Art/Craft

So I'm a jeweler and a metalworker, and a women's studies major, and a religion minor, and I read almost exclusively nonfiction, primarily science. And I fuck with people's ideas about left and right brain, and artists and intellectuals - there is a perception that one invalidates the other, that thinking and feeling are mutually exclusive. It drives me crazy. I think the problem is that people have internalized that attitude, that art is fundamentally different from academics and requires no knowledge of the world outside of personal experience. And certainly some good art comes out of a very limited worldview, some art wouldn't be as good if it weren't from such a specific place. But the upper middle class slackers are often just too lazy to learn, and chose art because they wouldn't be forced to learn there. Like Andy Warhol's quote, "Art is anything you can get away with." You know what? Fuck you, Andy. Look, if you've had no new experiences in your life, if you come from a place that's "been done" and have no new insights on it, there's no way to make good art out of that, by my definition. I feel like real art requires either a fresh insight on something personal, or a connection or reference to something in the world, some new piece of knowledge about how the world connects, some commentary. And for that you need to know things. Read books. Go to other countries. Take classes. Try to understand how and why things are the way they are. Sexism, racism, classism, poverty, hunger, war, mythology, xenophobia, these are the experiences humanity has been defined by. I feel like good art, maybe any art, requires of the artist knowledge, connection, empathy.

And what about things that are just pretty? I'm torn. At the end of the day art needs to talk about something, speak with its own voice. Sometimes that can be about innovative form, or space, or expressive color, but then it has to be that much more impressive, that much stronger, and frankly there's not much that hasn't been done before, and better. Pretty doesn't cut it at the end of the day. Does that make me a traitor to metalwork and jewelry, especially? Maybe. I would restrict the category of art to pieces that talk about something outside themselves. Either narrative work, or pieces that go really above and beyond in how they interact with the body, what they say about space and form. By my own definition, perhaps the majority of my work wouldn't fall into that category. That's OK. I don't feel like a piece has to be "art" to be valuable, either. Craft is impressive, craft is valuable, craft is a language unto itself. And into the category of craft, I would add most representational painting and drawing and representational sculpture. Just because these are older mediums doesn't mean they are inherently more valid.

And why does it matter? The art/craft distinction? I think the dividing line comes back to where I started from - intelligence as it is measured in the outside world. Knowledge, connection, allusion, insights about the stuff of life. Perhaps even in my perfect world, where art and craft are acknowledged and valued separately, artists would still be looked down on by those in academia. But at least then it would be easier to see it for what it often truly is - a yearning for a life they didn't have the courage to grasp. Luann points out in her blog, "As Bruce Baker says so enchantingly, “To ‘normal’ folks, artists are people that ran away to join the circus!” Fair enough. But is it too much to ask that intelligence and insight and real content not be dismissed just because they're found under the Big Top?