Reviews
does art have the intrinsic power to heal us? or rather...are all artists bad before they become artists?
yes, yes, i know.....the snobbery that that exists betwixt the 'professionals' and those suffering from mental illness (art therapy) is clearly evident...but why I ask you?
surely, if we are all honest with ourselves, hasn't being artists helped us to avoid:
1)prison
2)the sanitorium(nuthouse((U.K.))
3)suicide
4)wallowing in our own little puddle of self pity
5)poverty
6)office jobs(links back to 2))
7)becoming stale, boring, subservient gits
8)outrageous drug abuse
etc etc
Personally, I'm intrigued......the world could implode any minute but there'd still be an artist there to document it! to either rationalise or irationalise it of course!
surely, if we are all honest with ourselves, hasn't being artists helped us to avoid:
1)prison
2)the sanitorium(nuthouse((U.K.))
3)suicide
4)wallowing in our own little puddle of self pity
5)poverty
6)office jobs(links back to 2))
7)becoming stale, boring, subservient gits
8)outrageous drug abuse
etc etc
Personally, I'm intrigued......the world could implode any minute but there'd still be an artist there to document it! to either rationalise or irationalise it of course!
Tags: anti, art, healing, holistic, recovery, reprobate, therapy
Replies to This Reviews
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Permalink Reply by mike hinc on -
Yes but I'm not convinced. Man, woman, person etc are just aspects of "being" and if we agree that being is a verb...
you can see where I'm going.
Can an adjective function as a noun? - "The silly dug a deeper" It sure don't work for me.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on -
I said I could get lost in an ontological discussion.
Of course, words can function in usage both as adjectives and nouns:
"a male person"
Admittedly, in this sample, one could have said "a male" and left it at that without tagging on "person" (one could not have said "a person" and had the phrase mean the same thing, but then there's always "a male attitude"...) People aren't always precise in their language, which in and of itself is interesting; usage of the word becomes relevant to whether the word is a noun or an adjective. What is a noun, btw? if "man" is merely an "aspect of being" Just a thing like a rock? A rock exist, so it "is"; why isn't that existence "an aspect of being"? "I think, therefore I am?" A rock doesn't think, therefore a rock isn't? So a rock is a noun, and a man isn't.
In that vein, do we necessarily agree on "being" as always being a verb? "To be" is almost always used as a verb; so it would seem is "is", "are" "was". "Being" could be used as in "a being", in which case "being" is being used as a noun. I know, one could define "a being" as "one who is", in which case, "is" is a verb, or is it? "Being" can also be used as a "state". I suspect you'll say in that case it remains a verb as the state describes the verb "to be", but not necessarily; what if the verb "to be" doesn't exist in language (a la Russian). Is it's implication in translation enough?
I am being a bit facetious (sp?), since I think of "being" and "to be" as verbs ;). But then, "the silly dug a deeper" ....
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on
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Let me try this a different way.
What is it that separates human genetic code from a chimp? Less than 1%? But that difference has an incredible impact; it's defining.
There's an adage, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." I think the question is where one draws the line of relevance, that which skews toward the change (our digital paradigm, for example, verses the industrial paradigm verse the agricultural paradigm of times past, for example) or that which skews toward sameness (we're born, eat, drink, ..., die). I find both relevant, and tend to shift back and forth in my emphasis; some artists are more rooted in one or the other.
"Paradigm" may not be the right word here, and we are in the middle of transition from industrial to digital in terms of paradigm, meaning world view, shifts, with carryovers. But hopefully, you understand what I mean.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on
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I don't disagree, Ekaterina. (Do you prefer Katerina?).
I am mindful that where we come from, etc., influences our perceptions, which in turn influences our thinking -- with exposure and effort, we can sometimes see beyond that which might frame our view, expanding our perceptual lens (or not).
It's the same with our physical structure. I am short. I don't know what it means not to have to climb on a shelf to reach the top item in a store (or ask someone to get it for me). I can imagine it, of course. I once rented a condo from a woman who was also short and who had had all the counters and cabinets custom made for her height, which as it turned out was the same as my height (4'10", by the way). What a change that was for me! It did away, for example, with a reluctance I had to make bread from scratch (not that everyone has to make bread from scratch). I hope you understand what I mean. I have an autistic relative. The simple fact is that he is hardwired differently. Among other things, he was hypersensitive to touch (imagine if a simple stroke of another person's hand hurt? Would you want to be touched or to touch?). Over time, with therapies, his sensitivities lessoned. He hugs a lot now, and is actually very social.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on
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Your history in a sense was the wiping out of your history, which perhaps had the effect of motivating you to care more about what it was? It could have had the opposite effect for some, caused them not to care about history/ancestry at all. What do you think?
I suspect no one wants everyone to be the same, except perhaps the people who design strip malls and those who like one size fits all. Nor will we end up there, as whatever differences exist, even if seemingly smaller after cross-overs between cultures, take on heightened importance. We seem to have a need to be both separated and assimilated.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on
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Yes, I can see that.
People lose their history other ways, too, beyond an orchestrated plan. Some give it up in favor of blending in more closely with their context. Others just lose it to circumstance and time; for example, I know the last name used by my father's Dad and Mother, but not beyond that. My Dad's father was killed when my Dad was four, and my Dad never knew his actual ancestral last name (it was changed when he came through Ellis Island on immigrating to the US, and he is listed under the new name in the Ellis Island manifest records). He might have kept on the knowledge of his real given name, but apparently, chose not to do so. I don't know how we would trace it now, with both grand-parents gone, and my father gone as well. I also don't know that it is that important to me to know, though I am curious.
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Permalink Reply by mike hinc on
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Deirdre
I understand what you mean but think we've explored and eroded the syntactical model to a point of manifest dysfunctionality - like trying to play Chinese music using western scales - it's just not going to work. Shame. Some language systems are just more complex than others.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre A. Fox on
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Thank you for the compliment on my thumbnail. At the moment, I seem to be obsessed with chairs, but that's another thread. I don't disagree about the benefits of knowing one's history, but one may need to accept that they won't know, in which case the absence of knowing is an aspect of one's personal history and informative.
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Permalink Reply by Noel Fignier on -
Passing by through all these discussions, I would like to leave a few words:
You speak much of "beauty" certainly not to say "spiritual in art".
For me, beauty cannot be defined in the current moment. What was ugly in the past is beautiful now. What is considered beauty now will maybe considered to be ugly tomorrow, and what is ugly today maybe will be ugly tomorrow. The important is not beauty but the subliminal part and balance within the unbalanced.This lets to art communicate a space without references which remains subliminal.
Have all a good week end
Noel
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on -
Thank you all for your support and words to keep me thinking. Noel, that is why, as referred to
by Carol Novack, I quoted from Wallace Stevens. His poem about finding beauty in putrification
in the dump is very interesting. "The Man on the Dump" . Also, he wrote a book of short
essays "The Necessary Angel". It was enlightening for me to see that we did not have to
reinvent the wheel. Also, Albee's plays are like that for me. Sumblime but serious.,
Separate from that....I of course was born in NYC and consider myself somewhat "international"
after having spent time living in Far East and traveling all over. But I am sure that my Jewish
superstitions and the Masonic traditions and the Christian Scientist elements of my great
grandparents have had some effect. However, that is also why university and education for me
helped me become even more ecumenical, and for my kids. I am inspired by Greeks the most
and opera stories, and anything that the world throws at me. I am old enough and weather
beatened enough that I can use the computer to verify almost any image or thought and stay
in Massachusetts with my paints. But I care about history and culture very much. I do see
much similarity in images of ancient Jewish and Greeks and Romans. And then we can look
to Asian and I suppose African etc. but I know less of these. All seem to relate to our world
and it's creatures living in harmony or explaining conflict.
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on
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"Beauty is fury" Krishnamurti
