I just finished a brief examination of Picasso’s full and long life in the book Pablo Picasso: A Modern Master by one Richard Leslie. I’m not sure the book is worth commenting on in depth, but I sat down to write a little about it and we’ll see what the html editor spits out.

The presentation of Leslie’s short biographical work is impressive. The reproductions of Picasso’s work are very nice, printed on heavy, glossy paper. It feels good in your hands. That’s where my praise for the book ends, however. The short work is adequate enough in giving a person an overview of the artist’s life, but it does so with pretentious and unsubstantiated language. More than once I read a paragraph and came away wondering what orifice the writer pulled that out of. These recurring and somewhat convoluted observations would bother me less if they were elaborated upon. They might actually be accurate or warranted statements if Leslie gave us citations, or even if he prefaced certain paragraphs with “in my opinion,” but the author makes no reference to where his ideas are coming from.

As already noted, the writing does communicate the basics of Picasso’s life and work, from his youth and background to cubism and from harlequins to minotaurs. Unfortunately, the images of his paintings don’t follow the text with any semblance of order. I found myself paging around after seeing a reference to a particular work, wondering if it was pictured in the book on some far flung back page. The writing is chronological. The images are, in a very loose sense, attempting to chronological. But not.

I eluded a few weeks ago to the fact that, as I read through this short book, my respect for Picasso was ebbing. This caused me to wonder where this respect came from in the first place. Sure I knew who the artist was from college courses — even from culture at large — but I knew very little of him other than “cubism” and “Guernica.” He’s held up as this mythical figure in the art world, but few details go along with this unspoken heroism in my experience. It takes independent research to really examine an artist’s life and body of work. History classes don’t cut it.

I’m still smitten with Guernica. The painting above of the war in Korea is impressive too, although this painting isn’t one from the book. A lot of the paintings and sculptures featured in A Modern Master come across as scrappy. I’m hard pressed to see the craft I expected to see from a man so revered in the art world. Perhaps this book chose poorly when selecting works to represent the life of this prolific artist.

After my last clarifying post, I hesitate to use the phrase “Abstract Answer” in my title. But since this is continuing the same series I’m going to roll with it for now. I may change all of the titles, if I decide how, for this series in the future.

From the discourse between Tim Jones and myself this week, “I think the problem is not that the abstractionists think too highly of decorative art, but that they think of it not near highly enough.” Interestingly enough, I was having very similar thoughts in relationship to our banter.

What is decorative art?
In one of the later comments from this week, the Old World Swine author gives the basis for his understanding of decoration:

“decor… 1897, from Fr. décor, from L. decor “beauty, elegance,” from decere (see decorate).”

Above from the Online Etymology Dictionary, etymonline.com

In my post in this series titled Baseline banter I charted out how some different tactile arts fall along the lines of the art vs. craft debate. Wikipedia — and yes, I still respect this resource even though they didn’t get it right with the abstract vs. non-representational understanding — describes decorative art almost exactly like my graph defines the crafts. This was a bit of a surprise to me at first glance, but after a few seconds it seemed reasonable.

Jones now firmly believes that all non-representational artwork should be classified as decorative art. The following points examine this idea.

Labeling
There is a problem, off-hand, with labeling non-representational artists’ work as decorative. It implies, whether intended or not, that they are not as serious as other artists. This is a complex issue I probably don’t have the time or room to get into fully, but it’s there. It harkens back to the eternally elusive definition of art itself. For instance, where does one, along the above graph, begin referring to something as a craft instead of as an art? Do the arts/crafts in the middle of the chart get called both? Are all of them both to a certain degree so that it doesn’t matter what we call them?

In truth each of the above contains both art and craft, and the more I think about these things the less I care about what things are called, despite my keen and continuing interest in this conversation. Some people create beautiful and meaningful paintings, some create beautiful and functional furniture. My hope is that each of these craftsman thoroughly enjoy what they are presently involved with.

I may be a bit of an oddball anyway. I enjoy designing and building furniture or sketching floor plans as much as I enjoy attempting to be a part of the gallery art world. Hence, this blog aims to examine this same range of tactility.

Intention
This may be a trickier point still, and one that hits a little closer to home for me. Jones says the following in a comment on Aesthetic Escalator: (more…)

I’ve been working on this response for three days now, without much formulative success as time went on. So I’m just going going to spill it. This will be the first of at least three parts.

Timothy Jones, of Old World Swine, and I are back in the throes of our spirited and friendly banter on the respective merits of representational and non-representational artwork. Earlier this week he pointed out the problems with Guy Kemper’s glass installations in a rip-roaring post titled Aesthetic Escalator, which he followed up with Aesthetic Esclator, the Sequal, commenting on my comment where I stated that “I personally fail to see how fruit in a bowl is more engaging than certain abstract works.” Through the course of our discourse we’ve both acknowledged our own inability to completely comprehend this dichotomy, although in a comment this week Jones declares he now firmly believes that abstract art equals decorative art.

I don’t know precisely what he means by decorative art. Wikipedia suggests the traditional understanding includes ceramics, wood, glass, metal and textiles. The fine arts, in contrast, are painting, drawing, photography (this is a real surprise to me) and “large-scale” sculpture.

The Old World Swine author used the phrase “fine art” as well during in our bloggy discussion this week. I’ve used this term in the past, although I shy away from it anymore if I can help it. Reading Wikipedia’s brief article on fine art is a good way to understand the problems with this phrase. Jones uses the phrase in the most traditional sense, and is probably using it to refer to “the purity of the discipline” per Wikipedia. He also uses the term to segregate classical techniques from modern (non-representational) if I understand correctly. There remain, however, numerous other connotative understandings of the phrase. This makes conversations like these more arduous than they need to be.

I strive, whenever I can, for clear communication. I like words to mean specific things so that our intentions and ideas can be clearly conveyed. I learned, however, in my singular college level linguistics course that American English is probably the shiftiest of all modern languages. Our culture is more than eager to learn and employ new words, and change the meaning of older ones. Take, for instance, the recent changes in how so many people use the word “pimp.” I’ll point out lastly that I occasionally mis-read some of Jones’ posts, my own fault, on account of his use of the phrase “non-objective.” I didn’t know this term until I met Tim; it essentially means the same thing as non-representational, a phrase I’m very familiar with.

I’ve come to realize that another part of the misunderstanding between Jones and I lies in the very different physical qualities and historical aspects of the media we work in. Yes, we’re both talking about our art, but our baselines are probably very different. Beside the realism vs. abstract discussion, I’m equally fascinated and entrenched with the art vs. craft debates. This is inherent when working with clay. Ceramics boasts a long and wonderful history with both functional and sculptural works, but this functional aspect is something that’s pretty much foreign to certain media, notably paint, and to a lesser degree sculpture.

More from Jones and my banter about “realism” and “abstraction:”

Continuing conversation on abstraction
Abstract appreciation
More on realism and abstraction
Follow Up: JBU Gallery St. Francis Benefit

Clive Thompson’s Wired column in the March issue is a great testament to working with your hands. He starts the piece by talking about his struggle in trying to put a steampunk clock together; his soldering skills were deficient.

“Why am I so inept? I used to do projects like this all the time when I was a kid. But in high school, I was carefully diverted from shop class when the administration decided I was college-bound. I stopped working with my hands and have barely touched a tool since.

As it turns out, this isn’t just a problem for me — it’s a problem for America. We’ve lost our Everyman ability to build, maintain, and repair the devices we rely on every day. And that’s making it harder to solve the country’s nastiest problems, like oil dependence . . . . “

Wasn’t it just last week I talked about the importance of innovation, wondering where it had gone in America? And a couple weeks before that, didn’t I mention a verse in the Bible that exhorts us to “work with our hands?”

Apparently there is a bit of a do-it-yourself (DIY) revolution here in the states as we speak (or type). Scientists, according to Thompson, have discovered how important it is to use your hands — to be mechanically apt — which uses a different part of our brains than “sitting and cogitating.” I recall something in the news last year that pointed to the success of places like Lowes and Home Depot, typical stops for DIY-ers purchasing products for the projects.

I wonder about the accuracy of applying the word “revolution” with respect to the popularity of steampunk and profit margins of big-box home supply stores. Regardless, this resurgence is good news.

Personally, I feel the need for both sitting and cogitating (which is largely what this blog amounts to) and working with my hands. In a culture supersaturated with electronic media, computers and computer related employment opportunities it can be very difficult to get hands-on time with anything. Our jobs are done in front of a computer and our recreation regularly involves televisions, computers and video games. We are a quite sedentary society, which is unhealthy physically and mentally according to the neuroscientists Thompson cites. We use electronics to a fault, perhaps, instead of treating them as tools they act as a crutch. “Notably,” Thomson concludes, “all this is happening outside our broken education system. America is healing itself at the grass roots — rediscovering the mental joy of making things and rearming itself with mechanical skills.”

I happened upon the website of woodworker J. Alexander this morning and thought it warranted props and a link. Basically, the guy builds custom furniture. Here’s a screenshot from his gallery:

What I found noteworthy on this website were a couple of blurbs on the information page, speaking to our generally bland, homogenous, mass-produced visual culture:

Finishing Process

The finishing process is what makes a custom piece of furniture really stand out from its mass produced counterpart. There are no short-cuts around here. Each item is painstakingly finished to accentuate the beauty of the wood and ensure its overall durability.

Cost

Custom furniture is of course more expensive than a lower-end mass produced item, but when compared to high-end brands such as Ethan Allen, Thomasville, and others, my prices are usually very competitive. On top of that, your funiture will have been painstakingly created by hand by a local craftsman.

Kudos to the handmade, to enduring functional (and/or decorative) objects worth keeping around for generations. My great grandfather built two library tables — among many other objects — during his lifetime, either of which I’m sure anyone in my family would love to end up with one day. He crafted a base for one; for the other, my grandfather — his son — hand-carved legs in the shape of elephant heads, the trunks supporting the tabletop, a few years back. Both are beautifully and intricately inlaid, the one in my father’s possession having as a focal point a detailed rose.

A few years back it was pointed out to me — either in a Shaeffer or Rookmaaker writing — that the first person the Bible records the Spirit of God “filling” is an artist.

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts — to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship.’”

When I mentioned this fact to a friend I have great respect for a couple years ago he exhorted me to think about it more and see where it leads. Up till now I haven’t made a concerted effort to do this. I don’t know exactly what significance to place on this passage. I’m not a theologian and don’t want to pretend to be a theologian, but I also feel the need to flesh out some thoughts here and see where they lead.

I’ll first state that just because this is the first recorded instance of the Spirit filling a person does not mean it is the first such occurrence. It may not even be the first time in history that God filled an artist with the Spirit. However, there is still the potential for significance in the first recorded occurrence.

Let’s assume that it is significant. If one believes — as I do — that the Bible isn’t just a mish-mash of man-made mythology but a Divinely orchestrated anthology, there is weight to every Biblical observation. I’ll be the first to admit that the Book has been and is still being used to further personal agendas; I’ll be the first to suggest that certain commentaries go too far and end up inferring things that just aren’t there. Nonetheless, an exegetical examination is due every passage.

What are the implications if we take the mention of Bezalel (and his sidekick Aholiab) as significant? First off, it shows the value God places on the visual and built environment. The quality of sculpture, architecture, textiles mattered to God. Was the importance of skilled craftsmen specific to the building of the temple (since it was the House of God), or can we assume that sound craft honors God throughout in the built environment? What would help here is another reference or two to craft outside of the Tabernacle and Temple. At this point I’m not aware of such examples.

Secondly, we might deduce that God values the human ability to craft objects. It’s slightly unclear whether the filling of the Spirit of God is what gave these men their ability to work in gold, silver, bronze, jewelry and wood or if it was their trade and talent beforehand. I believe the men possessed most of their skill before being called and filled. If we continue to read in Exodus 31, verse six in the New King James it says “I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded you.” If these other craftsmen possessed their skills without being filled with the Spirit of God, it makes sense that Bezalel and Aholiab possessed some skill before being appointed to the tabernacle as well. Another reference affirming craft occurs in the book of I Thessalonians, verse 11: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands . . . “

To be clear, I don’t believe that God is making craftsmen and women out to be more important than their peers gifted in administration or teaching or hospitality et cetera. This might be an easy third point to fall into, but it goes against God’s character as laid out in the rest of the Bible. Jesus loved sinners rich and poor when he walked this little sphere 2,000 years ago.

I learned this weekend that my father finally has a closing date for a building in downtown Grand Island, Nebraska. He’s been looking for a couple of years now. His original idea was to find a place with room for an apartment upstairs and store frontage downstairs. I mentioned his interest in downtown real estate in an August post as well (The building mentioned in that post, which he made an offer on, didn’t pan out.).

Without rehashing the myriad of details he considered while looking for a commercial property, I present to you the structure he finally has a contract on — the elegant building in the middle of the picture:

Amenities include marble stairways to the second floor from the street and alley, a bonafied civic shelter comprising 2/3rds of the basement (complete with thirty empty water barrels) and rental income totaling $900 per month. It seems his patience paid off as he found a building slightly under his budget. The drawback is that the store frontage is being used by one of the renters — who have three years left on their lease — so he will have to peddle his antiques from the second floor for the time being.

This post isn’t so much about this one building though as it is about the ruination of once stately downtowns in American communities. Compare the above photograph to the following historical photo of the original bank building:

The original facade is presently obscured by modern renovations allowing for two street level entries. These economy grade renovations seem to pay no attention to the well-crafted, elegant pilasters and cornice they so haphazardly obscure. The same goes for so many buildings in the area. Look in the first picture at the wild green building to the right of my father’s [future] property, and compare it to the same building in the second photo.

Ugh.

My complaint here is not so much a distinction between modern and more classically influenced architecture as it is a distinction between quality of craft and design. The modern overlays on these buildings look cheap, cheap in the sense of it’s not going to last. They also exhibit poor form in not paying respect to their surroundings. The bright green steel and glass structure seems to completely ignore the materials and colors around it, looking like a flakey marketing gimmick nestled among more serious contenders. One of the things that was made very clear during the two years I studied architecture in college was the importance of the plot. My professor went so far as to suggest we take our sleeping bags to the vacant lot assigned to us and spend the night there.

The modern iterations and modifications also seem to, largely, lack attention to detail. Sure, modern architecture is generally spare — indeed, often cold — in comparison to classical, but it doesn’t have to look like a shoebox with cutouts for doors and windows.

I’d like to help my dad take that stark tin awning off of his little building someday, and I hope the former glory of these buildings is still intact under their present clothing.

This post is continuing the line of thought I began in the Jack of all arts, crafts, wannabe entry.

Communication lies at the heart of the definition of art for a fair number of people. I included “communication” in my own living document thinking about the eternally elusive meaning of the word “art.” Herein I explore a series of preliminary thoughts about the relationship — or lack thereof — between art and communication.

At the most basic level, a person could argue that everything communicates. For instance, an undecorated ceramic bowl communicates a certain function — which can vary with context. If you add decoration to a bowl, such as the figures commonly found on Greek attic-ware (like this kylix),

the reality of a more complex and intentional communication presents itself. I’m assuming in my following thoughts a more intentional communication, not implied potential as in the undecorated vessel.

* Craft, in and of itself, does not communicate — per my above clarification. (Is it art by itself?)

* Decoration, such as Sullivan’s ornamentation on the Wainwright building, does not convey an intention to communicate (in my own estimation). (Is it art?)

* Abstract artworks usually intend to communicate, even if the viewers can’t tell from the finished work. For instance, Pollock’s later and more famous works represented, he said, the chaos in the modern world.

* Realistic works of art seem to be the most communicative, but in what way? Does a landscape or still life really speak to the modern viewer in more specific terms than abstract or purely conceptual works? I say “modern” viwer on account of most people’s ignorance of classical symbolism — indeed, perhaps any kind of visual symbolism — such as momento mori, where a skull in a still life was more than just a skull. (How much does the perception of the viewer play into the definition of art as it relates to communication? Is something not art if the viewer doesn’t comprehend some, most, all of the artist’s intended meaning?)

Note that in my living (i.e., subject to change) definition of art I also mention intentionality. Perhaps I need to combine the two terms, qualifying communication with the need to be intentional. The idea of intent as a part of the definition of art I first heard as a college student. At the time it seemed like a good one-liner to slap on the idea of fine art; in retrospect, I realize that for anyone seriously thinking about, engaging in and observing the arts it’s a gross oversimplification — even for those of us who realize pinning down a singular definition of art isn’t a realistic expectation.

I’ve avoided, to a large degree, commentary regarding painter-slash-marketer Thomas Kinkade, and the couple times I have mentioned him I tried to maintain the utmost professional decorum. He and his work easily give rise to polarized passions for and against. My personal observation is that — while I grant the artist liberty to depict any subject matter he chooses — the saccharin nature of his works supplant or bury whatever ills he’s suffered or observed in life (this based on reading articles about and interviews with the man). The artist’s personality will always come out in his or her works.

It surprised me last night to see that Gregory Wolfe included an essay talking about Kinkade in his Intruding Upon the Timeless collection, and I was eager to read it. Jumping off of the common criticisms of The Painter of Light, Wolfe’s commentary considers the artist’s seeming love affair with sentimentality. Critics go so far as to call Kinkade’s work “art as a Happy Meal” and “cultural Prozac.” At the same time, Wolfe concedes that the paintings must be meeting a felt need in the culture judging by their popularity.

Wolfe defines sentimentality using R.H. Blyth: “We are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it” and Oscar Wilde: “A sentimentalist is one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.” He goes on to use Mark Jefferson’s characterization of sentimentality not as inherent in certain emotions, but instead as a disjuncture between emotion and object. “The heart of the problem is that of a misrepresentation of the world in order to indulge certain emotional states,” Wolfe says. “The essence of Kinkade’s sentimentality is the packaging of nostalgia. It’s an oxymoronic idea, but it has become a major part of our cultural life, as Florence King has noted: ‘True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories . . . but American-style nostalgia is about as ephemeral as copyrighted deja vu.’”

He concludes the essay thus:

“There are times when criticizing sentimentality seems like overkill. But it would be wrong to simply dismiss the phenomenon — and the specific instance I’ve been discussing, religious kitsch — as nothing more than examples of harmless mediocrity. The great theologian, Cardinal Henri de Lubac, once wrote: ‘There is nothing more demanding than the taste for mediocrity. Beneath its ever moderate appearance there is nothing more intemperate; nothing surer in its instinct; nothing more pitiless in its refusals. It suffers no greatness, shows beauty no mercy.’

Perhaps, at its best, sentimentality strives for something approximating the theological virtues of hope and love. But in refusing to see the world as it is, sentimentality reduces hope to nostalgia. And in seeking to escape ambiguity and the consequences of the Fall, it denies the heart of love, which is compassion. Unless compassion means the act of suffering with the other in their otherness, it becomes meaningless. Well-intentioned as the purveyors and consumers of sentiment may be, they still want the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.”

I haven’t personally thought of the marketing guru’s impressionistic works as utopian before, but the word seems appropriate to me now. Kinkade describes his paintings as depicting a “world without the Fall.” As a child I regularly created — in my mind and on paper — such worlds without sin. While bored in high school math class, I devised islands where only Christians were allowed to live, combining (probably) the sense of isolation I was beginning to feel in the church with my fledgling interest in architecture and community planning. In retrospect, I realize these ghettos I dreamt of fly in the face of Christ’s mandates to make disciples of all nations and bear potentially frightening similarities to historically heinous circumstances such as the Nazi concentration camps.

All that to say that as I continue to think about Kinkade and his work, I may be able to more aptly understand where he’s coming from.

What really irks me about the artist is his ceaseless marketing, his dependency on reproductions — no matter how high their quality or how many dots of “light” are applied — and insistence on plastering his paintings on everything from mugs to, apparently, recliners. The man is more of a brand than an artist. It seems as though this is how he wants it, but it makes it very difficult to take him seriously as an artist. And by artist here I mean someone deeply interested in his craft as a vehicle for imaginative and probing communication. The paradox is that his model is all about mass communication. While I don’t understand, personally, the world of artistic reproductions, I have no significant problem allowing a painter or printmaker their limited edition giclees. Kinkade, however, takes this to an astronomical new level, paying no respect (it would seem) to the original, the tactile.

I wonder how Norman Rockwell was perceived in his day, or even Maxfield Parish (one of my favorite illustrators). Perhaps if we think of Kinkade as an illustrator, his wildly successful and ubiquitous marketing endeavors will seem less offensive.

What Kinkade’s paintings lack that Rockwell’s and Parish’s often rely on are images of people. Wolfe, in his essay, points out that Thomas Kinkade’s “genius” is that he never lets us into the “Cotswoldy cottages” that are his staple, “leaving us free to imagine the world within.” But that’s another topic for another time.

I am equally passionate about fine art and craft, about decoration and abstraction. I am equally thrilled to think about and be involved in architecture, interior design, crafts and the tactile arts.

What I mean by architecture is the design and execution of structures such as homes, offices and civic buildings. Architecture is a very “well-rounded” profession requiring knowledge of a wide variety of disciplines and crafts. Successful design and execution of structures makes use of craft and decoration.

What I mean by interior design is the design and execution of interior spaces, making use of finish materials (wall coverings, floor coverings, moldings) and furniture. Architecture and interior design often overlap. Successful interior design makes use of craft and decoration.

When I refer to the tactile arts, I am referring to paintings, sculptures, ceramics, prints (as in printmaking, not digital reproductions) and so on. These are commonly referred to as the fine arts as well. I specifically refer to them as the tactile arts to distinguish digital art from hand-made, three dimensional art. The tactile arts regularly make us of decoration, and hopefully employ good craft.

What I mean by craft is “to make or manufacture an object with skill and careful attention to detail.”

I write all of this in a manner of thinking out loud. I don’t personally know how to reconcile my interest in so many distinct visual activities. I would love to find a way to be equally involved in all of them, designing homes — inside and out, working in my studio to create both abstract sculpture and functional furniture. Could I make such a thing financially viable, make it into a business? Would I want to?

Last night I listened to a discussion among friends. They pondered out loud the definition of art, the importance of craft and the validity of abstraction. It was pointed out that Frank Lloyd Wright’s wonderful designs were often poorly executed. Craft is vital. In culture today craft is second class. Whether on account of our impatience, profit-driven mass manufacturing or an imprudent priority given to concept over product, objects in America these days are more often than not cheaply made. I’d like to see this change in the midst of good design, great concepts. I’d like to see well-built, enduring architecture and furniture, with imaginative and prophetic sculpture and painting on the walls and in the yards of homes and public structures.

And I’d like to be a part of that renaissance, somehow.