Response to blog: Experience

This is a response to Gloria's blog. She asks does one really need a life-changing experience to figure out that nothing is as you thought? Can it not come by simply paying attention and learning?
Humans are complex beings, we see someone slip and fall in front of us, however we take the same path thinking that we are immune to the same fate. A person has the choice of paying attention and learning from their environment and the people around them, however humans have the "That can't happen to me attitude," or "How will I know if I don't try, everyone is different" complex. I feel though this isn't a bad thing because if you don't take risks and try things then you would end up no where in life and just living a life of regret and boredom, it can have a negative effect also. I do believe that life isn't the same for everyone, but with some things, obvious things I feel we should pay attention and not try to have a "Life changing experience" with certain things. However, pertaining to art I feel that if one artists paints something and it isn't deemed successful in the eyes of the public, that another artist should paint the same thing, because when this artist paints (and taking into consideration that no two art works are the same) he may be successful (or not). This also brings up wanting something so bad that you would do anything to get it. You see something and though it has been something that other people have tried to get but failed in getting, you yourself want to try, just for the fact of saying "I tried, I failed, but now I know." By trying something or going through something one gets an unspoken satisfaction and unspoken sense of ease because they aren't haunted by the thoughts of thinking maybe they could have succeed. Just sitting on the sidelines and watching gets a person nowhere. I think that from not learning from experience, is why we have so many successful artists today. That is why we have so many inventions and so many things available to us, because a person didn't just sit and say "Hey this couldn't happen so I won't even try." Even if hings didn't happen as they thought they tried and failed which makes room for more trial and error which will eventually lead to success.
While doing research for another class I came across the phrase, "Mother Natures Paintbrush." What do you think this means?

Art as undefinable

I must say that after reading Weiz I can be content with the rest of the theories we discuss in class. After reading his chapter, I now share his view about art theory. As stated before, I hated art theory because I always thought what gave someone the right to say if your work of art doesn't consist of this then it isn't a work of art. Theories that we visited before implied that art is only art when it had a particular component raised by the theorist, however what Weiz presents is the best argument yet. He basically implies that trying to define art through theory is pointless, and it is. He doesn't reject art theory all together but just puts out there that art is too broad to define. I will always hold my view that anything can be art. If the person who made it deems it as art then it is art. I feel the observer does play a role in it, but who cares how critical of the work of art they are, if the artist who made the piece is happy with it then they can label it any way they want to.

I am happy to have read the theory presented by wise, because it is something i truly believe. Art cannot be truly defined. Art I believe is art and can be found anywhere if we have the eye and heart to appreciate it. Instead of following this strict rubric (theory) of trying to say what art really is. As Weiz said, don't try to answer the question what is art, but answer what are the concepts of art.

With that said I turn to my question. Today we talked about Dewey and nature and animals being conscious in creating art. Do you believe that animals create art intentionally? For example when listening to a birds song are they conscious of the beauty of the sound they are given off? Is it really song or is it just them talking to each other?

Response to Blog- Art

In her blog Shelby posted Clive Bell writes that "A good critic may be able to make me see in a picture that had left me cold things that I had overlooked, till at last, receiving the emotion, I recognise it as a work of art. ...But it is useless for a critic to tell me that something is a work of art; he must make me feel it for myself" (119). Do you agree with this?

To be honest I do agree with this for a variety of reasons. The main reason being you can't tell a person to like something or how to feel about something and expect it to just happen. The person has to like it because they like and not because they are expected to. An example of this could take us back to childhood. As a child I am sure that your parents, primarily your mothers, expected you to eat vegetables. They expected you to like it and eat it all the time, hey they liked it, and it was good for you . Just because they liked it and expected us to like it doesn't mean we did, right? (We just pretended to eat it and chucked it off our plate when they weren't looking). For the sake of art, a person can point things out to me about that particular piece which I may have overlooked and then ALAS! I am aware of something that I wasn't aware of before and end up liking the work of art.
It is like enjoying poetry or an abstract movie for the first time, you don't understand the components of it and/or the purpose so you hate the piece presented before you. However, it isn't until someone who is knowledgeable of the work or who understands the work explains it to you pointing things out that your opinion may change(or it may not). A person wouldn't be effective in saying "like this movie, it is good and insightful or like the poem it is seriously profound." If I am not feeling these things, it cannot be forced on me. There is a difference between being helpful in pointing things out and being obnoxious in trying to force me to like something. With that said my question is, what is theory and why does it exist?

Art to Me

We have gone through all these theories and I never really gave thought as to what I personally think of art. I have given opinions here and there, but I was sitting here thinking about what I should talk about in this blog and I decided to write how art has affected my life.
I am not a big poetry writer (although I use to be) or a music writer ( although I have attempted) but art has been my escape every since I was little. Art has been a big part of my life, having a rough time growing up and an even harder time now, it has been my one of my many means of sanity. Whether it be listening to something on the radio, or reading an inspirational poem, or even looking at a funny picture, art has aided me through really bad times and good times too. I love art and the beauty that it posses and I say beauty because I do believe art is beautiful because of the power that it holds. The power that it has to aid in healing a broken heart or soothing a troubled mind is beautiful. I think the definitions of beauty that we have looked at before are too shallow. I am not talking about what is physically pleasing, I am talking about beauty that is deeper than that, an aesthetic beauty if that makes sense. A beauty that is indescribable based on what art can actually do and not what is seen. People say words are powerful, however I believe that art is powerful. Sometimes I believe art can create life and prevent a life from being destroyed. It is so funny, art is so important yet we take it for granted. We aren't conscious anymore as to just how great it is because we just encounter it everyday that until we really need it we are oblivious to its effect on us. So I want to know, seriously all theory aside, what is art to you?

Response to Blog- The Message

This is a response to Christine Pavo's question, Is it necessary for one to understand the message of artwork?. Though this may be a contrary belief to the theories of art we looked at (and the theories we are going to look at) I believe that all art does have a message, but it isn't one single message. I think the purpose of art is to communicate the feelings of an artist and generally when you are communicating you are trying to get something across (a certain message) even if it is on the non-verbal level.
I think the problem with many people is that they forget that not everyone is the same. Many of the theories we have looked at are very inclusive and objective, looking at art at this one thing that needs to convey this one thing!! This isn't so, nothing in life is like this, nothing in life portrays something that will be deemed the same to everyone. A work of art to person A conveys a total opposite message to person B. To me the chords in the song portray a sad melody and to you it may portray a sarcastically happy melody. One work of art - two different views. We get a message out of the song, but based on our experience, our mental and emotional state at the moment and recent events, the message is a totally different one. When we think about message I believe we can say that a message is just the understanding we get from observing something/ being told something etc. So it is impossible not to get a message from a work of art, however it isn't necessary to feel the same. :-)
My question is if art didn't exist, could life still go on?

Beauty

This word has been popping up in the majority of the chapters we have been reading, so I decided to think about this word a little more in depth. Beauty I feel is a word that has many definitions and can be used to described many different things. A sunset can be beautiful, a melody could be beautiful, we call people beautiful everyday, and whenever I bake or cook sometimes I feel the end result is "too beautiful to eat." Websters dictionary describes beauty as "the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit." This is the underlying universal foundation of beauty. What I mean by universal meaning is that we could all agree that when we find something beautiful as humans a particular emotion goes through us. No matter who we are, how old we are, what nationality, sex, orientation, religion, etc, when we find something that is pleasing to us or when something stirs our mind and spirit in pleasurable way we deem and label that thing as beautiful. The concept of beauty that is different is when we try to answer the question WHAT is beautiful and when we try to define in WHAT sense is something beautiful and HOW can we deem something as beautiful. That is when the topic of taste comes in and taste is the subject that differs from person to person. The sensation of beauty is inclusive, however the definition is exclusive from person to person.
I do believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that beauty is in the mind of the definer. Everyone has their own concept and characteristics for beauty. In Bells case he calls beauty "combination of lines and colors that provoke aesthetic emotion." In early times beauty was looked at as a pure spiritual thing. As time progresses beauty is becoming more objective and physiological. I don't think there should really be an argument as to what makes something beautiful or what doesn't because we all have our own individual concepts as to what makes things beautiful. There is no one truth to beauty, instead there are many. With that said, my question is why do we feel the need to place a label on art? Why not just let art exist and whatever people deem as art let it then be called art and what certain people don't deem as art then let not be art?

Response to Blog- Expression of Art

I am responding to Shelby's blog in which she asks would feelings perhaps be best expressed through both art and words?

Studying general semantics you learn of something called the structural differential, which is the way humans supposedly abstract information from the many things we experience. This process of abstraction is done on a non-verbal level and a verbal level. As we go down the structural differential the less things are being abstracted and more things are getting filtered out. For example, we experience pain on the non-verbal level and therefore when it comes time to get across how painful the pain was we could only do so much. We can describe the pain and compare it to something , but we can't get across the actual painfulness of the pain. Where am I going with this? Well, Art is a form of non-verbal communication and it exists (I believe) as a medium for artists to get across feelings that they can't get across on a verbal level. Have you ever had a situation where something happened to someone and just by their reaction alone you could feel exactly what they were feeling. For example, when you see someone laughing and happy you being all smiley and happy or when you see someone sad and crying inside your heart falls and you become sad. That is non-verbal communication. That is more effective than saying I am sad or I am happy. I feel like words are just there and don't get across the main point. Yea we need words for everyday life, but in order to express the unsaid we need art. I feel feelings are only best expressed through art/action. I can say I love you but my actions say otherwise. On the verbal level I can say I am disgusted with you and I hate you but on the non-verbal level my actions say otherwise. Art is a complex thing, however I do believe it is the best means in which we can communicate our feelings. With that said my question is, when viewing art does our current emotional/mental state have an impact on how we view a work of art and how we interpret it at a particular moment?

Judged

I must say that it is interesting how classes intertwine. I am taking advanced TV and production and we are suppose to read this book about developing story ideas. In this particular book it talks about art a lot (mainly because story telling is an art). In the book it states, "It [art] is a way to share with others the patterns, meanings, and simply what is. Art sets out to explain, question, or celebrate what we feel most deeply, what we yearn for or protest against, so that making it is rooted in our most abiding preoccupation. It moves from inside you outward toward the universal, and along the way you change and grow-which is about as therapeutic as it gets. The artistic process is about rejecting and improving what you're making until you feel like you have finally gotten to the real McCoy."

Reading this I found it actually summed up a bit what we have been talking in class. Art is, as we learned from Tolstoy, a form of communication. It is a form of showing what is from the eye/mind of the person creating a masterpiece. Art is about what is felt and whether we try to make a statement or even question the thing we are portraying. I feel like art is mostly a question though, especially modern art. It is a sort of "What if?" You know what if there were people that had one big nose and no eyes. What if boats flied in the air and planes sailed on water. What if there were no such things as words and only our bodily movements can do the communicating. I just feel art is a way (as stated above) to question what is.I also like from the statement above is that it alludes to the fact that art is a personal thing. It moves from the inside out and only the artist could perfect it until it only satisfied them. One thing that always pissed me off is when teachers told me what to right what not to write, how to write etc. My writing to me is MY WORK! I feel like I should express myself the way I feel necessary and deem fit. If it satisfies me then what does it matter if it doesn't satisfy anyone else. So that does bring me to my question. If art is a personal thing how can a grade or review be given about it? Basically, if art is something that reflects the artist why and how is it judged?