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 -
Patricia
You say artists are "as radars that detect" and you are not alone. The American poet
Ezra Pound - said that artists were "the antennae of the race" both in the sense of an insect's mandible's feeling out the future for the body of humanity and in the sense of a radio receiving antennae collecting messages from the past, the future, the collective consciousness and maybe even other stars.
I like to think the artist can be all these things - but do not believe that makes the artist either inherently "good" or better than the remainder of humanity. Many are scum, many have criminal records and artists in general are not necessarily "nice" people. Why should they be any different from anyone else? I wouldn't expect an artist to "heal" any more than I would expect my doctor to toss off a sonnet or a landscape in oils. Art may very well be a "good thing" but it has its limitations.
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Permalink Reply by Patricia Fernández Miranda (Pafermi) on -
Mike, guilty translator (this apparent brain) if I don't understand your words. Being an artist doesn't mean perfection, unique and unrepeatable entity, is a human being with doubts, fears, wounds. But I think if they have an intrinsic quality: See what others do not see, your work is an example of that.
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on -
I am not sure if I could talk for any artist other than myself. Since childhood I was scolded for
being a "vilde chai", a wild child, nonconformist but with recognized talent in creative areas.
I was encouraged and discouraged and chastised and molded by the school and the family.
My daughters had the benefits of different parents,and more enlightened teachers but were still saddled with same presience,sensitivity and challenges. One was an early musician and artist
but now acts. The other one was gifted in all areas but died at 19 years old from Hodgkins Disease. In the long run I have wondered if anything matters but my other daughter and I
are still here making sense of life through our arts. I paint. I write. She writes and acts.
Music heals me. Art impales. I work at my art as if it were a full time job. I had other options
and did not have to do this but always have done it as it followed me through life and grew
until I could not ignore it and took it up. Some artists find themselves. Some lose themselves.
Some surrender and some escape. I look back and try to go forward in life and in art. Personalities and temperments vary from one artist to another and how much is environment and how much is cognition? How much is training and how much is attitude. It is such a big,
vast subject fraught with politics,theories,science,aesthetics. I just do.
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on
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Thanks,Mike. I have been a "witness" but just not so involved in writing lately. I did some
updates on my amycohenbanker.com website and started to get involved in multimedia,
as in Chelsea Art Museum,Hermitage, Sonic Self project. Somehow just taking care of
loose ends has been occupying me. I did one large commission as part of a trade for an
art deco baby grand piano and otherwise not too much until Spring. Eveline Luppi Gallery
and Janos Gat Gallery in Rhode Island and Manhattan are still showing my work. In Spring
and Summer I will exhibit with Sanford Smith Fine Art,Great Barrington,MA. Otherwise,
I am just trying to organize and go forward. Ogan Gurel,facebook and Linked In, has used
about 30 of my paintings as illustrations as a book. Larissa Schmallo has used one for a book.
I also had a show of photographs and drawings in Beijing,China with AIM.
cover. - Attachments
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idea2.jpg, 1.9 MB
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Permalink Reply by mike hinc on
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Amy - you put me to shame - what can I say - I can't get arrested. Well done!!!
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Permalink Reply by Amy Cohen Banker on
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Yeah, well, I try to stay "under the radar" as far as getting arrested. Traffic cops are my
nemesis. But as far as art, maybe that is why I am taking some time to do new works for
winter. I have lost painting inspiration temporarily but need to go back to the well.
I have been just reviewing books,music,socializing and trying to stay in good health. tonight
I just found out, I am attending a Museum of Modern Art Black Tie Opening as a guest. Tell
you more tomorrow!
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Permalink Reply by Charles Olsen on -
which reminds me I still owe my landlord a painting in lieu of one month's rent from a couple of years ago when I was out of pocket... still am... maybe I should keep quiet...
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Permalink Reply by Samuel Durkin on -
Art is an expression of myself, and not something that saves me from anything at all.
