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| Week Three (167 lbs) |
On Community (lets start the conversation)
Most of us in the Arts, as we mature, start to understand the importance of community. The question often comes up, how can we build community?To commune, to share, and in some ways to be an artist means to live in public. By "living in public" I mean the actual showing / sharing of our images, the sharing our ideas and dreams as well as being seen in public.
Artists in many ways are the mystic flames that attract the moths of our culture, or society. We don't give understanding or definition to life, we just express another point of view of life. Humans are curious by nature and are attracted to this viewing or experience of a different point of view. We are sometimes our own moths just as much as everyone elses...
In return for our sharing we gain the benefits of community. These benefits can be simply understanding, support, criticism, further sharing, sometimes rejection and if we are lucky a monetary return. This is the community, we as artist often crave. To achieve this we need to be living in public and create our light! Community is out reaching and sharing, not privacy and isolation. So maybe one of the hardest things for an artist to get over is their insistent need for privacy. Without the community aspect, art nor artist would survive and theoretically without art the community may not thrive. It is a two way street.
The artist owes it to his or her art to build and be a part of community; to share, to commune and live in the public. There is no greater legacy than an open minded community founded on art.
Historically, artists have communed in attempts to learn, exchange ideas and promote their work. In recent times, we've had the Harlem Renaissance that has been America's (and possibly the world) incubator for art in the 20th century. Harlem got people talking about art. Maybe the most famous environments existed in France at the house of Gertrude Stein. Her name and the word Salon have pretty much became interchangeable.
ReplyDeleteI was most entertained and educated by Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris. There, we got a possibly somewhat accurate portrayal where artists shared their creativity, stresses and fears with each other and the art community. I don't know if Hemingway actually had any fears, but we see them in the movie. We learn about artistic imagination and even perceived failures. An image that the salon strongly rebukes a painting, which many years later shows up in the Louvre as a priceless example of Picasso's best work???
One item that I noticed, which still pervades today is that most of the artist had an insecurity in the presentation of their work. The concept of productization, packaging, logistics and promotion is quite foreign to a group of people who spend the majority of their life and time on creativity, composition, form, shading, colors, building, testing and evaluating. These are activities that we do alone and reluctantly share due to our insecurities. Like most, I'm very comfortable with artists’ tools in my hand or in the warmth of my development environment. That is easy and fun. However, showing my work to reviewers, curators, publishers and critics is a much more discomforting environment. For various reason, most arts report that greater than 80% of their work or 80% of the time their work is rejected. No wonder we are reluctant to foray into this environment!
As difficult as our challenge becomes, I agree with Mr Snively that we must step into this harsh environment. For in the end, a good amount of "art" will arrive at a landfill area. When our art dies in a tragic manner, a good part of the artist dies with it. We need others to keep our work and ourselves alive.