Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 468

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Why does art elicit such different reactions from us? How can a work that bowls one person over leave another cold? Doesn’t the variability of the aesthetic feeling support the view that art is culturally determined and relative? Maybe not, if we consider the possibility that the artistic experience depends not on some subjective mood but on an individually acquired (hence variable) power to be affected by art, a capacity developed through one’s culture in tandem with one’s unique character. For evidence of this we can point to works that seem to ignore cultural boundaries altogether, affecting people of different backgrounds in comparable ways even though a specific articulation of their personal responses continues to vary. Consider the plays of William Shakespeare or Greek theater, or the fairy tales that have sprung up in similar forms on every continent. We could not be further removed from the people who painted in the Chauvet Cave, nor could we be more oblivious as to the significance they ascribed to their pictures. Yet their work affects us across the millennia. Everyone responds to them differently, of course, and the spirit in which people are likely to receive them now probably differs significantly from how it was at the beginning. But these permutations revolve around a solid core, something present in the images themselves.
J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
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Pearls from artists* # 137
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
I was a determined young woman. I was driven. My problem was not in being an artist. I didn’t realize how much my being a woman would get in the way of being an artist in the world. I wasn’t aware of it. I was just doing my thing. My pain came from being treated like I was a bad woman, in my personal life. That being driven and assertive and doing my vision was really bad because I was not a supporter and a nurturer of men. The men were the ones who made me feel bad. It could just be that they were not strong men. It was very painful and the way that I took it was as if there was something the matter with me. Yet, there was no way I was not going to pursue my vision. It was not negotiable.
Conversations with Meredith Monk by Bonnie Marranca
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Q: Was there a defining moment, meeting, or event that convinced you to pursue an artistic life?
A: There was not a defining moment per se, but looking back now, I’d say that because the Navy assigned me to a series of boring office jobs instead of letting me fly, I became determined to find a vocation infinitely more rewarding and more interesting to devote the rest of my life to. I came to this realization over time, rather than in a single moment.
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