Sorta provocative stuff
Howdy!
Well, I got one grant application off, and it has been received by good ole Doug Sigurdson. Now, I can attempt to get back to real life.
Don't ask me how I came across this, but I did. The Chicago Tribune is not on my normal list of publications to read. OK, if you really must know the truth it went like this: I was procrastinating and skimming through ArtsJournal.com, where I then ended up at Andrew Taylor's blog, which is part of the web site. He had an entry that spoke about Chris Jones' column, and instead of reading Taylor writing about Jones, I figured it would be better to go straight to the source, which is what I did.
Read the article here.
Now that I have decided to try and out do Mr. Taylor (Hand writing about Jones) it probably would be a good idea to mention what I think of the article. In a nutshell, he seems to be trying to come up with an explanation as to why the North American public is seeing fewer movies and buying fewer CDs. In his first paragraph, Mr. Jones, suggests that John Naisbitt (the guy who wrote Megatends) accurately predicted it, and it is due to decentralization. Yeah, right.
But then it gets sorta murky. He (as Mr. Taylor points out) seems to be confusing consuming culture, and creating things of cultural significance. While having the choice to view (and hear) stuff when and where you want is a good thing, it does not translate so easily into creating what you want to see or listen to.
Having the tools to create stuff is great. Being able to use those tools appropriately (or inappropriately) so that other people are attracted to it, and interested in it is significantly different. The only way that I know of to accomplish that is time and practice. Right now, I can't draw to save my life, but I am fairly positive that if I decided that I did want to draw, and I armed myself with a boatload of pencils and a whack of paper, I eventually would be able to create something that did look like a tree.
It is the commitment that separates the snow from the flakes. Other people tend to use far different methods than I do to id dedication. Hence the reviewers, curators, and other intermediaries that get placed in between a consumer and the art. I tend to veer towards the side of trying. I figure that it is unlikely that viewing a painting will kill me, nor will listening to some new music. And it makes life way easier when I have only my reaction that needs interpretation by myself, instead of trying to decipher what somebody else thinks about art and then gauge whether I would enjoy it because of their thoughts.
The only problem that arises out of my process is that there really isn't enough time in the day to try everything. But I'm working on it.
Well, I got one grant application off, and it has been received by good ole Doug Sigurdson. Now, I can attempt to get back to real life.
Don't ask me how I came across this, but I did. The Chicago Tribune is not on my normal list of publications to read. OK, if you really must know the truth it went like this: I was procrastinating and skimming through ArtsJournal.com, where I then ended up at Andrew Taylor's blog, which is part of the web site. He had an entry that spoke about Chris Jones' column, and instead of reading Taylor writing about Jones, I figured it would be better to go straight to the source, which is what I did.
Read the article here.
Now that I have decided to try and out do Mr. Taylor (Hand writing about Jones) it probably would be a good idea to mention what I think of the article. In a nutshell, he seems to be trying to come up with an explanation as to why the North American public is seeing fewer movies and buying fewer CDs. In his first paragraph, Mr. Jones, suggests that John Naisbitt (the guy who wrote Megatends) accurately predicted it, and it is due to decentralization. Yeah, right.
But then it gets sorta murky. He (as Mr. Taylor points out) seems to be confusing consuming culture, and creating things of cultural significance. While having the choice to view (and hear) stuff when and where you want is a good thing, it does not translate so easily into creating what you want to see or listen to.
Having the tools to create stuff is great. Being able to use those tools appropriately (or inappropriately) so that other people are attracted to it, and interested in it is significantly different. The only way that I know of to accomplish that is time and practice. Right now, I can't draw to save my life, but I am fairly positive that if I decided that I did want to draw, and I armed myself with a boatload of pencils and a whack of paper, I eventually would be able to create something that did look like a tree.
It is the commitment that separates the snow from the flakes. Other people tend to use far different methods than I do to id dedication. Hence the reviewers, curators, and other intermediaries that get placed in between a consumer and the art. I tend to veer towards the side of trying. I figure that it is unlikely that viewing a painting will kill me, nor will listening to some new music. And it makes life way easier when I have only my reaction that needs interpretation by myself, instead of trying to decipher what somebody else thinks about art and then gauge whether I would enjoy it because of their thoughts.
The only problem that arises out of my process is that there really isn't enough time in the day to try everything. But I'm working on it.
posted by Zeke's, the Montreal Art Gallery on 3.2.04
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