the problem is "art"
Mike Stengl
"artist and art" creates the impression that one is particularly
special and does special things that somebody else cannot and said
person should be looked at with awe and have perhaps his or her feet
annointed. nothing turns my stomach quicker than the self proclaimed
artist. working in the restaurant business the way i have for an
eternity it is almost as bad the way people throw around the term
'chef'. i for one, consider myself a painter, but only when i'm
painting. when i'm shopping for dinner i'm not a 'painter' or an
'artist', i'm a guy that does a lot of things one of which happens to
be that i spend most of my free time playing with pigments but hey,
where's a good twelve dollar bottle of wine to go with the pasta? two
of my car mechanics in the last dozen years were musicians that just
turned bolts because they kenw how to so they could pay rent and make
music. i personally have been humbled by just how talented so damn
many people are; a friends little sister came by selling small
ornamental pumpkins she had delicately carved the most graceful and
tasteful designs into, people who knit, another friend who takes
glossy calendar pictures and origamis them into wallets with all kinds
of slots and inserts. hell, sometimes i can just paint a picture with
some decent composition and a color scheme that seems to work, if i
can find someone who likes it enough to buy or barter for it, lucky
me. how special is that? individual, sure. i hope to hell you people
aren't all 'artists' in this forum, otherwise i'm not qaulified to be
here. i know a man who teaches martial arts, has trained his entire
life, has taught for probably almost 40 years, trained with a variety
of teachers in china. he does not call or consider himself a 'master',
says he is a 'student' of the martial arts as he is still learning
things. he likes to say all the 'masters' are dead. maybe it's the
same with artists?
Leo Papandreou
> i think for many, and i rather agree with them, that the idea of
> "artist and art" creates the impression that one is particularly
> special and does special things that somebody else cannot and said
> person should be looked at with awe and have perhaps his or her feet
> annointed. nothing turns my stomach quicker than the self proclaimed
> artist.
You're a painter? I've had little or no use for your kind since I bought
me a digital camera.
On the other hand were you a chef that cooked my breakfast, lunch and dinners
I would treasure your existence. For the creation of yummy works depends upon
rare men and women who can achieve a state of grace, a state of rapture and
communion with climate, life and nature, and our fellow beings, two legs, four,
and also those are rooted like the carrot in the garden. A state that enables
the chef to unconsciously exalt then recreate the world around him,
transcribing it upon our palate. I think I'd hate to be in your painter's
smock, head full of useless color theory and perspective, stirring cream of
wheat into scorched, indigestible lumps of carbon black.
"What in the hell are you talking about? Food is just meat and potatoes,
gasoline that goes inside the belly."
O yes? Well then painting is just pigment on a flat surface. My God, what a
drab existence you must lead, a life lived in unconnected fragments and among
mere accidents. Isn't there a community college where you live that offers
cooking courses for your self-improvement?
So anyway it is widely admitted -- even by some cultural theorists -- that art
is a vague concept but cooking food is solid stuff, much too serious to pitch
greeting cards or be spun solemnly round and round the perimeter of Mondrian's
grids representing nothing but themselves.
> working in the restaurant business the way i have for an
> eternity it is almost as bad the way people throw around the term
> 'chef'. i for one, consider myself a painter, but only when i'm
> painting. when i'm shopping for dinner i'm not a 'painter' or an
> 'artist', i'm a guy that does a lot of things one of which happens to
> be that i spend most of my free time playing with pigments but hey,
> where's a good twelve dollar bottle of wine to go with the pasta? two
> of my car mechanics in the last dozen years were musicians that just
> turned bolts because they kenw how to so they could pay rent and make
> music. i personally have been humbled by just how talented so damn
> many people are; a friends little sister came by selling small
> ornamental pumpkins she had delicately carved the most graceful and
> tasteful designs into, people who knit, another friend who takes
> glossy calendar pictures and origamis them into wallets with all kinds
> of slots and inserts. hell, sometimes i can just paint a picture with
> some decent composition and a color scheme that seems to work, if i
> can find someone who likes it enough to buy or barter for it, lucky
> me. how special is that? individual, sure.
Amen.
> i hope to hell you people
> aren't all 'artists' in this forum, otherwise i'm not qaulified to be
> here. i know a man who teaches martial arts, has trained his entire
> life, has taught for probably almost 40 years, trained with a variety
> of teachers in china. he does not call or consider himself a 'master',
> says he is a 'student' of the martial arts as he is still learning
> things. he likes to say all the 'masters' are dead. maybe it's the
> same with artists?
Old master works are cultural icons. They live in temples called "museums,"
which we visit like pilgrims to the holy shrines. You might as well have
written, "All the good Bibles have been written," for I say unto you in 500
years the same paintings will hang in the Rijksmuseum just as surely as the
ghost of Jesus Christ will haunt the Chapel of the Ascension.
It may be possible to form objective esthetic standards, but no one has seen
it done in all the history of man. "I like this painting, and so I think it
is a good painting." That is all communication has to date allowed. No man
alive can say, AND PROVE, "This IS a good painting." It has never been
determined, but the cultural theologians give their lives to say, "I like this
painting, and so I think it is a good painting." When many people over many
years are taught to say it is a good painting, it becomes a good painting.
--
Leo Papandreou
Apple Loosa
koan...@earthling.net says...
>AND PROVE, "This IS a good painting."
I've never met a painting that wasn't good.
All the ones I've ever seen just seem to
hang around doing nothing, not even sneezing.
Oh, I take that back. I can't stand those
that hang crooked, but then I've never had
one fight back when I straightened it out.
Although I've known some that simply refused
to keep a straight edge - required constant
re-adjusment. But for the most part, I find
most of them behave rather well.
Dilettante
there may be a few who believe that concept of the artist as a
cancerous apotheosis of the ego, but in reality being an artist takes
more balls than most people have because the failure rate is so high.
Most people opt for dulling jobs in banks and insurance companies that
assure them an income. Being an artist means possibly failing.
After a person is mature enough they will realize, if they have not
been lucky enough to have someone tell them, that art requires much
work and study. Even after skills such as drawing or color theory have
been learned, just doing a single image means hours and hours or days
or weeks of work.
Dilettante
Joe Bennett
> i think for many, and i rather agree with them, that the idea of
> "artist and art" creates the impression that one is particularly
> special and does special things that somebody else cannot and said
> person should be looked at with awe and have perhaps his or her feet
> annointed. nothing turns my stomach quicker than the self proclaimed
> artist.
Mike...
Nice rant. I am with you.
It might be of interest to note that Leonardo never referred to himself as
an "artist." His personal references in his notebooks -- yes, I have read
them...slogging through to the end of my particular edition -- are always
to "the painter." He does refer to "the art," but never calls himself an
"artist."
I don't think anyone can rightfully call himself an "artist." If we are
going to be called an "artist," somebody else has to do that for us. Or it
is only our own ego talking. To itself.
I have always had a hankering to be either an international jewel thief, in
black tie and dreadfully clever with the most beautiful women, or a
short-order cook in a greasy spoon, hacking it out with "the guys." I
never got to be either. Dammit!
So now I paint.
Have fun, and don't let the "artists" who hang out here get you down.
Leo Papandreou
You can substitute for "art" in your text any creative labor people decide to
do, for example cooking. Being a chef takes more balls than most people have,
because the failure rate is very high. Successful cooking requires much work
and practice, knowledge of raw ingredients and food chemistry, specialized
equipment, and not a little magic too. But I repeat myself.
Unqualified use of the symbol "artist" is liable to spurious identification
with individuals who are merely "successful" (however you happen to measure
success) because it obscures "making art" behind "successful art objects",
equivocating "art" and practice with success.
Art is a prosaic activity everyone practices merely by behaving human.
Successful art objects, on the other hand, are decreed by cultural convention.
It may be possible to form objective esthetic standards, but no one has seen it
done in all the history of man. But I repeat myself.
Be that as it were, identifying "art" in the gazillion art objects in
extant -- their number growing exponentially -- is a problem in statistics,
because things have meaning to us only as they have been experienced before.
What I mean is, finding orders and relations between actual things (no two of
them exactly similar) yields more dependable meanings than trying to deal in
abstract substances and properties, but a gazillion things -- their number
growing exponentially -- is too many things to experience and authenticate.
It would seem that after "balls" and the blessings of a cultural convention,
success in art takes some dumb luck.
So anyway, some people consider devotion to convention dull, not unlike a
successful life spent studying "color theory" and drawing Harlequin Romance
covers, or counting money and calculating risk. Those people who consider that
are mostly self-affirming advocates for their own cultural prejudices and
unwarranted beliefs: banking and insurance can be creative endeavors both,
color theory and Harlequin Romance covers too.
--
Leo Papandreou
Agathena
Joe Bennett wrote:
I like the way Mike values the creativity of others.
Recently I was applying to be on a focus groups for city hall
to get involved with the plan for my district. They wanted a
list of qualifications, interests etc. (I could tell my friends
I was a 'city planner,' ha! ha!)
I would not put 'artist' on the qualification form
because it does not have a high status in our community. Instead
I outlined my interest in local history.
Oops
my daughter caught pneumonia and I had to cancel my application. I
became a 'nurse' for two weeks instead.
Dilettante
If you are trying to say the vast majority of "jobs" are not boring, I
can point to studies that find that at least 80 percent of a workforce
at any given time do not like their jobs.
Being an artist is not really a job because success is so risky. I do
not think you can elevate convention to this level because convention
is convention precisely because it is safe. It requires conformism,
suppression of individuality, and obedience.
If you are objecting to the term, art, because of some of the fakery
that goes on in the art world, then you can do this with any
occupation, the police for example, although the examples here are so
dreary and ugly, most people prefer not to. So, it's a bit idle simply
to pick the field of art and the label artist.
The word artist has come about because people need shorthand ways to
describe activities and professions. Of course cooking is a an art,
and a great and difficult one, and so is good detective work. In
addition, there are many true arts, like poetry, dance, and music,
that are are not called art by current convention. To say artist means
a worker in the plastic arts: painting, scupture, printmaking, etc.
That's all really.
Dilettante
Leo Papandreou
Dilettante
First, Leo Papandreou did not write any of that. Not in a million years. Please
mind the way you attribute text and configure your newsreader to quote properly
and preserve context in your replies.
> If you are trying to say the vast majority of "jobs" are not boring, I
> can point to studies that find that at least 80 percent of a workforce
> at any given time do not like their jobs.
Well no, I wasn't trying to say the vast majority of jobs are not boring.
That's why I didn't say that. Besides which, "boring" and "exciting" are not
job properties; they describe a mental state. If I painted Harlequin Romance
covers for a living, that would be boring, meaning my mind would grow numb with
art. What does "my mind" have to do with tinkers, tailors, lawyers,
accountants, and meretricious pictures of doe-eyed swooning females?
> Being an artist is not really a job because success is so risky. I do
> not think you can elevate convention to this level because convention
> is convention precisely because it is safe. It requires conformism,
> suppression of individuality, and obedience.
If you want to draw like Mani says you ought to (for example), you attend a
trade school and study a "convention" -- color theory and perspective drawing.
Painting "realistically" is a cultural "convention." Rembrandt painted after
a "convention." He didn't paint like Pollock or Rothko, did he? He didn't
paint "impressionistically." He didn't create African tribal masks. If he had
done any of those things, no one at the time would have bought his work and we
wouldn't know his name today from Dr. Slick. Nothing Rembrandt painted strays
outside the realm of 17th century Dutch notions of fact and value. He didn't
hypostasize or interpret art differently than his contemporaries -- an artistic
failure, inadequacy or intentional design, whatever have you, for which he was
rewarded -- though we are taught he innovated in his technique (or at least his
paintings have a different texture than Hoogstraten's or Vermeer's.)
Convention is not "safe" or "dangerous", though aspects of its practice can be
seen as both (proof: Rembrandt.) There's another thread called "Hello!! I'm a
new resident in USA..." that discusses why I think art is a "risky" economic
proposition.
OK, look. Trying to discover the essence of art in the word "convention" is a
retarded exercise and I regret raising the word as if it were a simple,
universally agreed-upon concept that one either does or does not know, like
2+2=4. So let's agree it stands for a continuum of subtlety and nuance, amply
situated in context, spells and curses, and spend our time more wisely
elsewhere arguing vorpal mimsies and just how slithy are the toves.
> If you are objecting to the term, art, because of some of the fakery
> that goes on in the art world,
<snip>
We're on different planets :-) OK, look #2. I confess my reply was half-hearted
and written densely, almost as if I were unprepared to summon more interest or
enthusiasm than required to reply compulsively. It's not us. It's the system.
--
Leo Papandreou
"A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming."
Dilettante
> mind the way you attribute text and configure your newsreader to quote properly
> and preserve context in your replies.
No text was attributed or quoted at all, nor was any context
preserved. I simply responded to what I believe was stated or implied.
A distinction between art and other jobs was implied in your last
paragraph.
> Well no, I wasn't trying to say the vast majority of jobs are not boring.
But I was, and they are.
> That's why I didn't say that. Besides which, "boring" and "exciting" are not
> job properties; they describe a mental state.
They are mental states experienced while working on jobs. We are not
descending down the bottomless whirlpool of definitions, are we?
>
> If you want to draw like Mani says you ought to (for example), you attend a
> trade school and study a "convention" -- color theory and perspective drawing.
> Painting "realistically" is a cultural "convention."
Art can be approached like a job by some and practiced uncreatively.
This is true.
Rembrandt painted after
> a "convention." He didn't paint like Pollock or Rothko, did he? He didn't
> paint "impressionistically." He didn't create African tribal masks. If he had
> done any of those things, no one at the time would have bought his work and we
> wouldn't know his name today from Dr. Slick. Nothing Rembrandt painted strays
> outside the realm of 17th century Dutch notions of fact and value.
Well yes it does stray outside because he was able to represent those
facts and values so well, which is a rare thing. These facts and
values were the same for him as for us, human values he managed to
express in art.
He didn't
> hypostasize or interpret art differently than his contemporaries...
He did absolutely.
> Convention is not "safe"
Yes, it is safe emotionally, and that is exactly why it is convention.
Dilettante
Leo Papandreou
> koan...@earthling.net (Leo Papandreou) wrote in message
> >
> > First, Leo Papandreou did not write any of that. Not in a million years. Please
> > mind the way you attribute text and configure your newsreader to quote properly
> > and preserve context in your replies.
>
>
> No text was attributed or quoted at all, nor was any context
> preserved.
You appear to be one of those rare USENET creatures incapable of conceding
even the most trivial point.
> I simply responded to what I believe was stated or implied.
> A distinction between art and other jobs was implied in your last
> paragraph.
This one?
So anyway, some people consider devotion to convention dull, not
unlike a successful life spent studying "color theory" and drawing
Harlequin Romance covers, or counting money and calculating risk.
Those people who consider that are mostly self-affirming advocates
for their own cultural prejudices and unwarranted beliefs: banking
and insurance can be creative endeavors both, color theory and
Harlequin Romance covers too.
Is that the one really? Then I guess we wouldn't be having this problem if you
read English competently. Still, and unrelated to what you think you read in
the quoted paragraph, I distinguish between jobs all the time -- every time I
pick up the yellow pages for example -- so I'm not entirely sure what you're
trying to say. Perhaps you are merely one of those USENET pod people that like
to argue compulsively and prolong threads with recalcitrant gibberish.
> > Well no, I wasn't trying to say the vast majority of jobs are not boring.
>
> But I was, and they are.
>
>
> > That's why I didn't say that. Besides which, "boring" and "exciting" are not
> > job properties; they describe a mental state.
>
> They are mental states experienced while working on jobs. We are not
> descending down the bottomless whirlpool of definitions, are we?
I tried to be tactful but I guess I was too subtle. I want you to understand
something categorically: "boring jobs" is an irrelevant distraction that
contributes nothing to the discussion.
Work is not always pleasant. That is why we call it "work" instead of "play."
Art can be work. That is why professional artists are always kvetching. It can
be play. It can be unmitigated drudgery. The reason there are very few
professional artists is people like to eat, dressed, under a roof.
If everyone who expressed a romantic interest in art were forced to become an
artist, job dissatisfaction among artists would be 99%. Do you know why?
Correct: because people like to eat, dressed, under a roof.
Now imagine you were a fat, well-dressed lawyer down with prosecuting criminals
and living in a fancy house. Then you might want to run away like Paul Gauguin
to a tropical island to paint lush vistas and native women, or you might want
to stay home and inflict yourself on rec.arts.fine. Either way, what does your
mental state have to do with law or art?
If you're a professional artist who's lost his mojo and become bored pandering
to clients, currying favors from culture hacks, and pimping fawning glitterati,
then by all means feel free to give legal advice on the Internet. Either way,
what does your mental state have to do with law or art? The reason I ask is I
assume you're trying to make a useful general statement establishing a causal
or logical relationship between "art" and "jobs" and "individuals" no two of
them alike. Apropos absolutely nothing, what happens to your formula when we
plug "hobby" in for "job?"
>
> >
> > If you want to draw like Mani says you ought to (for example), you attend a
> > trade school and study a "convention" -- color theory and perspective
> > drawing.
> > Painting "realistically" is a cultural "convention."
>
> Art can be approached like a job by some and practiced uncreatively.
> This is true.
What? Who are you talking to? You make vacuous statements. They are inane
non-sequiturs.
>
> Rembrandt painted after
> > a "convention." He didn't paint like Pollock or Rothko, did he? He didn't
> > paint "impressionistically." He didn't create African tribal masks. If he
> > had done any of those things, no one at the time would have bought his
> > work and we wouldn't know his name today from Dr. Slick. Nothing Rembrandt
> > painted strays outside the realm of 17th century Dutch notions of fact and
> > value.
>
> Well yes it does stray outside because he was able to represent those
> facts and values so well, which is a rare thing. These facts and
> values were the same for him as for us, human values he managed to
> express in art.
>
(1) In other words, one who is very good at a convention is not following
the convention they are very good at. OK! Keep up the good work.
(2) Please read attentively. I did not write "facts and values". I wrote
"notions of fact and value", to distinguish high-order abstractions,
such as concepts in which some confidence is placed, from data, such
as "Rembrandt was born in Leiden" or "good girls don't fuck painters
out of wedlock." He just was (and they just didn't.)
What did a 17th century Dutchman mean when he said "born"? The word is rich in
significance and implication. Did he mean the stork brought us a wee little
girl or boy? Did he mean the child was a gift from God? Is there an epistemic
basis for either one of those beliefs? Yes. Is it ours? Not really, not so
much, no.
But wait, there's more.
The sort of compliment 17th century Dutch connoisseurs were advised to pay an
artist was he observed nature meticulously and painted (for example) a violin
that looked just like... a violin! "It looks like a violin" is a "fact"
according to 17th century Dutch notions of fact. The scientific and
metaphysical basis for, and phenomenological quality of "violin-ness", is not.
Proof: <http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picasso/picasso249.html>
Hence, Rembrandt, immersed in his time, painted after a convention that claimed
matter-of-factly: pictorial elements forward in a composition should be painted
lighter than those that recede into the picture (footnote: Rembrandt sometimes
flouted this convention); reflections cast by dark shapes shouldn't be as dark
as the shapes themselves; etc. These "facts" -- this bag of tricks -- this
*convention* -- Rembrandt learned to create the illusion of violins on canvas.
He never painted a nude descending a staircase, but if he had, it wouldn't have
resembled this:
<http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/classes/paintings&poems/nude.html>
Does that painting look like a nude descending a staircase? Yes, there is a
range of qualities accessible in that picture (but not in Rembrandt's
hypothetical example) that evokes a nude descending a staircase.
Different "facts", if you prefer, suggested by different notions of what
constitutes fact.
A culture's notions of fact and value speak of all the conditions in that
culture: its idea of itself, its sense of history, beliefs, modes of
production, etc. -- and therefore its art. I wonder, do you think the world
changed at all between 17th century Holland and 21st century America? The
reason I ask is (3).
(3) My friend, it is not possible for human art to express non-human values.
Do you understand this? Next, try to be a little more specific than "human"
values. For example, ask yourself, are 17th century Dutch notions of fact and
value the same as 17th century Persian notions of fact and value? How about
21st century American notions of fact and value? I wonder, why does art look
different from one era to another, and from one country to the next? Do you
think it might have something to do with mischievous aesthetics fairies fucking
with our paints and brushes?
Just asking.
>
>
> He didn't
> > hypostasize or interpret art differently than his contemporaries...
>
> He did absolutely.
Don't write "he did absolutely." Write, "HE DID ABSOLUTELY!!!"
>
>
> > Convention is not "safe"
>
> Yes, it is safe emotionally, and that is exactly why it is convention.
^^^^^^^
What? I have no idea how unpack that emphatic sentence fart into something
meaningful that can be verified. A convention is regarded as a normative
example for others. Normative stands opposed to "descriptive." You might want
to consult a dictionary, then a book of art history.
I wonder, why does art look different from one era to another, and from one
country to the next? Do you think it might have something to do with
mischievous aesthetics fairies fucking with our "safe emotions"?
Finally, I give up.
>
> Dilettante
kush_mon_tucas
> You're a painter? I've had little or no use for your kind since I bought
> me a digital camera.
So, you admit to your Photoshop fakery over at Cennini. Tyler and
Levitin WERE correct that you were posting digital photographs
doctored in Photoshop and calling them your "paintings". How
convenient that you "lost" all the originals so you can't post high
resolution images to show the brushwork and prove they are paintings.
What an incredible blowhard you are.
p.s. Leo Papandreou is really Roberts Howard, the moderator of the
Studio Products website.
Leo Papandreou
P.P.S. Leo Papandreou is really Leo Papandreou. He has never visited Cennini,
does not own or use Photoshop, and has never seen this Roberts Howard guy or
read one word he's written. Please visit www.timecube.com for further details.
kush_mon_tucas
>
> P.P.S. Leo Papandreou is really Leo Papandreou. He has never visited Cennini,
> does not own or use Photoshop, and has never seen this Roberts Howard guy or
> read one word he's written. Please visit www.timecube.com for further > details.
Nice try to run a red herring through the thread. But you mentioned
Fred Ross out-of-the blue in two threads on Goodart two months ago.
It's just not possible to even know about Fred Ross and not have read
a single word of Rob Howard. It does not matter what you morph your
name into. You will always be found. That painting of Barry White you
are doing after the original was "lost" will prove beyond any doubt
that the first one you put up is a photograph. Got to be pretty dumb
to let your enormous ego create your own evidence against yourself.
Putz.
Mike Stengl
Your a looney.
Leo Papandreou
> koan...@earthling.net (Leo Papandreou) wrote in message news:<1146a1e0.03110...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > P.P.S. Leo Papandreou is really Leo Papandreou. He has never visited Cennini,
> > does not own or use Photoshop, and has never seen this Roberts Howard guy or
> > read one word he's written. Please visit www.timecube.com for further > details.
>
> Nice try to run a red herring through the thread. But you mentioned
> Fred Ross out-of-the blue in two threads on Goodart two months ago.
> It's just not possible to even know about Fred Ross and not have read
> a single word of Rob Howard.
You just mentioned "Fred Ross." Therefore you are "Rob Howard." I am Michael
Rockefeller, son of Nelson. I was buying art and exploring the southern coast
of Papua New Guinea in a boat, where I disappeared without a trace 150 clicks
southeast of Timika.
> It does not matter what you morph your
> name into. You will always be found. That painting of Barry White you
> are doing after the original was "lost" will prove beyond any doubt
> that the first one you put up is a photograph. Got to be pretty dumb
> to let your enormous ego create your own evidence against yourself.
> Putz.
If I tell a human that his 4-corner head (nose, 2 ears and back corner)
has only a 1-corner face, the dumb-ass will say to me -- "prove it." He
knows not that his face is a corner. No cat has eight tails; every cat
has one more tail than no cat; therefore every cat has nine tails. Educated
stupid, you can't know Truth.
--
Michael Rockefeller
"Everyone who is not Roberts Howard please take two steps forward."