That’s just toooo cool.

I’m sorry I missed this earlier. Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. That’s always a good way to get my attention.

Thought you might enjoy this cover for the invisible poet kings CD. Artwork by David Palmer and Giorgione.

Rex, it’s very nice of you to say that, but I doubt it. What I can say is that I’m very open to seeing things from multiple, often contradictory viewpoints. I’m also painfully aware of how little I know about anything. But I always enjoy learning more.

But it does not explain well enough how and why so many others experience art as art, so it is too exclusive to be greatly useful, and too inclusive to frost, as they say, any cake…If true, it limits success in the arts to those few who can win the modern art lottery and get placed in the the prestigious locations, for there is the ultimate context.

I think the “context” I had in mind is much more inclusive than exclusive. If anything the danger is that it could potentially include just about anything, and therefore mean nothing. I hadn’t thought of context as being hierarchical, so it never occurred to me that there would be an ultimate one.

As far as “success”, that has as many possible definitions as “art”. Seems like a good subject for another post :)

I should point out that I don’t have what I consider a perfectly thought-out definition of art. It is constantly evolving, or perhaps de-evolving. There are plenty of holes in my thinking.

There seem to be at least two possible ways to think of what the word “art” means. One is to think of it as a measure of something, such as quality or excellence, and to see it existing on a scale. Statements such as “she has raised … to an art” are using the word in this way. In that sense there is not so much art or non-art, but degrees of art.

Another way to use the word art is to think of it as denoting certain things (or experiences?) that we will call “art”, some maybe better than others, to differentiate them from other things that are “not art”. In this sense, when we say we are talking about art, we know (or hope we know) we are talking at least about some of the same things.

Both ways of using the word are problematic, the second perhaps even more than the first. At least in the first sense, while we may disagree about how much art-ness something has, we at least can agree that we’re talking about degrees of quality. The second sense of the word art is difficult because a.) there are so many diverse opinions about where to draw the line that separates art from not-art, and b.) much of art history over the past century is actually a history of challenges to accepted definitions of art.

I don’t think we’re any closer to figuring all this out, but it sure makes for an interesting discussion :)

The wikipedia article belief contains a fair summary of the distinction that philosophers make.

In the context of our discussion: Belief is usually defined as a conviction of the truth of a proposition without its verification would be relevant.

The Stamford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here (very slow to load) takes the word ‘belief’ and does the full works on it, and along the way reminded me of why I didn’t take Philosophy any further at Uni.

Karl,

I’m now in Fresno, California, staying at one of my houses recouping some of my investment losses and drumming up some portraits for some cash. I’m also working on my illustrated novel about Rome in the age of Octavian.

A couple of points to touch on.

Regarding life and life forms, I did not say that inanimate objects can create art. I suggested that we can perceive it as such if our cultural or philosophic background allows us to. You suggest that yours does not. You are in the majority when it comes to to people who have been trained in the sciences in Western culture, but you are responsible enough to see that as a trained viewpoint and open enough to see how others could view the universe differently.

That’s refreshing.

I have no ax to grind there myself, but I wanted a definition inclusive enough to account for such a multiplicity of perception, and I do believe I succeeded. My opinions are informed by a long fascination with Asian and African art in particular, and one day, perhaps I will take you to the seeing stone exhibit at the Huntington in LA, and you might have to revise your opinion about “inanimate” objects. They even have a sign warning people about the area. Sometimes people faint.

In other traditions, they simply feel that there is more to “animation” than the merely human. This is scientifically plausible. It is just difficult to test with our current instrumentation, and so as a theory, has to be shunted until means of testing can be discovered or developed.

Regarding craft, I well recall a fascinating article in Smithsonian magazine which studied Appalachian folk art. These people have a long history of disdaining anything which is of no immediate practical value, and yet in their crafts they have continously transcended the limits of “pure” functionality with clever, original, and beautiful forms — flower arrangements in gardens, gate construction, chair design, quilts, on and on. Amusingly, they will all swear to God Almighty that what they are doing “is not art.”

I’m really a working class guy, you know. Did you know? I come from a long line of masons, shipwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths, farmers, ranchers, and yes, soldiers. We Crocketts are good shots, every one of us, not just the Tennessee branch of the clan.

I was raised to be a good craftsman. I heard this from every side from all my many relatives. One was to do the best one could at everything. Work was to be well done without exception as a matter of personal honor even if you lost money, for your reputation was more important. There was no shame in getting dirty or working with one’s hands.

As an artist, I bring these blue collar pride sensibilities to my work while at the same time through all my years of colleges I never forgot my “base.” So I have a soft spot for crafts and craftspeople and a certain contempt for work that has to be “explained” in order to be understood.

So my original, instinctive, definition for art was “craft plus.” I have always had a visceral repugnance for badly crafted or ugly work which was proclaimed as art, but then I kept finding exceptions (but I won’t list them here), so I knew that “craft plus” was not inclusive enough. It did not explain ALL art, only most. It began to look like the plus, whatever it was, was really more important than the craft and that the craft or skill was really the carrier wave and not the thing itself; furthermore, the carrier wave itself need not be only skill.

Paul,

It’s my turn to attempt to talk with my foot in my mouth. :)

Yes. You said, “Likewise, there’s a sense that craft is not what art is about, and therefore it’s unimportant.”

My bad.

The context did suggest that craft is important and should not be ignored.

I could not agree more. I am a very, very craft oriented artist. I have never explicitely said so because my work says this for me. That is beside the point though, for nevertheless, the above statement does read like it’s a statement that “art is about craft.”

So it was me paraphrasing you, paraphrasing Dietz.

In my earlier post Does Technique Matter? I never stated my opinion. I put it as a question. It was a test. I wanted to answer the question: “Are these people here in this group worth talking to?”

I wanted to see if it was understood that there is a relationship between art and craft, that craft alone did not make art, that at least some people understood it was possible to have very good art with merely ordinary craft.

I was gratified. The dance was understood. These were people who were worth talking to. I would not be casting pearls to swine, as I have felt I was doing in other forums. It seems we have all seen ordinary expressions of our skill really wow people while things we thought were really technically superior left people cold, and we have all wondered about this.

The relationship between art and craft is a topic that will no doubt continue to generate dialog.

But I apologize for mis-quoting you. What I should have said was “In my response to Paul’s post I said…”

As I’m sure you understand, I needed to explain my phrasing and move it to a better one, but that phrasing first appeared in a comment to your post.

David,

You pose a real challenge with your context definition, and I thank you. A tremendous advantage to putting up one’s thoughts on a forum like this (with people like you) is that any slightest flaw in an argument will be seen and addressed.

I believe I can answer your objections in a convincing way, however.

First, I noticed you honed in on the word “value” and continued to use that rather the word “quality” which I almost immediately switched to, so your argument is based on a fallacy: you re-define the term then argue against that narrowed, false definition.

You really have to have the full richness of the term “quality.” I used ‘value” initially because I needed to provide a contextual pointer away from the other sense of the word “quality” which is “the essential thing, the essence.”

So you assumed that I was saying could be construed as merely “valuable information,” and since that is obviously not art, the definition was not true.

Well, if you construed it that way, then the fault is mine. I was writing very, very quickly. I thought I had made it clear that I was using the sense of quality defined as: excellence: the highest or finest standard, but I see that I did not.

Even so, it is conceivable that weather report could transcend the usual form to become, indeed, art, and I must say, I have seen a few weather reports that did.

However, you go on and posit another definition for art. Lest I make the same mistake I made with Paul, I shall quote you in full here.

I think what defines art is the context in which something is presented or viewed. The context might be determined by the creator (artist, writer, etc.) by a presenter (curator, editor, etc.), or by the viewer (reader, listener, etc.). What makes something art, I believe, is that it is viewed within the context of conveying, experiencing, or even expecting, an aesthetic experience.

I notice that the thread devolved (as in rolled down, not de-evolved like so many people misunderstand the term) from there, so I’m going to pick it up here and not address further points.

I would suggest the following.

You, David, are an exceedingly sophisticated guy. You are able to experience things as art that are way beyond the capacity of probably a huge majority of the human race, so I know that the context definition is true for you. But it does not explain well enough how and why so many others experience art as art, so it is too exclusive to be greatly useful, and too inclusive to frost, as they say, any cake.

If true, it limits success in the arts to those few who can win the modern art lottery and get placed in the the prestigious locations, for there is the ultimate context.

Later, when you deny the “degreeness” of art…

Rather than there being degrees of art, I propose that the context (which can change) determines whether something is art or not.

You re-insert again that dull two valued “art, not art,” then flip again.

And that the things that can be evaluated are on scales from bad to good, failed to successful, emanative to non-emanative, or whatever other criteria you like. They are all extremely subjective, of course, and there will be plenty of disagreement.

And we are left once again with the “it’s all opinion anyway” useless non-definition of a definition.

Since I was writing fast to people who I knew were very observant and educated, and since I was still, typically, already writing a long post, I left out a lot of stuff. I was hoping that someone would see that the subject of communication already implies context and that this will greatly effect how a piece of art is viewed or indeed is even perceived as art at all. So your definition is contained by understandings about communication and is already explained.

At the beginning of my response to you, David, I thanked you. I meant it. I have to do some rewriting, Context deserves some real space, and I need to be more explicit about some of quality’s more ineffable aspects. I can see others have given you a hard time on this context thing already, and I don’t want to think I am trying to do the same because the fact is, I really like you, and I’m glad you brought this up.

Re Duchamp’s Urinal

Time to hit the books. Sorry. Duchamp did the urinal thing to refute the context definition. It must have been hilarious for him to see that he had the opposite effect.