Can Art be a Goal or is Art what we call Work that Sustains our Interest?

Norma Desmond · October 28, 2009

Duplicate post. Sorry.

Wouter Willemse · October 28, 2009

Fred, why avoid the philosophy forum if you're not that caring for the labels art or artist? I don't see why, really. It can be very healthy for a debate, and maybe "not caring" is not the ideal to describe it... but a vastly differing opinion in a philosophic debate - where would we be without it?

Even though most in this thread seem to agree on the notion that it takes an artist to make art, or even maybe declare it art, I'm not too sold on that idea. First of all, implicetely, it also seems to state that art can only be made by artists. And that sounds very narrow. How about the artists (including some who are typically seen as masters) that did not seem to deal in that notion of creating art all that much? Bach certainly comes to mind, he regarded himself a productive crafstmen more than an artist. All medieval artists, whose creations were partially utilitarian for worshipping (Josh' Bernini example in the other thread). Possibly painters, like Rembrandt, just created portraits for money for much of the time, maybe in their own mind, they were just making a few guilders, and not art, by doing so? So, my question (and critique) is: does the creator really need to declare something is art? If so, how can anyone debate whether something is art or not? If we only need the creator to chime in and give the final verdict? Is it art because of the intention with which it was created, or because of the result it is?

If one states there is a second way for an item to become recognised as art, what Luis G described as "when it is contextualized as such, either by its maker claiming to be an artist, and/or a gallery, buyer, museum, art show, etc" (but minus the maker claiming, because that is the "first way to become art"), why wouldn't that maybe be the only way? To me, this sounds like a far more plausible thing. It has at least demanded somebody to be touched by the work in one way or another.

OK, so I intentionally simplify the line of thought. Sorry if anyone feels I am ridiculing matters here - because that is not the intent. I just want to challenge your thoughts, because I think this "l'art pour l'art" approach does too little justice to art. Art has to go beyond its creator to become art.

mizore · October 28, 2009

My thoughts on literature is that we try to write the best we can, but it's up to the kids coming behind us to declare us to be serious influences and thus literature. Maybe the same for art -- you do the best you can and if you mean something to other people, then it's art. Keats got slagged by at least some critics in the day (nothing like being Shelley's and Leigh Hunt's the favorite Cockney).

I don't know if art has to go much beyond its creator to be useful -- and I think that some people have worked in traditional genres (speaking of writing here) and transcended them and revered them. Raymond Chandler, for instance.

Art in the sense of creating physical objects, though, may be different from a concept like Literature. I'm not sure that our current general concept of art wasn't in and out of European history since the Greeks and Romans (Longinus) and again in the Renaissance. A biologist who studied the Paleolithic cave paintings, <a href="http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/looking-for-biological-meaning-in-cave-art"> R. Dale Guthrie </a> suggested that art was a way of thinking hard about things that were important to the painters (who he believes were teenaged boys. If doing art (in the more restrictive sense) is a parallel to literacy and writing, then the good of it may be the doing of it as a training of the mind. Drawing teaches us how to see. Playing music has advantages to the player.

Paleolithic culture in Spain and France had extremely large numbers of people doing cave paintings -- some of of the caves were lost to rising seas, but I read once that each year, archeologists discover one or two decorated caves.

Guthrie looked at the sketches that weren't so accomplished and even the vandalism as well as the ones that are in the art books.

I've wondered if photography couldn't become a universal visual literacy, not that all of it would be good, but then not all of the cave art was good either, nor is graffiti.

The massive flow of images on flickr, or the somewhat less prodigious flood here, may be a good thing.

Dunno. I have lived in communities where high numbers of people learn to play music (country, bluegrass, old timey) and the level of taste for that is higher than in urban communities that listen to the same music but no longer play it. The local radio stations would also play non-commercial work along with things from commercial studios, all mostly good of its kind.

Norma Desmond · October 28, 2009

Wouter--

In Julie's first post about claiming something as art she said:

"The claim has to be made. . . . I make a claim, so my picture might be art. If I made no claim and nobody else makes a claim [my emphases], then it also would not be art. --Julie

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I understood Julie to be allowing for just the scenarios you describe. Luis, as you recognize, also dealt with something being art not by the artist claiming it to be so.

To answer to your question . . .

"does the creator really need to declare something is art?" --Wouter

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No. Not in my mind.

I think there's an issue of emphasis here, which happens often in these forums and is worth bringing up. One of the original statements by Rebecca was "Too often the intention of the self-declared artist is to be superior." So, naturally, many of the posts dealt with self-declared artists, why it's ok to aim for art as a goal, what that means, why it's not necessarily a badge of superiority, etc. That's been the focus. But the fact that people focus on artists making claims and declaring themselves artists or declaring their work to be art is a function of the statements made in the original posting. The focus on that seems totally reasonable given the way the initiating post was framed. That we haven't spent much time discussing all the different ways something may be declared art doesn't, for me, lead to the conclusion you've drawn, that "most in this thread seem to agree on the notion that it takes an artist to make art, or even maybe declare it art . . . it also seems to state that art can only be made by artists." Not at all.

We'd have to write little novels if everything that we excluded -- because we were focused on a certain type of question or a certain aspect of a topic -- was taken as an assertion of something. Sometimes, it just didn't seem relevant. In discussing the bad rap artists get and the false assumptions often made about those who call themselves artists, that we didn't get around to talking about other ways things become art seems perfectly reasonable. And, as the statements by both Julie and Luis make clear, those alternatives were in our consciousness, even if there was no need within the context of the discussion to emphasize those alternatives.

As for . . .

"Fred, why avoid the philosophy forum if you're not that caring for the labels art or artist? I don't see why, really. It can be very healthy for a debate, and maybe "not caring" is not the ideal to describe it... but a vastly differing opinion in a philosophic debate - where would we be without it?" --Wouter

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No reason at all to avoid the philosophy forum if you don't care for certain labels and if you have a vastly differing opinion. I didn't mean to give that impression. I'd welcome that to the discussion. My thinking is this: If you don't think it's worth discussing, why join the discussion? I got the impression Steve didn't find it worth discussing. I got that from the brevity of his statement as well as his not seeming to open up a discussion around the issue he addressed. It seemed like a simple declarative statement, with no particular reasoning given, and no interest that I perceived in dialogue about it. I may be off in that interpretation.

Wouter Willemse · October 28, 2009

Fred, I hope my opening bit on avoiding the forum did not sound too harsh - not my intent. Reading it back, I see how it may seem a bit insulting. But I read Steve's post differently. Yes, it was short, but it kind of resonated with the message I was about to write....so, that's why. Hope it did not came across as the ant telling an elephant to watch where it's going.

Thanks for both answers.

Rebecca, as you describe the way it works for literature, it's a bit how I've always seen the "path" would be for any kind of art. It may not be as simple or clear cut for the visual arts, but doing something to others, well, that bit is to me the point, and in that respect, I meant it should grow beyond the artist. The bit about how people appreciate music better when they know how to play it, to me is also a very valid point. To recognise the skill of the artist, is an extra dimension to art that brings more appreciation and makes it more human in a way too. To know that also the talented/gifted had to know how to handle their tools - mundane skills, but all too often the foundation of it all.

Fred,

While I understand that the full scope of art would require us all to read novels, I think it is good to actually mention that you're discussing just a fraction of the total spectrum. Just for clarity sake. In retrospect, I missed the step to that part of the question mentally a bit - sorry for not reading more careful, I'll use the (very) poor excuse that English is not my native language - and I read the question as wider than what discussion ended up with. Bit of miscommunication on my side, sorry for that interruption. Though I'm glad it's clear art is not only up to its creator to define :-)

So following this quote of Rebecca:

but it's up to the kids coming behind us to declare us to be serious influences and thus literature

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Can there be contemporary art, which is only appreciated in its lifetime? Like, say, 90% of the popular music?

Norma Desmond · October 28, 2009

Wouter, no offense taken at all. I just felt the need to answer you and give you my own reasoning, but I certainly appreciate your probing! Don't hesitate.

I like your example of pop music and I think it works. I've thought about it often with my own work. What makes something unique to its times, significant in a very current way, and what makes something timeless and how can those two overlap (and also do they sometimes stay separate)?

Dylan, The Beatles, The Stones seem to be products of their era at the same time as they helped create and define that era. I'm not sure they (or any great artists) can be fully appreciated or understood without some understanding of the environment and context they grew out of and helped develop. Yet, there is something timeless about all of them. They have and will continue to outlive their own era.

Other musical artists of the times may not. The Dead, The Who, The Airplane, Hot Tuna, The Moody Blues don't seem like they will transcend their significance within their era to become as timeless as others will. That doesn't lessen them in my eyes. It just is what it is.

We touched upon this a little in the cliché thread but even more so in the earlier thread about Idealism. A lot of my own photography is very localized. It is capturing something rather particular. I don't know that it will outlast this particular milieu. Yet some stuff feels like it is more universal in nature and would strike a chord in other cultures and at other times. I think there are many things we can look at. Clothing is one tangible element in a photo that I think will often play a role in how timeless something is. I have one photo of a guy on the bedroom floor with rather intense (somewhat clichéd) lighting that would likely strike some universal chords. Unfortunately, I was naive enough at the time I took it not to notice what an Abercrombie and Fitch feel there was to how he was dressed. I don't think the photograph will ever escape that sense. Objects, cars, buildings, wardrobe, backgrounds, will always affect the timeliness and potential timelessness of a photo. Will malls always simply recall the late 20th and early 21st century or will they come to universalize some sort of shared emotion that crosses the generations?

It's hard to tell. At the time of the depression, it likely seemed to photographers they were documenting something very particular and heartfelt, something very real and contemporary. Yet those images translate through the ages. Why? Because they capture something in the era that's also beyond the era, something human, something perhaps so particular that it makes that transcendent leap to become universal. There may be something valuable to learn there. The attempt at universalizing may be self conscious and may often defeat its own purpose. On the other hand, the attempt to stay focused on what's meaningful to the individual, at the time, in a very real way, may be the thing that transcends itself and reaches the human heart long after the particular moment is gone.

rick_nicholson1 · October 28, 2009

No one can pursue art for art does not exist, just as you can not purchase a "car." The word car or art is a universal generic that helps us to specify the topic but nothing else. So you can purchase a Ford Taurus, or a VW Beetle, but you can purchase a "car." Don't believe me, go to a dealer's lot and announce you want to buy a car, when he says which one or which type refuse to answer, instead continue to assert you want to purchase a car. Eventually the salesman will discount you, thinking you are a nut case - why? Because the sales person doesn't sell "cars."

I don't pursue art, I take photographs and occasionally one will transcend my abilities. I am writing a novel, but not really, I'm writing a story that teaches a lesson, hopefully in a way that entertains. So no one can pursue "art" just as no one can purchase a car; its a universal generic that is a way marker for a more specific destination.

luis_g · October 28, 2009

[Wouter W] "How about the artists (including some who are typically seen as masters) that did not seem to deal in that notion of creating art all that much?"

Like most social practices and definitions, art has evolved a little in the last 300 years.

[WW] " why wouldn't that maybe be the only way? To me, this sounds like a far more plausible thing."

One could champion for contextualization to be the only way of defining art. But in real life, it's not. I can deal with it either way, but I accept things as they are. DuChamp, btw, played with this very point with some of his work.

When someone photographs, I would hope that s/he is pushing themselves to their limits in their own way. If you're thinking of the big check, the fame, looking clever or brilliant, adoring groupies, or art, that's your business. We'll never know unless you tell. And just as fictional work is allowed, so are fictional explanations.

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[Rebecca B] " Maybe the same for art -- you do the best you can and if you mean something to other people, then it's art."

Except that's not the case in real life. Rebecca is still trying to attach a qualitative aspect to trhe word that it simply does not have.

Having said that, one of the qualities of significant art (not 'art' in general) is how influential it is. Not for the next generation, but contemporaries. I do not mean the slavish pseudo-Egglestons that litter the Ocean of Images nowadays, but more like Eggleston took many of Walker Evans' ideas and some tropes, mixed them with HCB's tonal range and surrealism, Kandinsky's spiritual color, Degas' elegant organic compositions, and ran with them headlong into color in photography in a new synthesis. That is what I mean. Significant work can generate a huge variety of subsequent works. For example, Atget causes then-Surrealist Man Ray (and his group) to see differenty. New Objectivist Berenice Abbot, who shows the Atget pictures she bought to consummate modernist Walker Evans, for whom it's a pivotal moment. Later, post-moderne Lee Friedlander is heavily affected. All of them in different ways, but all influenced by Atget.

[RB] " I've wondered if photography couldn't become a universal visual literacy, not that all of it would be good, but then not all of the cave art was good either, nor is graffiti."

It won't, for the same reason that 25% of Americans do not read even one book per year. Producing pictures does not necessarily generate visual literacy. I agree that Flickr has shifted that somewhat, and that the medium, thanks to digital and the web, is enjoying a revolutionary and unprecedented populist renaissance. In fact, like it or not, it's created its own vibrant visual culture(s) over at Flickr. The problem with Flickr, of course, is the massive flow of unedited imagery.

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[Fred G] " We'd have to write little novels if everything that we excluded -- because we were focused on a certain type of question or a certain aspect of a topic -- was taken as an assertion of something."

Thank you for saying that in such a clear and succint manner.

Steve Swineheart's declaration was already stated in close, though not identical terms by others, and doesn't leave much room for discussion, so little follows. There's nothing wrong with that kind of post, either. At least people join and state their views.

An enduring work of art has to survive in its own and subsequent times, as Fred mentions. If it's figurative, to get beyond the trappings of its own day, it's going to have to say something about the human condition (yes, nature pictures and abstracts do it too) that transcends its own time. I don't think one can force this into one's work.

My two cents' worth of advice on this are to remember, as someone said: Anything looked at long (and hard) enough becomes everything.

mizore · October 28, 2009

I think we have two definitions playing here. Let's throw in another one -- art is a form of human play (my intro anthro professor).

The art in the equation "art vs. commercial art" is like the "literature/popular entertainment" distinction that academics make. My time in NYC, those distinctions had broken down and the poets were hanging out with the rockstar who were friends with the aleatory musicians, and the people doing experimental fiction read science fiction and performed in porn movies (Kathy Acker, unless she was lying).

Art in another sense is all graphic production, not music, not created in language, but visual/tactile (drawings, painting, sculpture, photography). That definition does seem value neutral, art as a superset of those things, good or bad. Art classes, art departments, art museums.

Art in another sense gets people who don't get art condemned as petty bourgeois. I don't know if those people are common or not, but they exist. Fred may be right that this is more an expression of a sense of inferiority, a defensiveness. Art as class marker, at least for those who own it, not necessarily for those who produce it.

Art also can be an attempt to clarify how we see and experience things, to shift our bounding boxes, to make a metaphor out of computer graphics. It may or may not work.

patrick j dempsey · October 29, 2009

I am an artist. I was born into a family of artists. I scraped by and went to art school... and still owe the Feds over $20,0000 which my janitorial job will not cover... ever. Because I attended said school I've been accused of being privileged.... this allegation typically comes from people without any "talent" or any motivation to learn who want to try to find something external for the reason they can't do something that they only vaguely want to do. But not enough to actually work at it. I don't believe in "talent". When I was a kid I didn't have many friends so I sat around my house and read books about artists and drew pictures. When I was in college I still didn't have many friends and was socially awkward so I dedicated hundreds of hours to filling notebooks. I'm fairly positive I have more notebooks filled with drawings than most people have books in their house. I never even kissed a girl until I was 21. I worked all of those years on learning how to draw. Had I had a "normal" childhood I probably wouldn't be very good. So no, it's not privilege and it's not talent.

When I'm not drawing or painting, I'm working on my photography or digital graphic art (I build Firefox themes for fun, har har), or I'm writing or making music. I don't have much patience for society and I have particularly low patience for whatever is popular and thus I have absolutely no desire to pursue galleries. In fact, the only people's opinion I give a rat's @$$ about in terms of my art are other artists I respect, and that's it. I enjoy when people appreciate my work, but I don't want to be covered in praise or adored or whatever. I do my artwork because it's what I do. I can't stop myself. I take a shower and I hear lyrics I have to write down. I mop the floors at work and I see images I have to draw. I stand in an elevator and words for a story come to me. I look out a window and photographs come to me. It's what I was born to do.

Is it purposeless? No. I don't buy into that nihilistic post-modern pop-psy bull. The purpose of my work is to connect to this silly world that I have no other way to connect to. To know that things that come out of my brain can move other people in a way normally reserved for God or Love or Wonder or Fear.... because that is what my favorite art does for me. It has always amazed me that anyone would want to pretend to be an artist or to put so much stock into the admiration of artists. It's not like these abilities make us any less miserable than any one else.

luis_g · October 29, 2009

[Rebecca B] " Art in another sense gets people who don't get art condemned as petty bourgeois. I don't know if those people are common or not, but they exist."

The inverse is quite common, and we don't have to Google or go far to find it. It's right in this thread, forum, and PN in general. People who don't get art, or have some problem with it, condemning art and artists. Some subtly, some not. Artists criticize other artists far more than they do outsiders.

Welcome to the thread, Patrick.

mizore · October 29, 2009

The problem with Flickr, of course, is the massive flow of unedited imagery.

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The problem with the Paleolithic cave art was the massive flow of unedited imagery, too, perhaps. People stopped going to visit the caves about 14,000 years ago, then started again in the 17th Century (without knowing what they were seeing) and then a lot beginning in the late 19th Century, knowing how old the paintings were by then.

Who edits? I'm with Frank O'Hara -- trying to improve people's tastes isn't really all it's cracked up to be.

Do the best you can.

Norma Desmond · October 29, 2009

"art is a form of human play . . . art also can be an attempt to clarify how we see and experience things, to shift our bounding boxes . . ." --Rebecca

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Stimulating ideas. Indeed, art does seem to want to be lived, for some. It is a way of experiencing. When I'm with a certain poet friend and another certain photographer friend, though we don't necessarily talk about art, we seem to just talk art. It's a bit about how we approach the world, what we see, what we hear. I think one can be an artist and I think one can also live as an artist.

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Patrick--

Patrick, it sounds to me that you live art. I really don't want to add much to your eloquent and personal comment. But I do want to acknowledge the significant contribution you've made here. Your words speak for themselves beautifully.

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"Who edits? I'm with Frank O'Hara -- trying to improve people's tastes isn't really all it's cracked up to be." --Rebecca

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Rebecca--

Can you explain "Who edits?" I edit, in several senses. I choose what gets processed and shown. A lot stays hidden in the deep, dark recesses of the computer. A few gems rise to the surface and I pick the ones I want to work on, then the ones I want to present in different venues, and what I want to edit out. I edit when I put together my documentaries, usually starting with a hundred potential keepers and narrowing it down to a final slideshow of maybe 35. I edit when I determine the order they'll be shown in. I edit when I decide what to hang in my gallery downstairs. I edit when I do a portrait for someone and give them choices and withhold some. I edit when I decide what gets posted to my PN gallery and what different work may get posted to the personal web site I'm currently working on. I have never downloaded directly from my camera to a public site without first sorting through and getting rid of most of what I shot.

Why would Luis's noticing of the flow of unedited imagery on Flickr, which I take note of as well, be comparable to trying to improve people's tastes (if that's what you are saying, I'm a little unclear)? As I read Luis, he seems to be discussing his own taste, not trying to influence anyone else's.

As for improving others' tastes, I'm not sure there aren't some challenges and rewards there. Good teachers do that all the time. Though taste is, of course, a personal thing, I think it can be improved both by oneself and with the help of others. I think all it often takes is a simple explanation, a jab of insight by someone who sees differently or has more experience or knows more about a certain craft or art, to expand and improve one's taste. I grew up playing the piano, and being exposed to a lot of different kinds of music, though I played mostly classical. In high school, I developed a love for the rock and roll of the day and in college got into the more acid-oriented sounds of the Dead along with the quieter folk of people like Carole King and Dylan. In my first Intro to Music course, we spent about a quarter of the semester on La Traviata. I had never listened to and never liked opera. Well, within a couple of weeks, my roommate Paul and I were smoking joints and blasting Violetta and Alfredo all over the dorms. We got teased a lot but we also brought a couple of the guys along with us. The professor was definitely responsible for improving my taste. He explained opera, made it palatable, offered a sense of familiarity to a very strange-sounding world. He tied it to other music I liked and made me understand how it works. He pointed out musical plots and subplots, themes tied to character, leitmotifs, stuff I never knew existed that I could now appreciate and latch onto. I occasionally have done that for others, by exposing friends to things with some guidance, etc. I'd have to disagree with you and O'hara and say that, when I've felt like I improved someone's taste, it's actually more than it's cracked up to be.

fate_faith_change_chains · October 29, 2009

How about if you don't care one whit about the terms "art" or "artist" - and just do your own work with no labels attached? I work under the assumption that no one cares what I do, and whether it's art or not art. I make what's interesting to me, and don't care past that.

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I have to agree with Steve here. Just be with no labels attached. Considering oneself, myself, an artist, feels so goddamn suffocating to me, it radiates the feeling of being stuffed into a claustrophobic labeled box. " Hi, I'm an artist, or, hi, I'm a photographer..." " Oh, so I take it your not an athlete / whatever then, and you must be really sensitive, right ? " I'm not a photographer. I'm not an artist. I'm not the car I drive. I'm not the contents of my wallet. I'm not what's on my businesscard. I'm not a Taoist...

Reject labels. Reject identities. Reject conformity. Reject convention. Reject definitions. Reject names.

Rejecting labels has got nothing to do with undervaluing, imo. It adds value.

Norma Desmond · October 29, 2009

Phylo--

As I said in a different context above, nothing that I happen to exclude from what I say in a particular moment or with a particular descriptive word should be taken as an assertion of anything or a negation of something.

When someone says, "I am an artist," it seems you take that to mean "I am not an athlete." I will suggest that's your issue, not the label's. When a guy introduces me to his "wife," that provides some -- not ALL -- information. I assume she is more than an object in a marriage. When people ask what I do, as a routine matter of social interaction, I may say "I'm a typesetter" or "I'm a photographer" or both, depending on context. That provides some helpful information to start a ball rolling. As we get to know each other, a deeper understanding of the meaning of those terms unfolds. I understand, for example, what Patrick is talking about, and he's done so in not a routine manner at all. Nothing he said indicates to me he might not play a little football or even a little footsie now and then.

It's interesting that the artists and the buyers of cars don't seem interested in telling anyone else what to do, while the ones who are supposedly way too open and unrestricted to use labels are the ones telling others what to do: Steve tells us to just do our work with no labels. Rick tells us that no one (not just him, but no one) can pursue art or buy a car. And you tell us to reject labels.

To your list, I'd add, "reject assumptions." The assumption that someone else uses labels to restrict or limit themselves or anyone else is unfounded. I can accept that you won't introduce yourself as a photographer and I can sympathize with your feeling suffocated by the term and all that that means for you. Why can't you accept that others who are not you are happy to describe themselves with certain words, with meaning and depth and without any conception that that's ALL they are?

mizore · October 29, 2009

Fred, one of the interesting things about the cave art was other than learning slabs of slate, what was committed to the surface couldn't be edited other than by being defaced or painted over. Same with contemporary grafitti. Art as visible thinking mind.

I edit in the sense you're talking about; I suspect that most of the people on flickr choose images and don't upload them all.

One of the people who's a major player in SF fandom and who works as a professional editor says that writing is what we do, not who we are, and who we are is being part of SF World.

So, I don't agree with that; I see what you're talking about with the nouns not being who we are, but roles we play. But I'm a writer and s.f. is a form of writing, but I've also written poetry, and I've sold photographs to classmates when I was a college freshman, snap shots.

I don't think we can completely reject labels, but when not having a taste for a certain form or a certain person's work gets me accused of being a petty bourgeois (I wish -- these people don't know what a real petty bourgeois would be doing for a living) or if I like these other forms or work by these other people, I get accused of being pretentious.

I think if we're really doing work with intensity, whatever it is, we do best work for us, whether that's work that appeals to others or not

Academics argue over the issue of who defines taste. If we edit our work, we define taste, taste for us. I don't think that's the equivalent of canon creation, though.

I probably have those insecurities about the value of what I'm doing that you see in poets. Auden's lines about people who have no marked talent wanting to go into the arts haunt me.

But writing or photography makes me happier than anything else I've done, unless someone tries to direct the work along their interests. I also don't know if I should have done the boy hero, aliens, happy ending novels without complaining. Those were novels I had some nostalgic affection for but wasn't reading now and didn't care about now.

Don't know if photography has equivalent issues -- sounds less like it than writing.

I think we're creatures of social orders, but perhaps the wise step is to accept the order without buying into it as an ultimate truth and try to change the order as we can, with full realization that we might be mistaken.

Dunno. On one hand, it's irritating to have someone working in a book store answer the question, "Are you a clerk?" with a diatribe about how clerking was what he did, not who he was and stuff. I can agree with him, but I also want to buy a book without having a meaningful human to human relationship with him. I am, for that moment, a customer (this happened in one NYC bookstore).

I see self-editing as part of the process of making something or a set of somethings. The other kind of editing, the sort of thing people in the 19th and early 20th Century did with the cave paintings, is canon building, perhaps similar to the Japanese patron's selection of the best of the crafts works and elevating them to art.

The first editing is part of the making -- books, photographs, poetry. The second editing is no more likely to be useful than the first, as bounded by personal perceptions. The outside editor is not automatically more dispassionate than the person editing his or her own works.

In my experience, the best editor I ever had was another writer who ran a small press. The editors who'd never written fiction themselves varied all over the map.

This would be parallel to "the opinions that matter to me are those of other practioners" which I've heard in various forms in various artistic practices (your definition of art).

I think the idea would be doing things that work for the person doing them and the person doing the work getting self-promotional concepts out of the way while working. How to live with the work after it's done is another question. I don't often live up to this ideal.

mizore · October 29, 2009

There's a fine line between helping people understand something and telling them that liking X is wrong and liking Y is the right thing (and people get a lot of this in high school literature classes). I love certain poetry and don't care for other poetry. I can explain to my students how it works, but I really also tell them that the book is full of shit when it condemns reading for pleasure or makes that a lesser thing, because ultimately, we all read for pleasure, only our pleasures are different.

I had a student who hated poetry and we spent one class going at it, his objections, my attempts to answer those objections. After the class, he was terrified that I was going to grade him down because of that. I told him, oh, no, he was a wonderful foil for me. I wanted my students to think about poetry, not lie to me about how much they loved it while turning in plagarized papers (one student didn't believe I read the journals and complained bitterly about having to take the class, then turned in a very perceptive piece on Sylvia Plath that I found the source for in about a minute's Google, someone else's perceptions).

If we can't let people walk away from our lessons without feeling that it's their GPA if they don't lie about what they really like, then we're not helping them. O'Hara's comment is that if you don't need poetry, bully for you. The movies are great, too.

In the end, even with the best of teachers, we chose what we learn. I've seen the work of people who studied with Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Michael McClure, who wrote no differently than any number of other fairly derivative poets who hadn't had those opportunities.

I think one barrier to learning is thinking that certain things can only be done by people with innate talent. There's a lot in our culture to reinforce that, not just in the arts. What I want to learn more about now is the composition/visual perception side of photography. I was playing around with crops of last weekend's photographs and noticed that the emotional tone could change with the crop. Don't know what I'm going to do further with that.

Didn't appreciate being stuck on the other side of the barrier because I was writing s.f., but the poetry wasn't going away because I'd written some s.f.

fate_faith_change_chains · October 29, 2009

Fred, I just see no meaning, if not done in a conversation specifically concerning or leading to art ( which this of course is so here there is a real value to it ), to introduce oneself as an artist to me, if they also happen to think and probably are more then what that single label signifies. They also might be an athlete / carpenter /...for example but if they are not introducing or extending themselfes also as such then why would I assume. And even if they're not, and truly are only that what their introduction label signifies, an artist, a photographer, a carpenter,....there's always a relationship esthablished with an image, a presentation, more then with an individual. It's the way society works on the surface but the image doesn't tell me anything beyond the convention of that image, it doesn't expand, not for the carpenter nor for the artist. So the carpenter who's also an artist might as well be introduced as a carpenter, not ? If the carpenter label doesn't exclude that he or she might be an artist, like you say.

Rejecting labels like the artist label has got nothing to do with undervaluing that something, or the other thing that isn't labeled. What it does more to me is that it values or levels everything, and with it cancelling out assumptions, rather then establishing them.

To me it's not so much an issue but more a neutral observation concerning labels, which yes, are necessary to some extent. I have no problem with introducing myself as a photographer if someone asks what I do.

iliafarniev · October 29, 2009

Even they got you hanging on MAMA right now you still can't be whole sure it's art you deed coz it can be a practical jock they pull on you or a future generations will not get it or something. So lets keep this discussion going.

patrick j dempsey · October 29, 2009

I donno... labels and stereotypes perform a certain level of social value. There is a limited value to it of course... but a value none-the-less. It helps to provide a context for other things. For instance... a label can modify the similarly limited value of physical appearance. Someone looking at me might think I'm a bum or a drug addict or crazy. But when they find out I'm an artist, then my sloppy appearance becomes not only acceptable, but to some... a romantic ideal. Visions of the bohemian lifestyle come bubbling up in their brains. I'm not a bohemian... I don't have any of the privilege that affords that life... but I suppose it's better to be thought a bohemme than a bum. There is also the matter of the self prescribed label. Oh boy, the culture warriors love that one. I have a friend who goes to Punk shows, wears black leather with diaper pins, schoolgirl skirts, is pierced and tatoo'd, and dyes her hair and does it into a mohawk. But she claims shes not a Punk. And yet, that is what she advertises to every single person she meets. And despite her claims to not be a Punk, she pretty well much plays the part by rejecting authority and breaking things. So maybe she's not a Punk and maybe on a personal level she doesn't feel like a Punk, but for anyone outside of her circle, it's probably best that they assume she is. That way they can't get too mad if something gets stolen or broken or if a drunken fight breaks out.

Sure, it makes me upset when people use that awful word bohemme, or when they assume I have privilege or worse, that because I can draw that makes me automatically rich (what planet are these people FROM anyway?). But there are worse things someone could assume about you... and at least many people in our society admire artists... for some vague reasons I cannot understand, but they do. They are willing to excuse certain strange appearances and strange behaviors that would normally be unacceptable. So if being labeled "artist" gives me the license to be my weird SELF, then bring it on. If it gives people some romantic notion of me and my friends sipping wine and talking in riddles for fun, that's fine too. If people imagine that I sleep in a hammock in some 19th century house with other artists... well... to be fair, I have before, so whatever. If they assume I'm interested in New York City (still haven't figured that one out yet) then I guess that will just lead to a very short conversation. If this was Germany in 1936, then "artist" would be a dangerous label. Sure there are people today who hate artists... but those kinds of people generally don't like anything, so good luck getting on their A list.

Norma Desmond · October 29, 2009

Phylo--

I didn't take you as presenting the label thing as a neutral observation on your part. It felt like you were expressing a particular investment in telling others to reject labels and even in rejecting them yourself. I think that investment is worth looking at, especially because you resemble an artist to me. And I understand and never believed you were devaluing artists with what you were expressing. I knew it was simply a rejection of the label "artist."

Among gay friends particularly my own age, we often discuss and explore and are forced to look at our own internalized homophobia. Sure, we've got plenty of crap coming at us from the rest of the world . . . it blares from TV stations and think tanks all day long. Coming out decades ago was hard and some stuff is still hard. To an extent, though we rejected it at an early age, we all seem to have bought into some of the negative stereotypes of being gay. And there is a constant process of being OK with who we are. It may be more heightened with gay people because of the overt exterior hostility, but it's not like everyone doesn't go through some sort of coming out, especially in adolescence, and even in later years. And sure, "gay" and "artist" can be used as meaningless labels but they are also used quite meaningfully. "Gay" became a significant culture and a significant political and social movement. The label grew out of and helped form that. I'm proud to declare myself to be gay. And that doesn't mean I'm not also friend to straight folks, not also a son, an uncle, a brother, a photographer, and a philosopher. And it doesn't have to mean I love Judy Garland, though I do! (I've never done drag, though. I guess there's still time.) Sometimes "gay" is relevant and helpful to enunciate, sometimes it's out of place. Sometimes, I shutter at the thought that I found myself subtly hiding it in a particular situation. That's the internalized homophobia, which can sometimes be a protective mechanism and sometimes be quite helpful and wise in avoiding danger. In any case, the stereotypes, which almost seem inevitable, are constantly being used to empower us. Drag, for example, is the height of stereotyping and does give a lot of men power over that stereotype. Just look at Wanda Sykes's comedy routines sometime and watch her utilize and enjoy the stereotypes of "being black." She empowers herself and her audiences with it.

I relate this somewhat to calling myself an artist. There is some discomfort around it, since it's kind of a new part of me and an evolutionary process I'm going through. It's a sort of coming out. It's telling people I'm going to be showing them my photographs with the hopes of some emotional response and connection, something different from the kind of response they would give to my vacation pictures or family snaps. It's setting the stage for a more intimate look at objects I've created that I want to share with them. As Patrick says, it comes with romantic visions of bohemianism (something I doubt most people that know me will start to imagine for me), of non-practicality. It will likely explain some of my recent behaviors, even some passionate outbursts, obsessiveness, quirkiness. I don't feel myself using either label to gain anything. (Well, maybe that's not true. Maybe in some circles introducing myself as gay is more likely to land me a date. In some circles it will make me cool and trendy. In some, it might get me teased or even killed.) There are many side products of labels that are much more about human behavior than about the label. Sure, vapid uses of labels, labels used to stereotype or objectify, are not desirable to me. But the assertion of who I am is not a problem for me. And in some cases, one simple word captures a whole lot. My identity can be fluid, evolving, and multi-faceted. But I can also get a great amount of strength through the solidarity that certain cultural identities and ties can afford. Being gay and using that word to describe myself affords me a certain cultural community from which I get a lot and to which I give a lot. For me, it's more than who I sleep with, as it is for many men my age who went through the Stonewall riots and 15 years later were caring for fellow 30-year-olds who were dying of AIDS. Not to embrace that identity, even that simple single word, would feel false and limiting to me. I feel the same way about "photographer" and "artist."

Norma Desmond · October 29, 2009

I guess that should've been "shudder at the thought" . . . oops!

luis_g · October 29, 2009

[Rebecca B] " Who edits?"

Everyone edits. The problem with Flickr is...just now, I searched for "North Carolina". In the first five hits, there were single folders with 285, 225, 327, 604, 680+, and 1027 images in them. Yes, I know it's allowed , and that people are entitled to use up all the bandwidth they can afford, but it's not conducive to viewing or searching, because one has to wade through a lot of haystacks, never mind hay, for every needle. It has nothing whatsoever to do with affecting/controlling their taste.

_________________________________________________

Phylo, I agree with what Steve said, specially for Steve. What others choose to do is their business, no? Or do we all have to do the same thing?

Loved the (reminiscent of Mark "Rent-Boy" Renton's rant in Trainspotting) laundry list:

I'm not a photographer. I'm not an artist. I'm not the car I drive. I'm not the contents of my wallet. I'm not what's on my businesscard. I'm not a Taoist...

Reject labels. Reject identities. Reject conformity. Reject convention. Reject definitions. Reject names.

To which, in Phylo's own tradition, I would add:

Reject guys telling you what to reject (myself included).

And I'll resist (or is it reject?) the feeble non-temptation of asking you just what are you (What you eat? Reject food. The genes you inherited? Reject your body. ), because you'd be forced to respond in grunts, and mimesis doesn't really come across well outside of video on computers.

I'm a sociable creature, and on the continuum between the Faceless Collective and Ayn Rand, I would rather be a member of several tribes -- and myself -- than an Army of One.

____________________________________________

Where are all these hordes of tortured souls, agonizing about whether they're making art or not while photographing? AFAIK, they must exist, but in minute numbers because they're so hard to see.

Let's do see....I Googled "am I doing art?" and got 272,000 hits. Wow, seems like a lot, no? Until I did the same for "Pictures of me on the toilet" and got 535,000 hits, which doesn't really settle anything, but inflates the absurdity of the whole thing, which may be to the good.

___________________________________

[Cue the Twilight Zone theme:]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIFMkmhDY0

I'm off for a steamy short hike (with a P&S, forgive me, Lord) through a small coastal forest, then a short drive to meet with four friends (yes, artists) this evening at a cafe' that has the...shudder... Boheme word in it. I didn't choose it, either. Small world. Synchronicity? Bad odds? Am I another standing wave in the Gulag of Cliche's?

patrick j dempsey · October 29, 2009

I decided a long long time that people (especially artists) complaining about something being a cliche was itself just another silly cliche. People just take themselves and everything else way too seriously.

I used to be on a crusade to defame and hate on people who claimed to be artists who seemed to be more interested in attention or fame or money or status than actually creating something real. Now I just ignore them. No gallery shows, no art magazines. It's sorta like when I used to watch TV, the advertisements always made me mad. Now I just don't watch TV. Sure I'll watch a DVD of a show if people recommend it, but I'm not suffering through the BS just to get to the meat. That's one of the truly wonderful things about the internet. You can discover art and music and shows that are not part of the common collective that fit your personal expectations. You don't have to be constantly disappointed in commercialized work, because the internet gives us access to (virtually) everything. The record companies and movie distributors would like us to think that the internet is evil... but no, it's just giving us a choice, and it turns out that people are just really sick of bad movies and bad music (although bad movies still do end up making money for some reasons I cannot fathom).

I think Fred's lifestyle is another good example of that... even if you live in the smallest hick town, you can get online and meet with people and talk with people with ideas that fit your own. And that's not about cultivating pockets of yes-men... it's about knowing that you are not alone. Unfortunately that also includes the sickos and neo-nazis out there, but in a way I'm glad they are online too. Because personally, I'd rather be able to read my enemies' thoughts in his blog than live in dark ages of the unknown. That's the beauty of our society. Freedom of expression also means freedom to out yourself as an idiot.

fate_faith_change_chains · October 29, 2009

Luis, I was thinking more about Tyler Durden's words in Fight Club when I started the list of "I 'm not..." : ) Reject labels. Reject identities. Reject conformity. Reject convention. Reject definitions. Reject names. = more a little insight from taoism ( " he who can name the tao isn't following the true tao " ), then it is me telling others what to do. Yes, it was to vague from me to make that clear in simply ending my list with " I'm not a Taoist ". Of course truly rejecting labels would be in NOT saying " I'm not this or that " either. I would think rejecting labels and names/definitions in this light of spirit is affirming the mind and body without any conditioning, so the question to what one IS can come directly from this rejection.

Reject guys telling you what to reject (myself included).

</blockquote>

Yes, I agree. Krishnamurti style. Defining something as good makes it necessary to see the other thing as bad and reject it, but which isn't always to be true. Establishing an awareness of the way things are ( the mark of an artist ? ), of what one is, can come from recognizing the influence that labels, identities, definitions, names have on our conditioned minds.

Fred,

I didn't take you as presenting the label thing as a neutral observation on your part. It felt like you were expressing a particular investment in telling others to reject labels and even in rejecting them yourself. I think that investment is worth looking at, especially because you resemble an artist to me. And I understand and never believed you were devaluing artists with what you were expressing. I knew it was simply a rejection of the label "artist."

</blockquote>

Yes, I wasn't so much rejecting artists but more the label "artist", perhaps especially that label because I think art made wants and needs to go beyond most if not all labels, names, definitions. They don't hold the paint, ink or silver together, or the words in a poem, nor do they evoke the experience of art. Words are of course neccesary to communicate but when I say " I'm a scientist ", the word scientist becomes a label, differentiating me, as a scientist, from anything spiritual. Science doesn''t need to be afraid to recognize its search for the spiritual, as I think it's the inherent driving force of science. Likewise I think the driving force of art ( besides also the spiritual ) is mostly plain life, the non-artistic and somewhat the exact opposite of it. The word "artist" or "art" used as a label then and putting too much emphasis on it, disconnects it from the mostly non-artistic driving force or intention behind it.

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