Art Gifts

I'm going to a wedding next week end and I've put together this little collage as a gift for the couple- two professional people bracketing 40 yrs. old. In other words, they really do not need sheets and a toaster.

But now I'm mucking around in the question of "the gift of art" - a subject that has wavered in and off my life screen for years now. Here are random thoughts:

Once, a very dear friend and talented artist offered to give me pieces of her work to pass along to my children who were just setting up households. I said "no thanks" thinking about the uncontrolled dogs, the scant housekeeping skills and general chaos that my daughters lived amongst. Art sculpture didn't stand a chance! But my friend looked like I had punched her in the face and I felt awful - still do! - and wonder how I might have handled that more diplomatically.

I know an artist who continuously complains how everybody takes advantage of her and her "generous nature." "Every time any organization wants to raise money, they hold an auction and want free art to sell. What do I get out of this? This is my life's work. They don't ask doctors for free services, do they?"

Well, yes, in fact they do. Visit the St. Joseph's Neighborhood Clinic entirely staffed by volunteer doctors, nurses and dentists. And not all retired either! Somehow they make time to spend a few hours a week with the poor and uninsured. For years, an accountant in town kept a few artists as clients without ever charging them for his time and a Park Avenue chef fed a local painter for years when he was "between commissions."

For mind-blowing altruism, I know two artists eligible for social security incomes who still do not collect because, they answer, "I don't need the money and if I take it, maybe the government will run out of money faster and people who truly depend on that to live will be forced to do without." They restore my faith with their generous spirit - even if it's misplaced.

So I'm back where I started with the question of the gift of art. I guess I come down to this: why not? who cares? Go wait tables or teach a class if you need to earn a living but spread the art EVERYWHERE BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE. (And I hope the couple likes my collage but if they don't, I'll get over it.)

Graffiti, Art or Vandalism?

I admit it: I am in a conundrum about graffiti. The show at Rochester Contemporary Art Center includes real-life graffiti painted directly on the walls by one of Rochester's noted tag teams. The art reviewer in City Newspaper writes blisteringly about those who don't understand how inspired this work is (that would be me) and how narrow the perspective of all who don't embrace the legitimacy of this work (me again).

Please don't misunderstand. I've seen some enchanting paintings on the most unlikely surfaces and in fact, I'm fully aware that when some of these pieces are translated onto canvas, their creators have become A-one, big-time, money-making art superstars. And you can ask an obvious question: if the Berlin Wall had NOT been covered by layers of scrawling spray paint - if instead it had remained pristinely clean gray concrete - would chunks now be ensconced in galleries, museums and Bausch & Lombs lobby?

However, I spent years studying urban sociology and repeatedly, scientists found that the harbinger of urban neighborhood decay came with small visual clues - among them, "tags." (I can find sources and quotes upon request.) And caring neighbors were NOT excited to see spray painted art springing up on decaying walls. (You may rightly ask which comes first: decaying or spray painted walls? I would answer they are interlocked - a bit like poverty and poor schools.)

So what separates spray paint art from mere property defacement? Perhaps it's size. Someone said that one pink flamingo on a lawn is tacky but 100 is an art installation. Is it the same with graffiti? If an entire building - or wall - or train - is covered, does that transcend anti-social behavior and become "art"? Or does intent of the creator make the difference? In other words, are you a kid running around spraying "fuck you" on every bridge in town or are you attempting to comment on social class, injustice or the state of contemporary art itself? Is the painter a folk artist or a delinquent?

These are questions that get answered too suavely by art insiders and that may be a big reason why so many "regular people" have no use for us/them.

Outdoor Art Shows

I walked through the outdoor art sale at Sonnenberg Gardens in Canandaiqua this morning. This must be year #5 for that show? It's gotten a little bigger but I'm not so sure the quality has kept up. Several decent crafters were there. About seventy percent of the show was photography (now that everybody has a color computer, images can be made quick, cheap and with as many copies as anybody could want. One result: photographers have become big-time greeting card makers.) But very few painters rose to take the bait. I guess it's hard to compete with the photographer/greeting card czars.

When I first started as a crafter doing outdoor art shows, most of us loaded our wares inside the family station wagon, tied some wonky make-shift shelving on top, pushed the kids into the back seat with lunch and off we went. I didn't see any little kids tied to "Mom, the artist" this morning. Come to think of it, most of the exhibitors were "mature." Nor did I see a single station wagon! The exhibitor's parking spaces were filled with vans or variations and every "set up" seemed ordered from the same catalog - pristine white complete with water proof roofs and roll-down side shields.

It would be easy to romanticize those early days and certainly I met some interesting people - some that remain friends nearly thirty years later. But it was hard work. Never mind making the stuff to show and sell. Packing it up was a nightmare, setting it all up in some farmer's field, nightmare, second act. Then there was weather. Cold or hot could be dealt with but rain and wind was something else again. The sound of crashing glass or pottery sent us all to the church altar: "Please God, don't let that happen to me!"

Then came the hours of sitting (or standing) and meeting the public, smiling, chatting - tap dancing to make the sale. Shoppers seemed to fit in one of three clumps. Members in one club wanted to be your very best friend. They talked about seeing you "when..." , loved, loved, loved all the new work, and needed you the artist to recognize their status in the public forum among all who were around to witness.

Then there always were a parade of people just walking through - rarely looking right or left nor slowing down to actually see any of the art work. Couldn't you and I think of a million other ways to spend Saturday afternoon? Maybe they just liked the smell of the hot dogs.

The group I personally disliked most were those that always knew how to do what you did - only better. And they never missed the opportunity to stop and explain to anybody around them why your work just wasn't any good. You,the artist, might just as well be invisible and you knew these people made every shop keeper crazy. They were the kind that probably bought the shoes, wore them three times and returned them for full refund.

I suspect nothing has changed drastically. Those artists this morning still tried to smile, be cheerful, start small talk even though I barely slowed down to see their artwork. And even with a fancy booth, I suspect they are all home tonight, tired as dirt and talking about the day's shoppers.

Finger Lakes Exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, 2009

If ever an art show was bone crushingly boring, it is this year's Finger Lakes Exhibition at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY, my home town, and I fear I am partly to blame. I have nothing whatsoever to do with the current art scene - here, there or anywhere! But I DID and during the 1980s when I ran an art gallery and the 1990s when I wrote art criticism, I fought the battle for ART - capital letters. It looks to me a little like those aesthetes - me among them - won the war but lost the spirit along the way.

I remember one of the first Finger Lakes exhibits I ever saw in the early 1970s. The gallery bulged with the most remarkable collection of - EVERYTHING! Amazingly quilted and hand dyed jackets hung next to water color flowers that nearly knocked you off your feet, so real and detailed that they emitted flower smell. Furniture like I'd never seen before (nor had anybody else! Wendell Castle was still mostly unknown.) elbowed it's way into space between metal sculpture and lord almighty! the ceramics!
About a million prizes were awarded, a special one for ceramics, I think another for wood working, another for photography. Go down the media list then throw in some all-purpose, non-gender awards and you get the idea. It was a visual free-for-all and what fun it was. I was overwhelmed and in love and that experience helped shape how I would spend my adult life.

Then "we" started defining "art vs. craft" and "real art vs. hobbies" and so it went until we honed and polished our way to the level of sophistication I see now, a tiny collection of mediocre stuff that would never inspire anybody to do anything! I've written before that any judged show is merely a mirror of the taste of the judging team, yadda, yadda,yadda. And certainly, it would do none of us any good to see the gallery packed with junk - painted ducks et.al. But really folks, when you have somewhere over 500 artists entering the exhibit and only about 3 dozen accepted, exactly what are we out to prove?