I’m so rustic, by now it’s like a profession, just a lonely lemming swimming upstream against a great tide of big-time art -- stupendous events with glamorous prices, huge commissions at the arid airport, tea cozies for the corporate courtyard and gigantic smears of color for the boardroom, rubbing up against the rich, receiving rewards and acknowledgments from inside the industry, all such as that. I wasn’t invited, don’t own the wardrobe, can’t speak the language, and in the end really don’t care, no really. Wasn’t born to it and don’t aspire. Ironically, the pursuit of art found me seeking entry into the working class, the people who make stuff, who measure themselves and others by skill and commitment, and it changed my point of view. I’ve also read a few books, attended some classes, and know a floppy premise when I see one.
I only care about painting, images that rise from a flat surface, although anything truly interesting to look at has to be considered. Paintings have the advantage due to the ability of humans to think abstractly, to internalize, to imagine. The painter uses this unique attribute to create a passkey to the viewer’s archive of memories, gaining access to thoughts and emotions, a foot planted in the revolving door of daily experience. How much and just what is conveyed is between viewer and artist, but we can see art’s historical ability to change thinking and open minds. As a graphic example, rationality came to the renaissance through the painters and their paintings, not by a general reading of the latest translation of Aristotle -- covered elsewhere.
In addition, paintings can be carried about and hung on walls in different cities, providing familiarity, even intimacy, to each new living situation. They can be manufactured using simple and readily available supplies, and sold in discreet units to buy the paint and pay the rent to make more. It’s an effort that could become self-sustaining, never again to need grants or stipends or support from taxpayers in any form. Academics scoff, demean common sensibilities and violate them for sport. They feel safe and warm, insulated from the culture that supports them, becoming militant if challenged to justify patent absurdity and proud of themselves for it, but they’re not welcome anymore. Average people can come to recognize skill and commitment in works of art, no doubt as well as the rich, and if exposed to an honest array of artwork made in local studios, these days commonly displayed in offices, restaurants, and salons, could at some point decide some to take some home, to support local art production, and I wouldn’t seem so out of touch.
I only care about painting, images that rise from a flat surface, although anything truly interesting to look at has to be considered. Paintings have the advantage due to the ability of humans to think abstractly, to internalize, to imagine. The painter uses this unique attribute to create a passkey to the viewer’s archive of memories, gaining access to thoughts and emotions, a foot planted in the revolving door of daily experience. How much and just what is conveyed is between viewer and artist, but we can see art’s historical ability to change thinking and open minds. As a graphic example, rationality came to the renaissance through the painters and their paintings, not by a general reading of the latest translation of Aristotle -- covered elsewhere.
In addition, paintings can be carried about and hung on walls in different cities, providing familiarity, even intimacy, to each new living situation. They can be manufactured using simple and readily available supplies, and sold in discreet units to buy the paint and pay the rent to make more. It’s an effort that could become self-sustaining, never again to need grants or stipends or support from taxpayers in any form. Academics scoff, demean common sensibilities and violate them for sport. They feel safe and warm, insulated from the culture that supports them, becoming militant if challenged to justify patent absurdity and proud of themselves for it, but they’re not welcome anymore. Average people can come to recognize skill and commitment in works of art, no doubt as well as the rich, and if exposed to an honest array of artwork made in local studios, these days commonly displayed in offices, restaurants, and salons, could at some point decide some to take some home, to support local art production, and I wouldn’t seem so out of touch.
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