It's raining in Umbria. And that's the forecast for the next few days. How else does the grass stay so green and the flowers grow? From a selfish viewpoint, though, I'm from Vancouver and tired of all the rain I've already stored up inside me. Besides, my walking sticks slide on the rocks when it's raining. But it's silly to complain in paradiso.
Last night I went to Palazzo Morelli, now an art gallery in Todi to the opening night of a show of Jack Sal's artistic works. The artist was there, along with a considerable number of others. If you know Sal's work, his recent paintings offer quite a contrast with the building containing it. Quite a minimalist series of poplar panels geometrically designed with striped of medical tape and lines of pigment works was set on the walls of a this old renaissance-baroque palace. The contrast was delightful.
The artist, a poet who had collaborated with him on a well-wrought art book of drawings and ekphrasis (poetry about or stimulated by visual art) presented talks, as did others, including local artists who had gathered for the opening and refreshments. We spent considerable time listening to each other hold forth on "artists", what art "is", its value (commercial, cultural, aesthetic, and other meanings) and the problems art today faces. It's an old and continuing discussion. But it gets tiresome ... even in Italian (which I like to listen to but hardly understand).
The bottom line, for me, is that artists (self-defined) need to make art (however defined) and lovers of art, or even the timidly interested in it, need to support art in all the ways they can: go to see it, buy it if one can, rent or lend space for artists to work in and show their works, leave comments on artist sites, etcetera, etcetera, etc. I don't hold to any pre-ordained or politically correct "purpose" for art. I just know that art been part of human life and evolution since at least the earliest cave records of it. We need to make and interact with art to live meaningfully (no didactics here): to see our world and beyond it in all ways accessible to us. Artworks need to interact with people, or they become petrified. So what helps this to happen?
Talking about art in society tends to inflate to discussions of "big things". But acting on the fact that art matters usually happens on a smaller scale for most of us. Doing anything on a big scale, involving such things as changes in governmental policies, or corporate finances, or the wished-for big-daddy patron, is beyond what most of us can effectively manage to do. But what about working the small scale? I'm talking about local awareness, access, and support of varying kinds that a community can come up with: like one apartment building's worth of awareness/access/support for art and resident-artists; or cooperative sustenance within small communities? Maybe even the internet can be useful in this. Any such ideas you've seen in action?
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| San Fortunato Fresco, Todi |
The artist, a poet who had collaborated with him on a well-wrought art book of drawings and ekphrasis (poetry about or stimulated by visual art) presented talks, as did others, including local artists who had gathered for the opening and refreshments. We spent considerable time listening to each other hold forth on "artists", what art "is", its value (commercial, cultural, aesthetic, and other meanings) and the problems art today faces. It's an old and continuing discussion. But it gets tiresome ... even in Italian (which I like to listen to but hardly understand).
The bottom line, for me, is that artists (self-defined) need to make art (however defined) and lovers of art, or even the timidly interested in it, need to support art in all the ways they can: go to see it, buy it if one can, rent or lend space for artists to work in and show their works, leave comments on artist sites, etcetera, etcetera, etc. I don't hold to any pre-ordained or politically correct "purpose" for art. I just know that art been part of human life and evolution since at least the earliest cave records of it. We need to make and interact with art to live meaningfully (no didactics here): to see our world and beyond it in all ways accessible to us. Artworks need to interact with people, or they become petrified. So what helps this to happen?
Talking about art in society tends to inflate to discussions of "big things". But acting on the fact that art matters usually happens on a smaller scale for most of us. Doing anything on a big scale, involving such things as changes in governmental policies, or corporate finances, or the wished-for big-daddy patron, is beyond what most of us can effectively manage to do. But what about working the small scale? I'm talking about local awareness, access, and support of varying kinds that a community can come up with: like one apartment building's worth of awareness/access/support for art and resident-artists; or cooperative sustenance within small communities? Maybe even the internet can be useful in this. Any such ideas you've seen in action?
