Cleaning Out

When is it time to grow up?

I went to University because it was the thing to do. People said you grow up by going away to University. I think that might be a divisive opinion at this point… And I’m not being offensive, politically or economically leaning in saying that. I mean simply that you end up parroting all the opinions of your professors. I’m not sure that’s growing up… it is simply not parroting your parents opinions. You’ve simply adopted new parents. It isn’t thinking for yourself. Not yet.

I went through a liberal arts University and got a broad liberal education. I can remember arguing with my boyfriend about “art for the sake of art”. Art as a conversation and how important that was. Either I won him over or he just started to agree half way through the heated conversation for the sake of peace.

“Art for the sake of art” is when an artist puts a toilet on a pedestal and we all ooh and aah about how profound of a statement that is. The taboo of the toilet brought out into the open. Or once, in a museum, I walked past a piece of plywood leaning up against the wall with a label. Yes, this was and maybe still is considered art.

Don’t get me wrong. I was trained well and can set up a gallery show, draw, sculpt and paint but I also came out of University with an elitist idea of the arts that lasted many of my young adult years.

Twenty years later, I sifted through the old University art text books and ran across this same high brow “art for the sake of art” book. What a load of high brow rubbish? As if one art form is better than another. What my professor didn’t talk about (at all!) was that there are industrial artists and designers working diligently to make a pen have a pleasing look or even that toilet. How is one better than another or more valued? Quite honestly if you place a piece of plywood against a wall isn’t that the absolute height of plagiarism. You didn’t create anything. You just showcased someone else’s work without giving them credit and in so doing claimed a type of elitism over someone else’s craft.

I flipped through the old “art for the sake of art” textbook one last time and threw it into the trash with a resounding thud. A whole lot of blathering talk. Absolute rubbish!

What is art that cannot improve a person’s life, whether through job, hobby or the brighten of a wall, center piece or courtyard, and inspire a dream?

As for the technical and industrial arts… I toured a Technical two year college 2 years ago with my son. I never knew how much fun they had. It was none of the high brow theory but more hands on hard work, creation and skill. I never knew. I left excited and inspired that my son might choose that school! I wish I had!

How often do we parrot with our brains turned off not really understanding the depth and knowledge we are missing out on? One of my professors spent an entire functional sculpture class (the entire semester) teaching us nothing useful. We made a non-functional bowl and a twisted metal tube that blew flower in a persons face.

All the while, another student (who went to a technical school with woodworking before University) worked on sculpted dressers and furniture as an art form. I signed up for the functional sculpture class because I thought I might learn that student’s skill.

Maybe I should have thrown that book in the trash a long time ago…