Stuff that I wrote

[evil_underlord]

I realise that I spend an awful lot of the meagre amount of time that I do spend posting on Livejournal basically laying into books that have annoyed me and writers that I think come up short. I am also aware that it is easy to be a critic when you have never made anything yourself, and possibly even easier to be a critic when you are a frustrated

Comments

[egghunter]

I also do not subscribe to the view that art...

Interesting. Impulsively, I'd want to say that I agree, but as ideals unfortunately are not very well reflected in this world, it becomes a very relative matter, which in the end still ends up in the eye of the beholder: Who decides what's good art and what's bad? I still see wonderful artists consistently getting rejected whilst crap still sells, and the creators makes shitloads of money. Now money is not the issue, and this may sound like a diversion to what you really meant, but as you say good art is important to the world, that good art need to be seen, or for that matter heard.

Just because you have something to say doesn't meant that you need to be heard. Also true. At least to a certain degree, thus I point back to the comments on good art. As far as I am concerned, few people find the good stuff, as the good stuff is mostly hiding. The good stuff (sorry for repeating) does not feel it needs to be heard (Iä! to that) , but in order to convince, convert and conquer, it needs

[evil_underlord]

Hi, no need to worry about intruding. As a sort of incomplete answer to your points - I agree that there is a relativistic element to the question of good and bad in art but I don't think that that changes my position. The fact that good art often doesn't make money or get heard is part of what makes art hard - and yes, also forces artists to get better. However, good art has at least justified itself, necessarily so because that justification (whatever it is and however it is manifested within the mind of the consumer) will be what makes it good. Bad art can also sometimes justify itself, too but the point is that that justification is based on what it does, not merely its existence as art. Commercial success can be one of those justifications too...

I hope I have made some sense there, and not just muddied the waters maore. On a side note - did you come to the Underfire table at Bristol this year? You won't find much about Underfire on LJ as it is, I'm the only one of us who's on here - and even I dont post very regularly.

[egghunter]

Ok, cool! :)
Yeah I could have written a whole lot more too, but stopped myself at the "essay" alert. I think we basically share the same view, although we might look at it from different angles.

Trying to be...hell no, being an artist, is something I find more and more complex the further I got involved, and the further I evolve(d), the more I realize(d) how hard art really is. Especially if you're not in it just to please the masses, which isn't the case for any true artist, I'd like to believe. ... I will not rant on too much about this, but one main reason why my mind at all wanders this way is simply that it is so much ...crap out there, wasting space

[evil_underlord]

Cool, I thought it might be you. I was one of the guys who you talked to - the long haired one. I've still got your portfolio and Bob, the other guy who you talked to, was going to get in touch with you sooner or later when he has his plans a bit more in place. You might realize that we're rather slow moving... Thanks for the heads up on the Website too - I didn't realise that was down so I'll have to look into it. That is pretty much it as far as our web presence goes.

[egghunter]

Oh, so Bob was the other guy? Cool, now I know who's who (didn't get your names in Bristol). Bob actually wrote to me the other day and I sent him some new drawings (actually better than my portfolio ones) which he seemed to like. I had intended to send you guys a mail or something, a few weeks after returning to Sweden as a reminder, but I managed to forget it :/. Moving slow is fine by me: That means a lot less stress. Yeah, the website have been down for some days now. I hope you'll manage to fix it!