Apes lack symbolic "thought". As a result they don't have logic, mathematics,
art, nor language. Four examples of different kinds of symbolic thought. (Of
course, we have had this argument before, so there is no need to rehash it.)

Kromkowski

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Oct 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/3/00

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In article <8r3540$ltr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

>Aside from the fact that cave paintings were
>done by men- (which were not residential caves, they were
>ceremonial caves )

How do we know this? What we do have is a high degree of belief that it was
women who placed designs on ceramic and in textiles.

Kromkowski

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Debra

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Oct 3, 2000, 9:04:26 PM10/3/00

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Interesting.
Debra-it seems you can't tell the difference between a discussion
and an argument. And you seem to think that an argument is
some kind of emotional issue like a spat.
It isn't. At least, not for me.

However, you are right to note that I don't enter into an argument
unless I intend to try and win it. I should never have studied
debate. I have acknowledged before that it is my primary character
flaw. Sorry.

I thought our wrastling was quite lively and entertaining for the
group, and I take a light hearted attitude toward it, despite the cruel
and harsh words you throw. I thought it was kinda funny.
Hell, nothing I think or feel matters a damn in this world, Debra- its
why I am a good debater- I don't get emotional over the ideas
expressed because I don't think they really matter all that much
either way.

But still..
Trying to undermine a reasoned and well supported argument by
accusing me of harboring some kind of bitterness and calling me
immature is just another example of how you attack people
personally when you are losing an argument. Something you have
evidenced several times in this exchange. How mature is that
behavior?

My so called "immature" response to you was just a more blunt
desciption of your pulling out the term "gene survival" and claiming
I had finally come around to your way of thinking.
Debra- I brought up gene survival in one of my earliest posts on
this topic.
If anything, your posts show that you and I are at least fairly
matched in our desire to win an argument, if not in our ability to
present one.
The entire tone of your argument was facetious and insulting.

So. please- don't throw crap at people and expect them not to pick
it up and throw it right back at you.
After all, Its your crap.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Oct 3, 2000, 9:09:00 PM10/3/00

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> >Females are seduced by words.
>
> List of the most well known Finnish poets and author includes
how many women?
>
> More unfounded stereotyping.
>

Kromkowski-
you are missing the point- if women are seduced by words, then
poetry will be a predominantly male arena because men will strive
to acquire the means to seduce women.
If men are seduced by visual beauty- then women will strive to
acquire the means to seduce men and focus on visual beauty.

That is the whole argument.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Oct 3, 2000, 9:11:44 PM10/3/00

to

>
> We're learning way too much about you.
>

Ha ha har he heh!!!
That was good .

Yep- I once had a bad marriage.
Now I have a fantastic one.

sculpt...@my-deja.com

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Oct 3, 2000, 9:22:03 PM10/3/00

to

I
> Exactly as I said before: arrested adolescence explains the
>pruient.
>

So- men liking the way women look nude is arrested adolecence?
What about women liking a guy in a Ferrari?

I would almost agree. Kromkowski, because as men and women
mature they find mates and settle these questions and can then
move on to focus on other issues.

However, I know married men who never look at girly mags- but
they do screw around at every opportunity.
I don't think you can label a geneticly driven behavior Arrested
Adolescence. Genes run far more of our world and our selves than
you are recognizing in such a statement.

Gary Waller

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Oct 3, 2000, 10:52:43 PM10/3/00

to

<sculpt...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8re04c$qu8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...

>
>
> >
> > We're learning way too much about you.
> >
>
> Ha ha har he heh!!!
> That was good .
>
> Yep- I once had a bad marriage.
> Now I have a fantastic one.
>
> Christopher
>

So you say Christopher - How do we know if this is one of your silicone
experiments gone horribly wrong???

WoN ereH

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Oct 3, 2000, 11:06:24 PM10/3/00

to

>Debra-it seems you can't tell the difference between a discussion
>and an argument. And you seem to think that an argument is
>some kind of emotional issue like a spat.
>It isn't. At least, not for me.

Then why do you insist you want to "win"? BTW, you didn't "win." I still
don't agree with much of what you say. Nor have you convinced me of your
self-proclaimed debating abilities.

>However, you are right to note that I don't enter into an argument
>unless I intend to try and win it. I should never have studied
>debate. I have acknowledged before that it is my primary character
>flaw. Sorry.
>I thought our wrastling was quite lively and entertaining for the
>group, and I take a light hearted attitude toward it, despite the cruel
>and harsh words you throw. I thought it was kinda funny.

It didn't sound like you were being light hearted at all. IMHO, you don't seem
to know yourself as well as you think you do, your boasting to the contrary
aside.

>Hell, nothing I think or feel matters a damn in this world, Debra- its
>why I am a good debater- I don't get emotional over the ideas
>expressed because I don't think they really matter all that much
>either way.

Tsk tsk.

>But still..
>Trying to undermine a reasoned and well supported argument by
>accusing me of harboring some kind of bitterness and calling me
>immature is just another example of how you attack people
>personally when you are losing an argument. Something you have
>evidenced several times in this exchange. How mature is that
>behavior?

Actually, I thought I was being very kind to you considering the ranting you
call debating.
I even made the effort not to use foul language. :)

>My so called "immature" response to you was just a more blunt
>desciption of your pulling out the term "gene survival" and claiming
>I had finally come around to your way of thinking.
>Debra- I brought up gene survival in one of my earliest posts on
>this topic.

I don't recall that. I am very interested in the topic. Just read the book
"Mean Genes." Excellent book.

>If anything, your posts show that you and I are at least fairly
>matched in our desire to win an argument, if not in our ability to
>present one.

I don't know. Winning is not the big thing to me that it apparently is to you.
I think it is more important to learn and educate where possible.

>The entire tone of your argument was facetious and insulting.

Thank you.

>So. please- don't throw crap at people and expect them not to pick
>it up and throw it right back at you.
>After all, Its your crap.

Speak for yourself. I don't throw mine, I flush it.

Debra

Battersby

unread,

Oct 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/4/00

to

Kromkowski wrote

> All women are not beautiful
> nor all they are arousing;
> nor is "beauty" the same as "arousing
> Kromkowski

> Battersby" writes:
> >This will change when you get older. That's one of the good things about
> >aging.

Kromkowski wrote

> Tell me the age so I'll know.

You'll know. But, you don't need to know.

On the other hand, after rereading your original comment, you may very well
be an exception to my findings.

Bb

--
T. M. Battersby, stuccoist.
http://www.battersbyornamental.com
tbatt...@satx.rr.com

clau...@my-deja.com

unread,

Oct 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/5/00

to

In article <20000928111946...@ng-fi1.aol.com>,
won...@aol.com (WoN ereH) wrote:
> Christopher, you really don't know women as well as you think you do.
>
> >Please, you don't turn your head to look at women? Men are like
> >sight hounds, visually driven.
>
> It is women who strive to make a beautiful home, much more than men.
Most men
> were perfectly happy with a cave. It is the women that found the
cave walls
> lacking and want to decorate them and put up curtains and a bear skin
rug.

Well, I'd rather not add anything to that <cough, cough> it speaks for
itself.

> Gimme a break. Who wears the jewelry even in primitive tribes?

"Primitive tribes" is a eurocentric projection as well as it is a
racial slur. You automatically assume yourself and your tribe in a
superior position in order to frame the other as primitive. I suppose,
just for example, a 13 year old American gunning down everything that
moves in his school is sign of advancement?

Women like to
> be beautiful, not just for men, as men think, but for the mirror as
well.
> Women have, I believe, (but then, I'm a bit biased perhaps), much
more evolved
> aesthetic sense. For instance, my neighbor is a transexual. Wanted
to be a
> woman his whole life and finally did 'it'. But, being a woman is a
lot more
> than what's between your legs. His yard is a mess. His dog sleeps
outside on
> the dirt. Women aren't usually like that. Of course, women LOVE
men, despite
> their flaws, 'cause they're so cute. ;)

Well, this was the part I stumbled over in a deja search. Pure
coincidence.

1. You base your argument by using an example of an obviously depressed
transsexual woman as proof that "men" are less tidy than women? You
give me a break. First of all, generalisations hardly ever work, and to
base such on _one_ example who shows signs of depression by neglecting
the yard is, um, lame to put it mildly.

2.
> than what's between your legs. His yard is a mess. His dog sleeps
outside on
> the dirt. Women aren't usually like that.

Wrong. Depressed women, just like men, show symptoms of withdrawal and
neglect even to the point of not caring for personal hygiene.

3. You are using the wrong pronouns. If she has transitioned, why refer
to her as him? In Germany, where I'm from, this could even get you into
legal trouble. You yourself stated that being a woman is more than what
you have between your legs, I would even go further and say gender
identity is located in the brain entirely and science is following a
lead that the aspect in ones brain responsible for that is opposing the
genital in transsexual individuals. So if gender is located in the
brain, and the genital is secondary, why deny the individual the
appropriate pronouns? See, not only did you violate someone's
integrity, you also used that violation to construct a false argument.
Just a small hint: Instead of abusing her on Usenet, why don't go over,
knock on the door and let a fellow human being know that someone
actually gives a shit instead of noticing a stench one day which
origins from just another suicide from someone who could just not bare
it anymore. For me, that would indicate that our so-called civilisation
has at least a chance not to further disintegrate to be a loose
congestion of organic material which has discovered electricity.

4.
> Of course, women LOVE men, despite
> their flaws, 'cause they're so cute. ;)

Another generalisation which all Lesbians would oppose for sure. And
not speaking of all the women out there who are victims of abuse,
assault, rape and those silenced by murder if they could. But maybe I
am being a tad bit harsh, I mean you could be 12, who knows. Neither
would I want to make any statement on AOL users, that would contradict
my point on generalisation, wouldn't it? [ok, that was uncalled for, I
apologize]

To conclude, you seem pretty clueless about pretty much everything in
the given context, but I kinda jealous you for the world you life in.
However if I had that mindset I'd rather not wake up and face the
trauma of the shock. But luckily you are surrounded by men in here who
will be glad to turn around and protect you against the wicked witch
who dashed in from nowhere;-)

Claudia W.

Lauri Levanto

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Oct 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/6/00

to

Kromkowski wrote:

> In article <39D75C9A...@nokia.com>, Lauri Levanto
> <lauri....@nokia.com> writes:
>

> >Females are seduced by words.
>
> List of the most well known Finnish poets and author includes how many women?
>
> More unfounded stereotyping.

Stereotyping, yes,
-but not so unfounded.

Less than half I guess.
OTOH have you conted the share of women
in any event where someone recites poetry.

-lauri
http://www.netti.fi/~laurleva/index.html

Kromkowski

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Oct 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/6/00

to

In article <8re0nl$rcs$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sculpt...@my-deja.com writes:

> Genes run far more of our world and our selves than
>you are recognizing in such a statement.

I know we're way off topic, but genes explain far less than the general
population now presumes. I think the most of the real scientific community
recognizes this, but this is what drives funding.

Kromkowski

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Oct 9, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/9/00

to

In article <wrGC5.25336$WK6.5...@typhoon.austin.rr.com>, "Battersby"
<tbatt...@satx.rr.com> writes:

>
>On the other hand, after rereading your original comment, you may very well
>be an exception to my findings.

Hmm. I gather you think for most purposes "old man" = "horny old man".

I'll take my "exceptionalness" to your "findings" to be a compliment, I guess.

Battersby

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Oct 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM10/11/00

to

> Battersby writes:
> >On the other hand, after rereading your original comment, you
> >may very well be an exception to my findings.

Kromkowski wrote

> Hmm. I gather you think for most purposes "old man" = "horny old man".

Not necessarily, K. Now, if you were to say healthy man = horny man, I might
agree. I don't think "old" is necessary in that equation.

> I'll take my "exceptionalness" to your "findings" to be a compliment, I
guess.

Whatever. You said all women are not beautiful, I said this changes. Didn't
mean the exception thing as a compliment or a cut, just a comment.