Lili Krakowski on sat 27 aug 05
Any former student knows my slogan: "I am a beauty, a genius, and a
saint--but would never have the chutzpah to call myself artist."
"Artist" is an honorific, not a work description. The word describes
someone who does something exceedingly well. Yes the word has become more
limited in scope, more people apply it to the "humanities"--painters,
sculptors, writers, poets, musicians--than to regular work. But there are
artists out there who make unbelievable Strudel, unbelievable tatting or
bobbin lace, unbelievable thatched roofs, stone walls, nailless wooden
buildings.
What I rant about consistently is this increasing emphasis on title,
degree, rank--the alma mater, the sorority, the firm--the street address,
the type of car--rather than the WORK!
There really may be a genetic trait in the race that hates equality, that
yearns just yearns for class. And, yes, I just hate it....
It does not matter if your wealthy parents sent you to Highfalutin
University, with Summers in Japan, and if you have ten degrees, and a
woodburning kiln on the terrace of your Park Avenue Penthouse! It does
not matter if you grew up in a shack, made your first pots out of local mud,
fired them in cow manure, and learned to read only at 40. The point, the
only point, is what the heck does your work look like!
What people don't seem to get, or maybe value, anymore is that THE WORK is
so wonderfully equalizing. That there is a true and wonderful classlessness
in the handmade product.
That kid would never have thought of himself as an "artist" if someone had
not planted the notion in him that middle-class birth+ a few years of
schooling+ adolescent self-confidence+ a grade-inflating society MADE his
pitiful self an ARTIST.
This last, though it barely relates, makes my point. Our PBS TV station
spends endless time advertising itself. Last night they repeated and
repeated their latest ad which says "WHO DO PEOPLE TRUST?" The answer
supposedly being PBS.
And what. may I axe, happened to WHOM? Why should I dream of trusting
people who consider themselves better than the mere peasantry, who think
themselves the [hermaphroditic calico] cat's pjs and cannot master their
mother tongue ? Hello! Their answer, I expect, would be that they have
told me of their superiority often enough, and that there is something wrong
with me for not respecting it....
It never is the person, it always is the work. Only the work.
(Thanks Stephanie. Book will be on order asap.)
Lili Krakowski
Be of good courage
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