BruceJackson wrote:erikwinkler wrote:Rising above Mr Wilde's art snobbery, if a work is well conceived, well made and has any merit of any sort, then we can appreciate that. I don't mind if it sells a product or not, is derivative or original, is modern or historical in design. It's all good (or not) and says something about it's maker. It is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is.
I totally agree. The word art is soo misused since the invention of the paint tube, but that is just an opinion of an individual. My meaning of art goes back to the craftmanship of those geniuses who made life out of dead media like marble, pigments or wood. A Mona Lisa with a mustache in my opninion is not art, but a message. A sign nowadays is also often not more then a message. The signs placed here on the forum are works of craftmanship, but lack any depth in social meaning.
I remember clearly my thoughts when being aquinted with glass work here. Someone tipped me on the LHF site, I saw the gallery, thought: "Ok, well some nice designs". Then I saw Dave Smith soap glass panel and I freaked out. I searched for Dave Smith and found this forum, here I saw yet a few other treasures. Larry, Roderick, Rick Glawson and many others.
It was and is something else: It is a new media.
In western art history when we look at painters there were in generally two media:
1. Wood (often oak panels).
2. Canvas.
And suddenly a new world opened for me: Glass!!!
My personal believe in the word art has disapeared when people were throwing blobs of paint on the canvas and sell it as art for many millions.
I have a lust of craftsmanship but I hate to superficial word of signmaking which is my bread and butter.
In a sense the picturing of [ hanging on a cross in it self is a sign.
But somewere along the history there were painters who did more then just picting a scene of life. They depicted a story behind the scene.
That is were art became art in my opninion and that is also the genesis of the disapearance of art since it was the birth of conceptional art.
I also agree in what Larry says, but..... I think there is more for us here.
I think we have hit a third media to paint on. A world of new techniques that can and should be used to explore the bounderies of our being.
Of everything that is important in our modern day life. Let it be a copy of a brillo painting: why not make a picture behind glass of a bar of Bon Ami?
That idea has two sides:
1. Millions of people have used it in everyday life swithout thinknig about it, but has in some way enriched our lives (pop art).
2. The idea has allready been done Andy Warhol.
I know what I say does not make sense because I am contradicting myself with hating conceptional art and now propose to think in this way.
But somewere in the middle thereis a line which I am trying to find and when I come there I truly will do honour to the craftsman who invented these techniques.
Maybe I am trying to copy the Dutch painter Jan van Eyck....
He lived somewhere between 1390 and 1440. Although the paint medium of oil was allready invented in Italy, nobody still knew its potential.
Van Eyck digged deep in the medium and did things with it that were unheared of in those times: beautifull blending and glazing that was not possible with tempera (egg) medium.
Now I have found the techniques to use glass, now I want to enrich this mediato a higher level. And what is higher for me means something else for someone else.
Since I was on this forum this had been in my head. I thought about it ans expressed this in my signature:
Realizing we are in the 2nd renaissance of the arts.
Learn, copy and trying to improve...
Still in the learning phase
The idea is still there and I want to explore.....
Do you want to join me in this endeavour?
Now to the hospital for a shoulder operation and I am scared as #&^*$
.
Cheers,
Erik
Denver Chapter of the Letterheads