Steve writes: Still, this feels like a different attitude than I thought you had. Has your thinking evolved, or are these just two different aspects being emphasized in different places?

“Art is a Verb” was written some years ago now. Probably the only way to have my thinking on any subject not evolve over that length of time would be for me to be dead. So, yes, my thinking has surely evolved. But I suspect it’s more that I see these as two different aspects being emphasized in different places, or perhaps with a different spin.

I certainly see your point about ‘inward’ directed and ‘outward’ directed as you’ve expressed it, but frankly I don’t see it breaking down that way. “Art is a Verb” was just a statement about how we (as individual artists) can improve, and on how I think that art should not be a spectator sport. I don’t see that as commenting on the social function of art at all.

The Orland quote, however, is talking about the role of art in our society.

For a single artist (e.g. you), are some works more for self and some more for others?

I think it’s not so much a matter that some stuff is done for me and some stuff is done for others, so much as it’s a matter of understanding the role of artmaking in my community as a whole - how the first-hand/second-hand aspect of our collective view of art impacts things.

Like Steve, I wonder how this fits in with your ‘Art is a Verb’ thought. I won’t repeat his 1-2-3 point, but I could have made it too.

Ignoring the biology for a moment, is perhaps the role of art in society a bit of a side product? An accident caused by the creation of artefacts for essentially personal reasons.

You might say that this falls right into the art for arts sake (or jazz only for jazz musicians) trap of obscurity and irrelevance. I might answer….so what. In the great scheme of things, Art matters not a jot. Probably entertainment matters more.

For any given level of difficulty (aka obscurity) in an artwork there will be an audience limited to the group educated to a similar level. Just like the fact that the director of the Scottish National Galleries won’t acquire a Vettriano because it isn’t good enough, yet the massed population of Scotland doesn’t visit the gallery but does buy reproductions of the Vettriano.

It is a lovely quote from Bach, but I do wonder how much marketing is in the mix. I mean, didn’t Bach largely write to keep his boss of his back and to feed the kids? Leopold’s birthday cantata is a gem. Actually, I suspect that Bach wrote music, because he needed to write music.

Seriously though, that was a great Bach quote.

I agree with Orland so completely, I am kinda hung for anything to say.

But the topic tends to a natural transition to the role of the artist in society. I totally feel that too many contemporary artists do not take responsibility for their effect on the future, and too many don’t give enough credit to their neighbors, evidently preferring the insular society of the fine art “world.”

The world we live in is the world that was created by previous generations, and we have had several generations of people who’ve thrived on short term gain. That trend has to be bucked. We’ve got to start thinking more long term. I personally do not want to live in the postmodernist non-vision of the future. So I’m with Bach. Unfortunately, I am not able to glorify God. I am not qualified. But I could glorify Man. That’s a future worth living in. A humanist renaissance would be a good thing.

Actually. I think we are at the beginning of that. Keeping my ear to the ground and not bothering too much with the big city art news suggests this is the case.

Steve? You asked about avenues to explore? Well, there’s a big, wide highway with a lot of room for many visions.

Even though I’ve been making and studying art my whole life, I’ve never come across anything that really seemed to sum up what the role of art is in a satisfying way. Maybe one of the problems is that there are so many things we call art, and so many possible roles those things can play.

Now one could say that a personal concept of God could encompass all one’s individual spirituality, including desire or need to make art, but I’m not sure that’s what Bach had in mind. And technical practice could be for oneself as well as for one’s students. Still, this feels like a different attitude than I thought you had. Has your thinking evolved, or are these just two different aspects being emphasized in different places? Is it just my misunderstanding from fragments? For a single artist (e.g. you), are some works more for self and some more for others?