domesticating art -- rebuild it and help with rent

Independent artists have always been the earthworms of urban renewal, finding cheap housing and studios, aka live-in studios, in any town’s neglected areas. They confront old plumbing, drafty windows, security issues, while improvising habitable and productive spaces, a long tradition of living and working for cheap. This is not gentrification in itself, but soon slick bars and boutiques invade as artsy folks come around. Shopping carts and abandoned washing machines start to disappear, perrenial vagrants just aren’t there. Before long landlords decide to upgrade, and the poor people, including the artists, move out. 'Over-the-Rhine' in Cincinnati is a classic example with the greatest income disparity of seventy-six thousand areas in the US surveyed, transitioning from urban blight to destination for the young professional, porsches in litters, like a renovating tide, due in large part to artists moving in twenty five years ago, now all but gone themselves. 

Here, might be happening everywhere, progressives with grant dollars want to seed low profit real estate with enclave artist communities, hoping to shortcut straight through to urban chic just in time to make a killing for someone. Maybe it works, but sure seems unnatural somehow. I suspect they're really just setting up a tourist stroll with bead work and plywood roosters, as artificial as its roots, and populated with the entrepreneurial bottom-line sort of artist. Seen it other places is all. 

Here’s something they possibly just don’t know. Finding your own way is part of it. It’s an interesting assignment, to survive as an artist here in our sports loving, media-addicted land. To an aspiring artist driving an old car isn’t romance. It requires mechanical skill or at least understanding, and thoughtful and efficient maintenance squeezing out every mile, just like every tube of paint is squeezed. Goes for everything. A person learns to cook, to repair, to negotiate with not the nicest landlords. This is all a part of making art that connects to that larger pool of human experience, and it works. Did they not tell you this in art history class? The city, the state, the united nations making it easier actually defeats the process. 

Consider all the money every civic entity of a certain size spends on art already in the hopes of cashing in on creativity, luring the youthful professional types who'll make that money churn. Now they think they can build birdhouses for artists like they were swallows and real estate around soon becomes desirable -- new paint, new traffic signs, clean sidewalks. Good luck with that. Being an independent artist requires independence, and roosting on shotgun row may not suit them. They probably wish you’d get out of their way, and devote your urban renewal energy to fixing up neighborhoods for the people who already live there, and by the way raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars so artists can afford their studios in some still rundown part of town.

art so handy -- the nonfunctional finds purpose

http://tomeblen.bloginky.com/2015/04/13/studying-great-art-can-help-improve-everyday-observation-skills/

Now here’s a local writer making the points we’ve been harping on around here all along. Art opens the eyes, retools the senses, and brings the present moment into focus. Seems like a revelation when someone else says it. Don’t feel the need to say it again myself just now, but will mention the best part. It doesn’t have to be good art to be effective.

A heightened attention burns anything you put in front of it. Since the machine we’ve been given knows the world only through the agency of comparison, someone’s recently delivered new theory of knowledge, all that’s required is that you see good art sometime. It’s automatically recorded and kept for comparison with all the other art you’ll see, until perhaps you see something better, and so it goes. Thereafter you can look for the qualities you admire, and whether you find them or not, at least you looked. You’ve exercised your immediate attention, and will be rewarded by the new stuff you’ll notice throughout day.

It is necessary to see good art once in a while to prime the whole enterprise, and by good art we mean compelling enough to make you want to look. If you try to see a fair array of all the art available you’ll find most of it boring, but not all of it. Some artists are able to make images that evoke honest sentiment and intelligence and reflection, somehow, and you just want to look at them. On the other hand, there’s also an awful lot of art that’s derivative, poorly made, and uninteresting out there, and you’ll have to look at it too to decide which is which. See how this works?

Art is on its way -- the 21C Hotel, due this fall, is a riverboat of art pulling a wide wake, and pocket galleries, independent studios, and local artwork up in local businesses are about to become visible, as the local population starts to pay attention, to make comparisons, and to take some home. This thoughtful writer, Tom Eblen, having observed the present has projected a future in which art is invited in, taken seriously, and given respect for the contribution it can make to community awareness and individual realization. 

seeking self -- finding expression

Art is about self first of all. All the art there is is simply too much for any one person, all the way from ‘deskilled’ to Da Vinci, from quaint primitive to ultra-chic. Where in that almost infinite spectrum of creative expression do you find your own reflection? It’s a fine question, especially these days when it’s possible to access almost all of it postcard size in your pocket.

applicable to all posts: artists and art movements mentioned on ‘owning art’ are as close as google and can be referenced anytime, but in all cases and with all art, digital is not the same as real. There are many qualities in actual art that don’t survive reproduction in any form, most usually the best parts, and the only way to really understand art is to experience it directly -- in the museum, in a gallery, or in a salon or restaurant showing local art.

There isn’t any reason to feel self-conscious anymore since the fences are down, the printed programs are gibberish, and anything that can be squeezed into a gallery can be declared art. You’re free to decide for yourself and that’s the rub. Who knows who they are? Do you dress for comfort or for style, do you buy a practical car or a roadster, do you read a book or play outdoors? Given reasonable options most folks seem to find their way without over-analyzing, at least in the beginning, and might not become reflective until later in life when events impinge. It’s about this time they might start looking for themselves in art. Perhaps you qualify. 

Before you begin, ask yourself, do you look at art directly or wonder what other people think about it first? I’ll suggest this will be easier once it’s understood that other people are mostly wondering themselves, blowing up a vast self-sustaining soap bubble of false affirmation. Actually, looking at art can be fun once the onerous burden of other peoples’ expertise is popped. It’s also easy. Some art is going to seem more interesting to you than all the other stuff, no need to seek it out -- it finds you. Just see as much of it in person as possible, visiting museums and galleries in cities, and making a point to notice in businesses which display art around town. You’ll soon have favorites, it’s inevitable, and the art you take home will reflect your life in a more personal way than the car, the clothes, or your use of free time.