People believe that they are supposed to "get" something from abstract art; some "great" or "intellectual" response; and they understand that they, themselves, are probably not "intellectual" in that way and so.. what good, what point, is non-representative art to them?
Admittedly, artists did resort to intellectual tomfoolery originally to justify their fascination with more primary and fundamental underlying elements of composition when they moved away from representation in the 19th century.
The best way of explaining that love for those elements is simply to recall our childhoods.
Many people had a box of "treasures' they would on occasion take out and arrange on their bedspread... it would be filled with articles expressing color and texture line and form... ribbons, eggshells, seashells, wire, coins, bones, broken glass or pottery, old photographs, things with patterns and refraction.
The bedspread was "the support" and the bits of rural and urban detritus were the elements of an endless series of "compositions" produced using exactly the same mental processes as every non-representational artist who ever lived used.
Some of us traded the box for a closet and getting dressed in the morning or for some event or going shopping becomes an adventure in non-representational composition.
Some of us collect or curate... same thing.
Now I am not saying that intellectualism has no place in all of this just that it is just not THE single necessary element.
Arrange the elements you love in a pleasing way and with as much depth or refinement of appreciation as you can muster. That's about it. Maybe you are not an artist or professional, but so what? You stand on the threshold and look in.
Don't let the self-importance felt by some professional artists destroy or devalue your experience; it is valid. and it represents a fundamental approach to any depth or refinement in the appreciation of ALL visual art.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
A forum just for art teachers
I'm LOOKING for an active art teacher forum today
Lacking that I offer the WetCanvas Teacher's Toolbox..
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=29
...as a place to try.
Not very active right now, but more participants could remedy that!
Sign up for free and post your little hearts out!
Lacking that I offer the WetCanvas Teacher's Toolbox..
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=29
...as a place to try.
Not very active right now, but more participants could remedy that!
Sign up for free and post your little hearts out!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Humanity
You don't "do good", at least you don't accomplish much good, just sharpening a pencil stub.
Every so often you need to rethink the system... is charcoal on mammoth skin going to continue to cut it when you have an archive of rat-infested rotting skin?
One of humanities biggest problems is focus. I have a focal disorder so I am ALWAYS re-examining everything to do with perception. We have aphorisms like "don't sweat the small stuff" because that is something humans do often and well. We are overly concerned with the baby in the bathwater. There is still no point in keeping dirty water. Dump the Junk. Keep the baby.
Do-gooders face a mountain of issues that need fixing and almost all of them go to the pointy end of the stick to affect change. There are a million ten million changes needed. If they reviewed the system people could have computers and word processors in their houses...which is not to say that solves every problem or that THAT system does ot need to be re-examined again at a broader scale.
The Luddites have the easiest solution bar-none love and support the devils you know.
Luddites should have a place in society and be preserved in their ways where ever that prefer in thei universe of amber.
what is needed is Humanity 3.0. Its more than economy but that's as far as I got
Economies:
Humanity 1.0
Humanity 2.0
Humanity 3.0
Remember, we have Luddites for whom agrarian or mercantilist lifestyles appear preferable. The past is not erased; it just is abandoned mostly in the next Kludge iteration.
Every so often you need to rethink the system... is charcoal on mammoth skin going to continue to cut it when you have an archive of rat-infested rotting skin?
One of humanities biggest problems is focus. I have a focal disorder so I am ALWAYS re-examining everything to do with perception. We have aphorisms like "don't sweat the small stuff" because that is something humans do often and well. We are overly concerned with the baby in the bathwater. There is still no point in keeping dirty water. Dump the Junk. Keep the baby.
Do-gooders face a mountain of issues that need fixing and almost all of them go to the pointy end of the stick to affect change. There are a million ten million changes needed. If they reviewed the system people could have computers and word processors in their houses...which is not to say that solves every problem or that THAT system does ot need to be re-examined again at a broader scale.
The Luddites have the easiest solution bar-none love and support the devils you know.
Luddites should have a place in society and be preserved in their ways where ever that prefer in thei universe of amber.
what is needed is Humanity 3.0. Its more than economy but that's as far as I got
Economies:
Humanity 1.0
- subsistence
- agriculture-based
Humanity 2.0
- consumer/mercantilist
- consumer/industrial
- consumer/service
Humanity 3.0
- integrative
- knowledge-based
Remember, we have Luddites for whom agrarian or mercantilist lifestyles appear preferable. The past is not erased; it just is abandoned mostly in the next Kludge iteration.
Friday, July 15, 2011
I am being mined... So how do I reduce miner errors?
Or for that matter, Minor errors!
I certainly want more than just the Big Boys having a dossier on me. Why shouldn't YOU? If you have a service or product that suits my needs to a "T" why shouldn't we know about each other?
Why can't I click a colorful button on my browser to highlight the nugget that would make my day if someone knew wanted it. or even my favorite colors, textures, and finished. (If I lived in Japan I could get a cell phone in a genuine wood case and probably a notebook or pad to go along with it. Why do I have to do the work of finding something AND selling it to me? But who knows what I lust after?)
In the profession of libraries the saying goes: to every reader a book, and for every book a reader. I can see no reason it shouldn't be that way for consumers and business people.
I need someone out there to build a profitable site where I can register my consumer profile(s) for the small business man to mine.
FindLaw KnowledgeBase said:
Have you noticed ads showing up alongside search results that seem to be reading your mind? Every time you are online, your search history is being tracked by your internet browser. This information is compiled and used to connect you with ads that are targeted toward your search habits. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, these targeted advertisements account for over $300 billion worth of purchases.And that is, I suspect, just small potatoes. Maybe the miners read your mind superbly. I'm skeptical. I want more.
I certainly want more than just the Big Boys having a dossier on me. Why shouldn't YOU? If you have a service or product that suits my needs to a "T" why shouldn't we know about each other?
Why can't I click a colorful button on my browser to highlight the nugget that would make my day if someone knew wanted it. or even my favorite colors, textures, and finished. (If I lived in Japan I could get a cell phone in a genuine wood case and probably a notebook or pad to go along with it. Why do I have to do the work of finding something AND selling it to me? But who knows what I lust after?)
In the profession of libraries the saying goes: to every reader a book, and for every book a reader. I can see no reason it shouldn't be that way for consumers and business people.
I need someone out there to build a profitable site where I can register my consumer profile(s) for the small business man to mine.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
HELLO WORLD!
OK here is my first post.
On this site I intend to offer challenges and assignments. I am a designer and an artist but I can't manage to do EVERYTHING all the time. I believe we can all help each other. I know things you do not and I expect that goes both ways. I hope to learn from you. I hope my observations and challenges can help you. Here's today's:
Today we all have a digital footprint, a social network, personal branding and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Maybe we have a twitter account and a face book account, an couple of profile pages like About. me or Google profile or linked in.
What I want to know is how to manage it all? If I have a digital brand then trade-dress or appearance becomes important. A professional appearance demands a little consistency in terms of packaging. I have started an handful of sites now but they are all uncoordinated,. they all look different!
It seem like one of the first things of the many I need to do is to tell the world who I am and my appearance is a major part of that. I should think it would be obvious that I would not want a single template to make all my pages everywhere look exactly the same even if it were possible. Bur it seems to me that I would like to manage to come up with similar text and color appearances at very least some graphic that functions as a logo and something that ties the navigation of the linked sites that make up my footprint to help navigation be as accessible as possible.
In coming days I will let you see my footprint and maybe you can suggest something that will help me tie them together.
I expect this page to change and evolve a great deal too.
Thank you for finding this post.
On this site I intend to offer challenges and assignments. I am a designer and an artist but I can't manage to do EVERYTHING all the time. I believe we can all help each other. I know things you do not and I expect that goes both ways. I hope to learn from you. I hope my observations and challenges can help you. Here's today's:
Today we all have a digital footprint, a social network, personal branding and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Maybe we have a twitter account and a face book account, an couple of profile pages like About. me or Google profile or linked in.
What I want to know is how to manage it all? If I have a digital brand then trade-dress or appearance becomes important. A professional appearance demands a little consistency in terms of packaging. I have started an handful of sites now but they are all uncoordinated,. they all look different!
It seem like one of the first things of the many I need to do is to tell the world who I am and my appearance is a major part of that. I should think it would be obvious that I would not want a single template to make all my pages everywhere look exactly the same even if it were possible. Bur it seems to me that I would like to manage to come up with similar text and color appearances at very least some graphic that functions as a logo and something that ties the navigation of the linked sites that make up my footprint to help navigation be as accessible as possible.
In coming days I will let you see my footprint and maybe you can suggest something that will help me tie them together.
I expect this page to change and evolve a great deal too.
Thank you for finding this post.
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