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Thursday, January 26, 2017

punctuated vision -- sudden sight

The world looks different from a new point of view, and it changes in chunks. The recent election has helped a large portion of the population to focus on substance, and has reminded individuals to make critical personal choices for themselves. When a new consciousness appears art changes.

Art is a search for common meaning, for a welcome sign in the crowd, a glimpse of your own reflection in all the art to be seen these days. That’s right. The center of the universe is at your feet when it comes to art, and it moves forward when you do. The standards within a community should be a collaboration between art producers and the population that supports and owns art, and don’t they grow together? Once the myth of secret knowledge blows away, art can be evaluated at face value, which means in direct comparison to the other art available. Both art and the population's discernment get better geometric.


A common sci-fi theme from the fifties -- one summer night a meteor lands in a field just outside of town, and all the children conceived that year share some common alien bond, so creepy. Big jolts to the system, the economic collapse in 08, our recent election, kick over slow social evolution and produce a new mentality that spreads on contact, making old ideas obsolete. In an increasingly digitalized reality will citizens come to value the singular created object as something rare and unique, seeing in art a reward and a refuge for individual thought? Maybe.


If it happens, art all at once seems interesting to a new demographic, the same folks who didn’t much care before -- they won’t know why. If about the same time artists find a more accessible means of expression, if media on all levels become more open-minded about the art they cover, and if non-profits devote more effort to developing an audience for local artists than in cultivating tribal identity for ‘we progressives,’ a self-sustaining art exchange between studios and private ownership might occur, a more authentic regional character would eventually be expressed, and common civility, understanding, and empathy would become easier all around.

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