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Sour Grapes make Good Whine
Jan. 16th, 2008 09:24 amI belong to a number of on-line groups through various means on the Internet. I have a number of interest groups that I belong to that reflect my various interests. I find it funny when it seems that the same complaint goes across several groups about the same time. And almost like clock-work there is that most deadly of discussions to which the flames seem to spring up from no where which is "What is Art?"
It started on a Science Fiction Art board that I belong to. There was some crabbing and whining about a juried book called Spectrum which is considered a good thing go get into if you want to do book covers since just about every art director has one. My work is not at a point that I think I would even be accepted to be juried but some day I would like to give it a shot. Anyway there are fees to even be considered and it is considered by some an exclusive club that doesn't let anyone in who isn't already part of the club.
And there is one individual who is, of course, above all this because they make art and the jury at Spectrum wouldn't know art if it showed up a the jury's door and hit the jury in the face with a pie. This person is a rabid digital artist who is always grousing about how digital art is treated by the art world. I have seen their art and most of it is derivative or just altered images of other works or those flipping avatars that everyone seems to copy. But they claim that they are the gawds' gift to digital art because they have worked so hard to learn how to use the tools well. Anything that they draw on their own is not very good to what were they thinking. If given any constructive criticism (and we are talking in the nicest way possible from some pretty well known people in that genre) they come up with at least 50 excuses of why they can't/won't change what/how they do something including a series of self diagnosed medical conditions. And this is the person that informed a very diverse group of artists that we don't know what art is. Which set off some people who I haven't ever seen get into the mix on the subject. Personally I steer clear of these since I know what I like and it might not be what you like and that's art.
About two days after the "what is art" brouhaha broke out in that group, much to my amazement an art vs. craft heated discussion broke out on both a doll group and my main puppetry group. The puppetry group moderator politely managed to put out the flames on the puppet board so only a few pieces of felt were thrown. That and one of our favorite puppeteers of the group ended up in a rather serious bike accident so our attention when to him, his wife, and his puppet troupe. I love that the moderator was able to point others to where this discussion had gone the last time it had come up. I also think we lost one of our know-it-alls who came to enlighten us poor shlubs that we are not advancing the field but making derivative works based on puppets that already existed. Not going to really miss them.
The doll group was talking about this rather interesting book that was published this year called "500 Handmade Dolls: Modern Explorations of the Human Form" which is a very interesting look at the evolution of the doll from doll to object d'art. And this lead to a lively but rational discussion about dolls as dolls vs. dolls as art. Until two individuals decided that we were missing the point and the book was bad because a number of items in it were not dolls to them so the title was wrong. Which lead to a heated discussion about what is a doll. This is a hot button issue with a number of folk in that group since their work has never been accepted (according to them) by the art world but it has been by the doll world. Personally I didn't know that the two were separate worlds. And then we got into the pattern vs. free hand fight that no one wins with the usual how much of a pattern can you alter before it becomes an original work which I swear some people trot out just to see how much of a blow-up they can get out of certain individuals.
So I am going to hunker down until this all blows over in a week or so. I do have opinions but am choosing not to express them because I really don't want to get into it with some of the people on the various boards because I know I am just going to be spinning my wheels and I have better things to discuss with the denizens of those groups.
I am grateful for reminders no matter how painful they are.
It started on a Science Fiction Art board that I belong to. There was some crabbing and whining about a juried book called Spectrum which is considered a good thing go get into if you want to do book covers since just about every art director has one. My work is not at a point that I think I would even be accepted to be juried but some day I would like to give it a shot. Anyway there are fees to even be considered and it is considered by some an exclusive club that doesn't let anyone in who isn't already part of the club.
And there is one individual who is, of course, above all this because they make art and the jury at Spectrum wouldn't know art if it showed up a the jury's door and hit the jury in the face with a pie. This person is a rabid digital artist who is always grousing about how digital art is treated by the art world. I have seen their art and most of it is derivative or just altered images of other works or those flipping avatars that everyone seems to copy. But they claim that they are the gawds' gift to digital art because they have worked so hard to learn how to use the tools well. Anything that they draw on their own is not very good to what were they thinking. If given any constructive criticism (and we are talking in the nicest way possible from some pretty well known people in that genre) they come up with at least 50 excuses of why they can't/won't change what/how they do something including a series of self diagnosed medical conditions. And this is the person that informed a very diverse group of artists that we don't know what art is. Which set off some people who I haven't ever seen get into the mix on the subject. Personally I steer clear of these since I know what I like and it might not be what you like and that's art.
About two days after the "what is art" brouhaha broke out in that group, much to my amazement an art vs. craft heated discussion broke out on both a doll group and my main puppetry group. The puppetry group moderator politely managed to put out the flames on the puppet board so only a few pieces of felt were thrown. That and one of our favorite puppeteers of the group ended up in a rather serious bike accident so our attention when to him, his wife, and his puppet troupe. I love that the moderator was able to point others to where this discussion had gone the last time it had come up. I also think we lost one of our know-it-alls who came to enlighten us poor shlubs that we are not advancing the field but making derivative works based on puppets that already existed. Not going to really miss them.
The doll group was talking about this rather interesting book that was published this year called "500 Handmade Dolls: Modern Explorations of the Human Form" which is a very interesting look at the evolution of the doll from doll to object d'art. And this lead to a lively but rational discussion about dolls as dolls vs. dolls as art. Until two individuals decided that we were missing the point and the book was bad because a number of items in it were not dolls to them so the title was wrong. Which lead to a heated discussion about what is a doll. This is a hot button issue with a number of folk in that group since their work has never been accepted (according to them) by the art world but it has been by the doll world. Personally I didn't know that the two were separate worlds. And then we got into the pattern vs. free hand fight that no one wins with the usual how much of a pattern can you alter before it becomes an original work which I swear some people trot out just to see how much of a blow-up they can get out of certain individuals.
So I am going to hunker down until this all blows over in a week or so. I do have opinions but am choosing not to express them because I really don't want to get into it with some of the people on the various boards because I know I am just going to be spinning my wheels and I have better things to discuss with the denizens of those groups.
I am grateful for reminders no matter how painful they are.
