Joyce Lee on wed 17 jun 98
There's one of us not bored with the art vs craft discussion...simply
because, for me, even hearing about "art" from the artist's perspective
is still rather new and endlessly interesting even when we edge
toward grandiosity...almost as interesting as examining the development
of the human mind and the matter that creates personality...or how
people learn...or the magic of human connectedness. My statement is:
Although not "artistic" in any definable way, I have always been
grateful that I enjoy, for my own amusement, "artful arrangements",
whether accidental or purposeful...of fibers, bags of clay, mud dauber
nests, colors, nature, store displays, ant hills, weeds, clouds, ruts in
our dirt road, dust caught in sunbeams, salt under a microscope, any
kind of ore left as unworthy among mine tailings, the tailings
themselves, log jams piled high on a beach in Alaska, peanuts in a bowl,
and odd bits of this 'n that...just as we all so enjoy. My questions
are: Does this recognition alone make one an artist? What if one has
the presence of mind to capture these "arrangements" on film? Does THIS
make one an artist? What if the said capturing is accidental? Does
that count when we total our artistic points? What about, as happened to
me recently and I'm sure has happened to you, I experienced a happy
accident when a tall cylinder finally collapsed on the wheel and fell
into a most precarious and unusual arrangement although still serving
the purposes of a functional vessel? Is this art? Some say that the
sheer recognition of this accident being a happy one and thus leaving it
be until it could be removed whole from the wheel, was the result of an
artistic eye. Does this make the vessel a work of art? Must art be
purposeful? Knowing that I'm rehashing some recent statements, I ask
anyway....
Joyce
In the Mojave striving still to be a craftsperson...
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