Digital BW, The Print

This will probably be my last post on this too.

Ultimately art is and does many different things for different people. My
art, and my rational for doing it may just be very different than yours, yet
we may both make art. Forgive me if I made it seem like my rationale were
any better than yours, it's not, it's purely MY rationale.

Was it Duchamp who said, "it's art if I say it is", or something like that?
I'm in this camp, I like this mindset. It gives power to the artist, it
makes the artist the master of his creations, and I like that. Otherwise
your work is only art if a critic (public, friend, viewer) says it is?
Phooey!

That art can be a powerful communicator does not make the communication the
art. Communication requires two people, the creation of art requires one.
Communication comes after the fact, when the art is seen, but the art itself
exists upon creation. What of a person? Is a person who lives as a recluse
not a person until he communicates with another person? When did the
existence of things become predicated upon communication?

I don't put my very being into my work to so as to communicate with anyone,
though I might show it for that reason. I make it because I love to -
because I have a passion for it - because it satisfies me on a deep soulful
level. That's reason enough for me. Critics and viewers are purely optional,
and the interpretation of the work by a viewer says more about the viewer
than it does about the work.

IMHO.

Todd


> I'd agree it isn't going anywhere if it turns into a verbal fencing match, but
> thanks for your views.
> 
> I jumped in not for a discussion of what is valuable, but because I'm
> interested in what one
> considers to be art and what art does. We don't have to agree on what it is as
> long as we know 
> what someone else means when they use the term.
> 
> Tim
> 
>> I have resisted jumping into (piling onto?) this discussion because
>> (for me) it wasn't going anywhere.  Sweeping pronouncements about
>> "this is valuable and that isn't" don't get me very far- it all
>> depends upon the context.
>> 
>> Communication with others requires clarity, clarity requires
>> contemplation,
>> study, and experimentation.  Communication with oneself may indeed
>> devolve into navel gazing, or "personal therapy;"  on the other hand
>> it is the corner stone of successful communication with others.
>> 
>> Bill Morse
>> 
> 
> --
> Tim Spragens
> http://www.borderless-photos.com
> &
> http://www.borderless-photos.de
> 
> 
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