From: David Tetzlaff (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Mar 12 2006 - 11:36:09 PST
Marilyn wrote
> Words can become meaningless. All is art/nothing is.
I did not say all hobbies are art. I said that many activities that may be
dismissed under the rubric of 'hobby' have an elaborated asethetic
element. Whether this is 'art' or not depends on what sense of the word
you're using, and what relative aesthetic judgement one might make about
the specific work involved.
> There are Sunday afternoon
> painters, and then there are artists. Surely we know the difference.
Historically and factually, 'we' absolutely do not. Many people who have
been considered 'artists' at one time have been reconsidered as mere
craftspersons, and just as surely yesterday's amatuer may be tomorrow's
artist. Grandma Moses was a 'Sunday afternoon painter'. More to the point,
Joseph Cornell was a 'Sunday afternoon junk collector' with a odd hobby of
making odd boxes of jun k to give to his friends.
Our museums are also full of pre-modern art that was not considered 'art'
in its own time and place but rather functional objects in the everyday
conduct of culture. Who is to say whether some future culture will find
fly-tying more profound than Barney's vaseline sculptures or DS9 fanfic
deeper than Jane Smiley novels?
Serious modernist composers have labored long in their 'I have to do it'
passions and produced a lot of dross, along with some gems. And four guys
who just wanted to be in a band to get the attention of some neighborhood
girls, and learned three chords (kind of) make some of the most affecting
and lasting art of the 20th Century.
Bird is the word.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.