April 22, 2022 Weekly Musings
Posted on April 22 2022
Announcements:
Peace Plant has been accepted into the Culture & Agriculture 2022 Juried Exhibition. This exhibition is one of the most popular and well-attended exhibitions in its’ 36-year history at New Visions Gallery.
Coming soon! Artist Muse 5 Online Exhibition
The work, The Turtle's Journey by Christine Alfery and poem, This One by Nancy Austin will be displayed as part of the new gallery that Christine Alfery is opening called Christine's Gallery. Its first exhibition is called "Artist Muse 5." For this event, poets and artists teamed up to be each other's muses. There will be approximately 40 artist and poet pairs. It is a wonderful opportunity for Wisconsin Artists and Poets to share their works to the public on line - especially with all the art gallery closings since COVID.
Baby sea turtles, like tiny tanks in an army,
advance over stones, around driftwood, across sand,
as cohorts fall to attack gulls and frigates.
Ghost crabs scurry from burrows to ambush,
to snatch them up. Little leatherbacks in ancient
reptilian cadence march, hatchlings who have never
tasted salt will spend their lives at sea.
The ocean reaches out, draws them in—
to the jaws of a rockfish, a barracuda, a tiger shark—
one in a thousand survives. Ten years later this one
will emerge in moonlight on powerful limbs,
to lay her clutch of eggs.
Blogs:
Ideology
Featured image: Peace Plant
Ideology does not define art.
Where Does Creativity Come From?
Featured image: Ms Marigold
What is creativity? Does creativity come from something original or does it come from something new? Are we just remixing the old and calling it new? The online dictionary defines creativity as; “the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.”
So if one wants to be creative, one must use one’s imagination. And, if one wants to be creative, one needs to come up with original ideas. That means that creativity cannot come from the remixing of the old and calling it creative.
I believe artists are creative individuals. So, where does their creativity come from? Remembering that creativity requires originality, where does this originality come from?
Does Art Have Truth?
Featured image: Networking Bluebird
Does art have a truth, or is there a truth in how we understand and define art?
How we understand art is constantly changing, so how can art have a truth?
I believe art has a truth. That truth is that art is authentic, undisputed, genuine, not copied. I found this chart about authenticity online.
Notice most of the words that point to authenticity, are individualistic, genuine, real, value and integrity.
Can we apply all of these words to the truth in art? Yes, if we all agree that the truth in art comes from the artist's, authenticity, individualism, genuineness, realness, values, and integrity.
The truth in art comes from the artist who creates art. It doesn’t come from cultural or social stimulants. It comes from the reality, the authenticity of the arts.
Art is always changing because the individual artist is always changing. Remove the artist's creativity and imagination, remove the artist's authenticity and it is questionable if what you think is art really is.
DuChamp's Ready-Mades
Featured image: Sandpiper II
Recently I read “From the Editor” in Artist's Magazine March/April 2022 Edition. She titled her comments, “The Power of the Imagination.” Editor in Chief, Anne Hevener, stated that “the expectation for artwork that’s said to be based on an artist’s “imagination” is a piece of the art that’s either wholly abstract or that depicts strange, dreamlike imaginary, but all artist – no matter the subject or style they favor – rely on the imagination. In fact, you can begin to make art if you can’t first imagine how to bring a … subject to life. Anytime an artist is depicting a subject that’s not present for observation or that has never been perceived in real life, artists turn to the imagination. Even when working directly from life, however and seeking to create a recognizable rendering, artist take numerous creative liberties. They interpret, color, remove extraneous details, from a scene, invent an alternative sky or introduce the different background for something. …. Art should communicate something from the artist’s inner world.”
This inner world, this something is what is missing in today’s art establishment. Since Marcel DuChamp’s “Broken Glass” also known as “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors,” and his theory of conceptual art and ready-mades, Post-modern art culture has become one big happy meal, void of value, void of taste and void of the artist. Ready-made objects like sharks in a tank, a banana on a wall, a vacuum cleaner or Michael Jackson's ceramic, to list a few, are what the art establishment is labeling as art. No longer does art “communicate something from the artist’s inner world” as Anne Hevener suggests. No longer does art need the imaginary. But to replace the artist is the ideology, the conceptions and the politics of those writing about what art is and what is good and bad art.
DuChamp’s theories replaced the expressionistic styles of the abstract expressionists. It replaced he expressionistic style of an artist’s inner world and the expressionistic style of an artist's senses and experiences. DuChamp's theories restricts, lost is the freedom found in the expressionistic style, the potential skills of an individual artist, limits the development of the creative capacities of the mind and limits the visual voice.
What do DuChamp's conceptual ready-mades say about our culture? His conceptual theories and ready-mades say just that our culture, our art today is a ready-made. And even more tragic it says that our artists are ready-mades with no conceptual idea of how to explore and discover with an artist’s experiences, senses, intuits and their art. Duchamp’s art establishment is void of personal input and expression. No wonder wall art is so popular! It is a ready-made and it matches the sofa.
New Works:
