search  current discussion  categories  safety - health 

thoughts on art / craft - or, raswon , reaching up,

updated fri 26 dec 03

 

pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on wed 24 dec 03

pulls down on Gasset...yet effects no elevation for himself...

Hi Lee, all, and...


3:46 of the A.M.s and I am near done with the 'flu...tired
of long day's chores and in a mood to tag along a little...

Maybe this can be the extempore basis of a good, or of more
than one, good, pleasantly
protracted,
passionately imbued
discussion...or at least, a ramble...a confusion
maybe...and...why not...


Below, amid...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Love"

> We have been systematically taught in modern times
that
> emotional/intuitive expression is the purview of art and
not of functional
> objects.

Okay...yes...it would seem so. We were (or refuted to be,)
'taught' a lot of
things...

Or, taught that it ( emotional/intuitive expression) was the
purview of 'Women'...or that is,
one may
have been taught that, may have believed that, or persist in
doing so, no matter how
much they (Women) should test the tolerable extremes of
gullibilty for the lesson's, or the
notion's (or one's own) elastic limits...

Or..

At what violence to ourselves (our experience, made
stupid) for the trouble to internalize (be-come)such rot in
the first place? As to have the schism betwixt 'Art' and
'Functional Objects'?

To make thence the unhappy complicities of
an economy and social politic as demands it and celebrates
it, for one thing, in the high price and mistique OF
'art'...?

(And, if
differently, of sanity? if sans 'mistique'...)


And to oblige thence, a context for the analysis or
reflections such as Mr. Rawson supplies for his publishers
to multiply for the edification or distraction of his
reader's interests to
not think for themselves on the matter with all their
rallied
'taught' impedeing, but that instead, appeal to Rawson
for some light in which to see better with eyes as shunned
it so far?


Do you (does he) mean you had acquiesed to such
having-been-taught, or, to such 'learning', as to find Mr.
Rawson's mentions to be of import? (What if one had
not?)

And, or, implicitly, that such having been taught, presumes
as well, to suppose that others should share in the
consequences of the schism of the lesson's damage to their
common sense and sensibility ( self)? The abdication of
their (our ) Humanity to be made into, or, to become, little
more
than 'functional' (to the ends other's manage,) objects
ourselves ( themselves) ?

Do you ( does he) mean the schism in aesthetics ( in
'feeling' - 'intuition' -
proprioception, quality-of-experience, centeredness of
experience, deference of experience, or, capacity to even
have various catagories of experience at all, ) as the
more-or-less
manifesting,
normalizing psychosis of post modern urban habituated
collusionally dehumanized collective fatuities, as IS
'taught' ( generally), as is the cirriculum AND the
'lesson', and
gets projected
on something then called, made into, the 'world'?


A schism...as is obliged and made 'real', made 'master' AND
'servant', applied to one's
(inner and outer) self to be the bought and sold and as is
actually the
currency for both? As thus make the
'world', and, as is done TO one's self and TO the World(s),
that it may sometimes be questioned even by those as do more
of it to 'question' it, and
continue to (corruptedly) need and demand and rely on it for
the mantainence of the identities they claim as their 'own'
in deference to it?

As make their living, and prestige and fame or 'place' in it
AS that...
and
from it? In deference to and oblige of it's context as that?
IF by 'questioning' it, one is careful not to ever get
beyond
it, or betray the loyalty to it AS 'center'? As chief
deference...?

Do you mean 'Rawson' did? Do you mean you did?

Do you mean, does Rawson mean, 'we' did? But that he didn't?
Or do you mean you didn't?

...who is 'we' in this context? It is not me...but yes, a
collective 'we'...as 'they' have done...sure..yes..and...




...it is not I, even if it is Rawson...or those among
whom Rawson spent his time...from whom he arose, or those
whom he thinks are his peers or
audience, or employers, or those from whom, he earned his
paychecks and
seeks their perpetuance, or
those whom he 'taught'...with whom he colluded (as if he had
a choice he, as 'he' could anylonger make, once educated
enough?) and
colludes...to more-or-less keep it so?

Without it 'so' where would he be?


Only if one had abdicated their (self) common sense and
sensibility, as I take it Rawson has, would Rawson's insight
have any bearing or potential peer murmurs of welcome,
patronizeing mock edification.

Rawson seems to me to be steeped and bobbing soggy in the
aleination he then has tepid epiphanys about transcending,
or, pretending to be selectively seeing through (some
abstract aspects OF), without
bothering to actually do either. Nor to even note that it is
about him not seeing, that to see so little should seem
worthy of mention...so much.

...even if it IS about the larger millions of useless
gene-pool-dupes and idiots as
spawn and beathe and waste Life and make uglyness and
mundanity of themselves first and of eachother second and of
the World third, to worry then about epistimological
abstracts on a gallery wall, and feed on eachother's uses
for doing so in their
reciprocal contempt for Life, and as fill faculty rosters,
ledgislatures,
acedemia, and other institutions and beurocracies and lines
at-the-mall and so
on...

...'curates' indeed...

That 'we'?

Not my 'we'...

> I think I answered this part in my previous post. To
reiterate: the
> backwards step he is speaking of is to drop
> intellectualizing/conceptualizing of the object and to
experience it
> directly.


I would like him to take the 'backward-step' at the Grand
Canyon...or, at some high edge of it, on the North Rim
maybe, as would be well suited to accomidate his
eventuatedly happy, if slight
parabola...

Some girl in cute outfit, rented for the day ( the girl, not
the 'outfit') - some "purview
of emotional/intuitive expression"
gesturing with her hand palm out, nails 'done', their sheen
ginting in
the Winter's Sun, as she holds the
throw-away cardboard
camera got at 7-11 with the 'beer' and 'chips'...saying in a
mock-child's sing-song voice..."Back poopsie! A little more
baaaaaaaaack..."

Like that...

There is no 'directly' Lee...even less so, is or may there
be, for the likes of a Mr. Rawson...



> To say it in another way, I'll leave you with a
Rawson quoting Ortega y
> Gasset,
>
> "'To create a concept you must leave the
sensuous multiplicity
> of reality behind.' Rawson goes on to say,


How ghastly, even more so, that Rawson should qoute Gasset
( who wrote in
Spanish if memory serve, and whose translations may not
allways benifit from their translator's acumen, even if less
so
from that of their abused readers) ...it merely
makes Rawon seem all the more spiritually penurous to try
and borrow what he would instantly spend on expedient
baubles , whilst to remain unable
to earn or make or replenish on his own, the principle to
have something to 'spend'.


> "A concept is in the mind, one element in the metal
order among all the
> other ordered elements of the world. Pots, however, have
always been
> bedded firmly into the world of their maker's reality, at
all sorts of
> different levels.

Maybe Rawson was badly translated? Could that be it?

Or maybe he himself badly translated Life and experience as
he was 'taught' to do? The (ig)nobless oblige is it?

I am having trouble understanding how anyone could say such
confused and silly things...

Not only 'Pots' ("bedded firmly into the world of their
maker's reality"), but....so too is and has been
everything else...includeing banality and the knack of
making
more of it out of everything...so too are the multiplicity
of things people
make, do, create...no matter what value is attributed to
them, or, by whom...or to serve what end or interest or
appeasement or oblige to do so...or THAT one does so...

So is, so are, all of the quietly worst things we find as
tolerated
ubquity
( as say , Rawson's writeings for that matter,) which are
(also) 'firmly embedded' etc...enmeshed is maybe a better
term...'tangled'...snagged of some rocky shore...a poor
navigation's remourse...and consolation for their lot?

So too the notion as is sometimes spoke, that 'Any one
may become president'...or, 'write-a-book', or, evidently,
publish one...or procreate...or try to...


Where DO you think things (anything) come 'from'?


Squeeze a Sponge, and what comes out, is what it has been
steeped in..what it has been
soaking in...

No?

Yes...


> They _are_ far more than they can ever appear to be as
> concepts in our academic analyses of 'ceramic history'."

So is everything...'far more', or, sometimes, far less...



> The Einstein quote below in my .sig applies too.
:^)

> "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind
is a faithful
> servant. We have created a society that honors the servant
and has
> forgotten the gift." -- Albert Einstein


This is ridiculous...if colloquially 'true'...

The 'intuitive' mind is no more a 'gift' than that the
ability
to spurn it's happy aesthetic centeredness or impliicit
guidence is.


The uses of the worshipers of the 'servant' in this context,
are what elevated his so-called 'sacred' ('gift') to be
unattained
but for the uses the 'servant' has/had for abstracts of
it...or, to
make it
mediocre and
banal...or made 'Trinity' of it...the light-stched shadows
of Cactii on the 'rocks' still fade slowly in the liesured
dawn's processions...they also payed his
rent...he should have known
when, or among whom, to shut up. But likely it went over
their pointy little heads anyway..so..who cares...?


The "Rational' Mind may just as well be called a 'Sacred'
Gift...in fact, maybe moreso...with more justifcation...as,
spurned or not, it may be less endemic than the (generally
spurned) intuitive, or, appearantly it is...or, at any rate,
it is not enjoyed or claimed reliably...or often...


...or would be 'Sacred' enough IF used and
enjoyed respectfully...and with reciprocal defenerces with
the so-called intuitive...

Has one the 'intuition' to respect 'reason'?

Has one the rational facility to respect 'intuition'?

Has one the innate affection, honored, enjoyed, for the
'Sacred', to tolerate it?

And if so...what do they say then?



Or to respect (rationality OR instinct) in, or as, one's
self , or in or as others. Or to have enough regard OF it,
to
note as well, it's partial or degree of absence or abayence
in the
deeds, affiliations and utterances of others...or in the
ambient import and details of our/the/the
culture, as is the agreements between subscribers some think
to be 'reality', or in their
apprehension of context, or their demands of what the
context is, or is to be made to be, and for whom...and by
whom..and...

The 'Intuitive' Mind is also a
'Faithful-Servant'...etc...in that line of reasoning, if
reasoning it is, and...maybe it is not (quite) that...at
all...

Death is a "Sacred Gift" AND a "Faithful Servant"....should
we elect to think in these terms - if regretably an all too
oft' liesured one to be about it's accrued ponderance of
tasks...


Jeeeeeeeze....


'We' have created a society of idiots...or, moreso, we ARE a
society of idiots...even if the term ( idiot, or, the term
society, or the egreements as comprise 'society' between
otherwise maybe ineffible 'individuals',) should be
conceeded as having something to it of a 'relative' nature,
or of realitive applicibility...and certainly colloquially,
as well...it should.

What about Einstein's Wife? She was no slouch...

Or Catherine of Sienna? - put all them (other) pikers in
their
place...


Hell, what about old 'Oppie'? "For I am Lothar..." etc..?
(...or was that from Startreck?)

Now there's a dandy...regardless...(Oppie that is, not
Startrek, although I liked Startrek a lot when it was
Capt'n Kirk and so on...and poor Capt'n Pike, having a whole
lot of NO fun unless on Rigel 7 after getting hurt and all -
but Rigel 7, where he was 'whole'
again - and could be with that luscious babe and all, and
she was
messed up too...unless 'there'...
otherwise...well, anyway...sigh...)


Or old Giddeau was it? What did he say after he shot
Garfield?

What did Garfield say when he was shot? That old slow moving
bumble-bee of a
.44 Webley-Scott or Addams or watever the hell it was,
as hit him like a board?

Was it 'memorable'...?

Maybe...

An epiphany?


People say lots of things...allways, it is a signal call of
their latitude and longitude...allways it is the location
call of 'where' they are at...

Squeeze the sponge...out come whatever ( wherever) it was
steepd in...

And...nothing wrong with that...but, nothing more,
either...unless you listen close..but...even then...even
then...

...sigh...


"Einstein"


Or Johnny Cash..he heard that 'Train-a-comin'..." too...(a
relativity thing....the 'train'...)

No?

Oh never mind...


Phil
lasvegas

Jan L. Peterson on thu 25 dec 03

pulls down on Gasset....

Dear Phil: Haven't written you in a long time. I still know your posts,
however. They up my vocabulary another ten percent everytime, which is a good
thing, after a morning with the pups at the pound. I sang to them this morning.
Blue Christmas was on the radio. Must not have been too bad; they didn't howl in
protest. But I come out of there one of the simply happiest of people. Three
hours doggie time does wonders for my soul. Almost as much as painting, which
didn't suffer from the Sabbatical of almost a year I just took.

Merry Christmas! How you can stand Las Vegas is beyond me. I lived near
Winnemucca, and the only thing I liked in Winnemucca was the Raley's store and the
Hud. Could pick up some great things in the pawn shops, but no artist supplies
anywhere. Not even as a prize on a slot machine. What gambling we did was to
get quarters for the Laundromat. Nothing around there much for us to do. If I
hadn't had my painting and picked up a Tandy computer, I think I would have pe
rished!

I have a cousin and an aunt down there in Vegas. Cousin's husband went down
there in the early 70's in Real Estate. From the size of Vegas now, versus the
70's Real Estate took off and made him filthy rich. Still, the World drops
off, or starts at the edge of town, depending upon how you look at it. I would
vote for starts. Yet, where I live, has only 250 people, and I'm kept busy. Even
if it's chasing off a bear. Not really big. About 400 pounds' worth. And
snow. Got snow. Good winter for us, because there is a ski resort up the hill.

I hope you potters don't mind me being a part of your community, even if all
I do is paint your work. I do buy them and use them, too. I doubt I could have
ever thrown, and now, I'm so hooked into the painting of things that I
wouldn't change that for the world. But, if these message boards and communication
apparatuses had come out when I was younger, and still unmolded, I could have
gone into throwing and messing with clay. It would have been as big a thrill as
what I do now. I guess I'm a worker bee at heart.

I gather you've avoided either flu bug; the physical and the psychological. I
caught the latter for awhile this Fall. I lost an Aunt last February. Didn't
realize how much I missed her, contrariness and all, until November rolled
around, and there was one less person to forget my birthday. Still am sort of
blue, because she painted, too, but excelled in chalk. Time-consuming, but
excellent results. Shadings she couldn't understand with the paint, she understood
very well in chalk, and turned out some very, very good work.

Well, I'm sure I've taken up enough of your time for awhile. Send me some
pictures of your work. I cannot as yet access that part of my computer
adequately, so I have not seen any of anyone's work that is on the list. Jan, the
Alleycat