Art

[sartorias]

I have been up in the redwoods for a week--nature's art. I'd post a picture but they are all turning sideways and as yet I don't know how to fix that. My hosts, Deborah J. Ross and my long-time best friend Dave Trowbridge and I have had an excellent time, talking writing, going out for walks, and when we want to, each retiring to a room to write.

Comments

[msisolak]

The redwoods--particularly that section--are tranquil and lovely, and conducive to writing. I hope the trip home is equally peaceful!

[sartorias]

Thanks! It was! (Sorry to be back to t-shirt weather, sigh)

[serialbabbler]

Heh heh. It's folk art when it's made by people like me whose names nobody can be bothered to remember. It's art art when you can get a million dollars for a good forgery.

[serialbabbler]

Or, to clarify, "folk art" versus "art art" is about who makes the art. (Poor or working class people, aboriginals, mentally ill people, often women, sometimes children unless they're trying to convince you that the kid is an art genius, etcetera, are the ones who make "folk art", of course.) "High brow, middle brow, low brow" is about who buys or enjoys the art. Neither one really has much to do with the art itself or even how much the art might sell for to a particular collector. It's about which people we consider valuable within society.

[sartorias]

Excellent observations.

[whswhs]

It seems to me that at least in the United States, there's a third category: commercial art. It doesn't get the respect that would be due to fine art (what you call "art art"), but it's also not the product of the poor or other outsiders. Mainstream comics, mass market fiction, blockbuster films, pop music (the kind of thing the punks were reacting against, for example)-and I assume certain forms of pictorial and plastic art, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to cite specific examples. But their makers seem to be a third group.

[deborahjross]

What a delight it was to host you -- and to watch you and davetrow go at it with Exordium!

Have a safe trip home!

[sartorias]

Thank you for being such wonderful hosts!

[asakiyume]

Sounds like a lovely week; have a pleasant journey home!

[sartorias]

Thanks!

[cmcmck]

When does it become art?

Interesting question. I guess I count as 'ordinary folks' as I was brung up in a prefab on a council estate where there wasn't a lot of art as the highbrow might recognise it.

Then I learned how to make poetry and how to write and play music on various instruments and how to sing, dance and act.

These days, we have a bit of original art- some paintings and etchings and a few pieces of one off pottery and jewellery but all obtained because we like them, not because they're worth much.

Folk art is art- often the finest art.

You do realise that this here is well worth an extended discussion? :o)

[sartorias]

I was hoping there would be a discussion!