tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210759514036256082.post2014361687518840931..comments2024-03-08T00:12:34.350-08:00Comments on Art and Quilts, cogitations thereon: Please don’t heave the bosom!Elizabeth Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13928615247903165719noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210759514036256082.post-60658171398224573372010-12-16T07:38:34.493-08:002010-12-16T07:38:34.493-08:00My daughter and I love your cliche posts! She just...My daughter and I love your cliche posts! She just returned from a 4-month stint in London, studying English Lit and Art. After the third cathedral, she started losing interest in staring at the ceilings. We both laughed about going off fifths. Chopin Ballades in C# minor are the way to go!Kristihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13823637935554619493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210759514036256082.post-76836913950530936922010-12-15T06:30:32.978-08:002010-12-15T06:30:32.978-08:00Great comments from great commenters! Thank you. ...Great comments from great commenters! Thank you. it is indeed true that the First Time Around a cliche might be a nice new fresh cliche!! Fresh cliches for sale!!<br />And very definitely we should never squash newcomer's enthusiasm, no, that is far too lovely and, alas, short lived.<br />As to who cares whether what one is producing is one's own unique voice, or is tainted by culture and commercialism...then I would say if I were the maker, I would care! so it's really a very personal view. If I want to make art I want to make it the best I can; on the other hand, with housework I just want to do enough to keep the critters at bay!!!Elizabeth Bartonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13928615247903165719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210759514036256082.post-2015948769195822432010-12-13T18:19:17.934-08:002010-12-13T18:19:17.934-08:00i'm enjoying your musings-turned-rantings. i ...i'm enjoying your musings-turned-rantings. i actually thought about your (and Leni Weiner's recent post on 10% technique/90% finding voice) A LOT this past weekend.<br />I also listened to David Byrne's "Bicycle Diaries" where he gets into a verbal essay on the diff between insider and outsider art (chapter called "San Francisco").<br />I came to this conclusion... it may be temporary, but I came up with a big fat "who cares what other people paint/sew/draw/do art about"?<br /><br />not to say that critique isn't important - vital - to someone who is trying to push limits. but what about all the other people who just desperately need a creative outlet? do they have to be Artistes? Or can they just be people who make stuff?<br /><br />I mean, who cares if there are a 1000 paintings of herons that have lots of poorly rendered realism? That's probably 950 people who are doing something important to them with their hands and their minds. And maybe 50 who are striving to find a personal connection that makes them see and show the world differently than anyone else. <br /><br />Maybe we start this discussion with what great art is not. But I kinda feel that answer is (1) very dependent on the viewer's education and (2) very influenced by the trends of a person's lifetime/time period. Really, from my studying of art history (lite), it seems that those who can figure out how to break what has been done before and convince everyone around them that they alone (or with a very few others) have the newer, more pure and closer to the soul aesthetic are the ones who get the artistic props during their lifetime. If that's not PR & influence/lobbying at work, I don't know what is. Bending perception and developing desire to develop marketshare. Mythmaking!<br /><br />But what about everyone else who just needs to make stuff? Or are making things along the path of discovery?<br /><br />Thanks for keeping the ideas and the discussion flowing!cynhttp://www.cynsartquilts.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210759514036256082.post-25628125953210256492010-12-13T15:46:13.455-08:002010-12-13T15:46:13.455-08:00I hove my bosom (or baa-zuums -- emphasis on secon...I hove my bosom (or baa-zuums -- emphasis on second syllable) in all directions in reading your response, Elizabeth --snort--<br /><br />And I can't argue with your hearts and kittens and even that blasted heron. I have my own favorite list of disfavorites, which often are the images that people "fell in love with at first sight, from across the room." <br /><br />I also agree that cliches are really excellent advertising devices -- they are efficient shorthand ways of tagging something as "heartwarming" or "green" or "sexy." Such cliches aren't coming from the heart, but from the outstretched palm, hoping to be greased. They add to the enormous bag of overused images. "Easily absorbed, like sugar" seems a good analogy. <br /><br />I suppose my sympathies, however, still lie with the "student" (of which I am eternally one), who can get excited about something everyone else knew and saw (I'm really not fond of casual nasty put-down "oh so-last-year...")Having been terribly naive myself (now a bit less so, I hope), I worry about discouraging those for whom something seems new and bright because they haven't been exposed to a million of them before.<br /><br />I also know that what has been despised as old-fashioned and trite (think social realism) sometimes turns out to be wonderful after time has passed. In the case of the once despised but newly recognized, of course, only the best and most imaginative will sustain through time. <br /><br />I suppose the real problem of the cliche is over-exposure and over-use, and that you can assume anyone reading your blog really can't be too naive or newly emerged from the Pennsylvania backwoods, either as a viewer or doer. I do worry that one person's "tired out, stale, unappealing to every sense" is pretty subjective. How many of us have artist friends who are stunned at the most banal things we do with fabric? We quilting artists might find free motion stippling tired out and stale, but to the painter who doesn't sew, it could be stunning. <br /><br />And it's almost impossible to do a neo-impressionistic landscape (although many do); the impressionists used up most of the good material -- the rest of us paint like Monet only not so good. Which, I suppose, simply makes your point!<br /><br />Thanks for continuing the discussion.Junehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00325386238844997236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210759514036256082.post-68506574658864003622010-12-13T12:37:43.657-08:002010-12-13T12:37:43.657-08:00That's a lot to think about, Elizabeth. But it...That's a lot to think about, Elizabeth. But it all got pushed out of my head when the image of someone shot-putting their bosoms at a track and field meet popped in! I need to unsee that, and start over from the beginning.Karen Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07589381487144096056noreply@blogger.com