Vince Pitelka on tue 31 dec 02
> To be an Artist you need to have Talent and you need to have a
> vocation, a calling. Then you need to learn how to go about being an
> Artist. And you need to practice. Then if you have something to say,
> you will have the tools with which to say it, as Picasso did with
> Guernica.
Sigh . . . . . . . . I wish you could see the dent in my wall where I bang
my head every time I read a message like this. Being an artist has very
little to do with talent. It is not necessarily a vocation or a calling.
Visual art happens when someone has something to say, and they choose
tangible visual media to say it. You don't have to know ANYTHING about art
or art-making to be an artist. Some of the most powerful art ever made has
been made by completely untrained people who took leaves and branches or car
fenders or walrus tusks and just MADE ART.
As I have said, anyone who chooses to make art is an artist. The words art
and artist contain no qualitative value at all. It is true that if you
learn a lot and practice a lot it significant improves your chances of
making good or great art. Or it might just give you the tools to
manufacture and market vast amounts of trite decorative schlock like Thomas
Kincaid.
The tools to make great art can come from art school, or they can come from
the school of hard knocks, or they can come from religious fanaticism, or
they can come from powerful cultural or family tradition, or they can come
from political fanaticism, or they can come from having survived cancer, or
they can come from YOUTHFUL ENTHUSIASM. The two most important conditions
required for making worthwhile art are HAVING SOMETHING TO SAY and the
DETERMINATION TO SAY IT. Those represent most of the struggle. If you have
something worthwhile to say and the determination to say it, you will most
likely drive you to find an effective way of saying it.
Among the mistakes we often make in interpreting art are the assumptions
that the artist must have some sort of organized, guided training in order
to make good art, and that if the artist doesn't have such training, the art
somehow isn't valid. That is myopic and elitist. As I said before, art
training will certainly increase the chances of good art, but it sure as
hell isn't a requirement. Sometimes people with little or no training just
find themselves driven to communicate through art, and sometimes the results
are incredibly powerful and effective.
Art-making should be as natural as singing or writing. Saying that only
trained artists should make art is like saying that only English majors
should speak English. It really is time for a societal reassessment of the
words "art" and "artist." A lot of people miss out on an incredibly
powerful means of communication because they THINK they lack the tools to
make art, when in fact they should just go ahead and make art naturally and
intuitively.
Best wishes -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
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