“Art was not made for evangelism” 9 February 2010
Posted by pcNielsen in Art, Art and faith, Business of art, Christianity, Creative catalyst, Living incarnationally, Modern culture, Public art.1 comment so far
This is an H.R. Rookmaaker quote that I read on Rebecca Horton’s Passionately Alive blog quite a few months ago. It’s chalk full of pithy goodness on a few different topics.
So there are many strange problems in our culture. We have to think and work to solve these problems. They are not just Christian problems but problems of culture in general; many people are working on them, and no one has yet been able to find a solution. Now, the solution is never just a little book or a little definition or a little plan, and it will certainly take one or two generations to accomplish. The answer is not another kind of utilitarian art, Christian utilitarian art, because we shouldn’t be prostituting art to become something it was never made to be. Art was not made for evangelism. We should start a new development that bridges the gaps and solves the problem of the unreality of art in the museum. But first we have to pose the right questions. However, we are only just beginning to see those questions.
The iPad: Another step away from tactility 27 January 2010
Posted by pcNielsen in Modern culture.2 comments
Don’t get me wrong, I want one. The wife and I just got new phones — AT&T’s service up here in Nebraska was sketchy, so we switched to Verizon — that use touch screens. I like the touch screen technology. And I like Apple products as a general rule.
But the iPad looks to me like one more step towards a world of untactility.
O come . . . 25 December 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Christmas list.add a comment
Merry first day of Christmas!
O Come Let us Adore Him performed by Pomplamoose (via Old World Swine)
Christmas Eve 24 December 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Christmas list, Imagination.2 comments
When I was a kid I used to find auto fuses on the street and pretend they were spaceships akin to an X-wing fighter. And the Christmas tree was the mothership. Sometimes I miss my childhood imagination.
We got a little crazy this year and took advantage of the tall ceilings in our present living space this year. My wife and her parents went to a tree farm near Seward, Nebraska and felled an 11′ tall Canaan Fir (above). It’s the first tree we’ve had in two or three years.
The importance, and trap, of artistic freedom 17 December 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Art, Business of art, Censorship, Craft, Imagination.2 comments
My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful
the more narrowly I limit my field of action
and the more I surround myself with obstacles.
Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength.
The more constraints one imposes,
the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.
Artistic freedom is important, and tricky. From it comes both great and enduring artwork as well as works that are easy to deride. Artists themselves will mostly poo-poo any kind of limitations, crying foul, claiming the great scapegoat of censorship. Their peers who willingly work within certain limiting factors (i.e. a commissioned work) are often branded as sell-outs.
The importance of artistic freedom
From the Herva blog, a post titled Artistic freedom and the trap of success:
Most of my adult life I’ve been trying to figure out where my creative output “fit.” This is bull kaka. At least for me it is. If I wanted to be a craftsman, worker for hire, to create towards someone else’s need this would be fine. But I don’t. I want to express my vision, to create out of my soul and to make exist things that I would like to see/hear/read. So why bother trying to fit in anywhere?
. . . Forget “fitting in.” AND, just as importantly, forget success. For now, I just want to create with as few constraints as I am mentally and physically able. I want to make music with my heart and my hands, to paint or write (or whatever) with my insides (intelligence, spirit, guts, soul) guiding my choices. Will anyone pay for it? I have no idea. Will anyone other than me think it’s good? No clue. But I have to allow myself not to care or worry about that right now. Every creator I’m a fan of creates things oozing in singularity, works that rise out of the sludge due to their originality, clarity, and vision. I don’t see the words acceptance or money in that last sentence at all. Do I hope that in doing this some “success” will come eventually? Sure. But in the making of it, in the actual creation, I want freedom.
Allowing artists this kind of freedom is important, it’s important in relationship to the cultural implications of art. Artists are observers. Their paintings and sculptures are responses to their environments: Built environs, social environs, relationships and so on. These responses create a cultural and historical record in a way no textbook will ever be able to.
Further, art should challenge us from time to time — as a culture and as individuals. For this to happen, an artist needs the freedom to venture outside of our expectations, outside of our comfort zones (and often their own). Paintings aren’t just for looking pretty and coordinating with the new couch. Remember the dangers of sentimental creativity.
The trap of artistic freedom
Artistic freedom is also tricky. It’s easy to abuse the responsibility inherent in that freedom, to adopt an anything goes mentality and create to simply push the limits, sensationalize. Attempt to gain attention, fame. To go after success and money (which is valid to a point). The trouble is the only guidelines for artistic freedom are vague, unwritten social cues. They’re not something a person can put down in black and white.
But they are still there.
Such freedom can also distract an artist; artists need some focus with their freedom. At the same time they need, for instance, the ability to explore a wide range of media and push those media to their limits, an artist needs to develop their craft. Whether they like to admit it or not, craft is an inherent part of every artwork. To become proficient — and (in theory anyway) gain respect and a voice — in a craft takes discipline. Discipline is, in essence, a set of rules, whether imposed by self or others.
Rules that will at first guide will then grow with the potential to be broken.
Process
Says Sarah Jane of the Faith and Foolishness blog, “The artistic process feels at times like a many-layered friend, whose complexities I have come to understand through long acquaintance, and who occasionally still manages to surprise me. I have great trust in this faithful and mysterious companion.”
Process will be different for every individual artist. Some will work better with more structure, such as Stravinsky. Others will create their best work with a lot of freedom, like Herva. Finding a balance, personally, is always more difficult than picking one or the other, but it must be done.
Intentional Observation: Working retail 3 December 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Disposable culture, Environmental stewardship, Handmade, Intentional observation, Modern culture, Personal reflection.3 comments
These are a few observations so far from the part-time retail job I took a couple months ago at Kohl’s.
Wastefulness: Kohl’s gives stewardship of our environment a lot of attention. They recycle cardboard, paper and plastic, lights are on timers or motion sensors and a number of stores run on solar power (all of which is not just good stewardship, but smart business). However, as a highly trained professional [box unloader] I get to see first hand how ridiculously some of the merch is packaged by the manufacturers for shipping to the stores.
Some of the objects I so professionally unbox — though not most in my opinion — warrant very careful packing. Damage during shipping is not good business. There are a select few of the items I so professionally unpack that are wrapped in plastic, inserted into styrofoam, taped together, put in a box and then put in another box represent what I’ve come to see as an endemic wastefulness in American culture (Granted, some of these things maybe packaged in China.).
What I can’t figure out is why a manufacturer would do this. A company would be more profitable (which of course is the end-all in our corporate cultures) if they didn’t purchase superfluous packaging and then pay wages to the person who’s packing up the products. I don’t understand; any company worth its salt will have researched just how many packing peanuts or layers of bubble wrap are required to protect their products during shipping. So maybe I’m wrong about these objects being excessively wrapped and taped and styrofoamed.
But I don’t think so.
Management: Management and coworkers make all the difference, and Dilbert is much too close to the truth in so many of our workplaces. I already knew this and so did you, but it’s worth repeating. So many people I know work retail jobs they are not very happy with, mainly because of the attitudes and ignorance of their managers and coworkers. The people I work with happen to be very easy to get along with and quite helpful, to customers and other employees. Proverbs chapter 17 reminds us that “Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a house full of feasting with strife.”
Consumerism: The retail world screams materialism, consumerism to me. It’s somewhat ironic in my mind that I’m working retail at all, as an aspiring artist who plugs all things handmade.
In and of itself, mass production — and big box retailers which seem to have grown out of the assembly line — isn’t evil. Finding ways to work more efficiently is, I think, virtuous. So much of the industrial and technological revolutions, though, end up as integral parts of our daily lives before any of us stop to think about how they will change us as individuals and as a culture. Any potential consequences be damned in favor of progress (whatever that really is) and the almighty dollar!
Buy-in: As a bit of a side note, I’ve been surprised that nothing has allowed me to really buy into Kohl’s as an employee. I suppose this isn’t something a lot of people working part-time retail jobs expect at their workplace, but I’m learning that I’m the kind of guy who wants to be involved mentally, not just as a grunt.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the grunt work. It’s actually nice to be on my feet a little after a few years behind a desk for eight hours a day. But I’d like a deeper reason to be involved with the company, and so far it hasn’t presented itself.
Life itself is grace 30 November 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Advent, Personal reflection.add a comment
Digging for our advent devotional yesterday I also found my friend Joel Armstrong’s recent book Wired (most of our books are still packed for lack of shelving). I kept it out — I’d been thinking of the book the previous week anyway — and thought this quote was good for the season.
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
The Adam Sandler movie Click was on last night, which I’d seen at some point in the past, and it reinforces Buechner’s point that even the low points in life are worth savoring, as difficult as they might be.
Life itself is grace.
Sacrificial generosity 29 November 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Advent, Modern culture.add a comment
I thought this post card from Post Secret was a fitting way to mark the first day of this Advent season.
I must admit, though, that I wish this person’s generosity was not a secret to his or her friends. In my opinion, we need more people in our culture setting an example of sacrificial giving.
Networks cutting all the best TV shows 11 November 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Modern culture.7 comments
Why does it seem like all of the more artistically brilliant TV shows are getting cut?
Most of the TV I watch ends up being what my wife watches. She has a knack — at least in comparison to me — for finding good new shows. One of the more recent ones we started to watch was Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. Whedon is also the creator of the fantastic western sci-fi series Firefly.
We learned today (via Twitter) that Dollhouse has been cut. Whedon has had terrible success with Fox; Firefly was also cut after one season. Dollhouse isn’t as good, in my opinion, as Firefly but it’s still some of the more brilliant television on right now.
What is it with networks cutting the best shows? Pushing Daisies is another example of an incredible show in concept and execution, and it barely made it through two seasons (the writer’s strike may not have helped that). Chuck is still another (although it may be getting a second chance), as are Joan of Arcadia and Veronica Mars.
Not all good shows get lopped. The Office, Psyche, Monk and Bones are still around and are all worth watching. However, none of these are as stretching or imaginative as Whedon’s shows, or Pushing Daisies.
I’m trying to think of something concrete that links the shows I like that get cut together in order to compare it to the characteristics of the shows that are given longer runs. Why do the shows I’m most in tune with seem to be the ones that are cut? Some people suggest that a lot of these shows end up being cut because they are more intellectually engaging — they have “smarter” writing than your common prime-time fare.
Seems to me that’s a sound assessment. Heaven forbid we should want to watch TV that’s intellectually engaging.
Art collectors buying locally 2 November 2009
Posted by pcNielsen in Art, Business of art, Intentional observation, Modern culture.1 comment so far
From a recent Wall Street Journal article titled Local Artists Are on the Rise:
From Bloomfield Hills, Mich., to Turin, Italy, contemporary-art collectors are passing on works by international art stars and skipping far-flung art fairs and auctions. This year, they’re buying local.
In Detroit, major collector and steel company executive Gary Wasserman says he’s stopped buying works by England’s Anish Kapoor and China’s Yue Minjun so he can focus more on buying “powerfully Midwestern” art by artists like Brian Carpenter, whose $1,000 photographs often feature images of dead deer, Lake Erie nuclear reactors and snowy footprints.
This is encouraging to me. It harkens back to my interest in seeing local art and artists working and making a living (or at least part of a living) from their work in a local context. There’s nothing wrong with marketing and selling art nationally or globally. However, there’s good reason for artists to work out of their immediate environment both by allowing it to influence their work — artists are by nature people who observe their surroundings — and allowing their work to influence the local culture. Incarnational living is the phrase I’ve used to describe this kind of attitude in past entries.
In her book Dakota, author Kathleen Norris laments how few artists were living and working in the Dakotas in the early 90s. She worried, rightly, that their Plains culture would be lost without poets and painters working out of and in the midst of the people there.
Prominent collectors purchasing from local painters, sculptors and architects helps validate local cultures in a day and age when said cultures become more and more muddled. From the Old World Swine blog last week:
The problem with American culture is that it is built on relativism that says any culture is as good as the next, and all the cultures have been banged around together for so long in the relativistic Melting Pot that they are hardly distinguishable from one another. They have been ground to bits, and the distinct edges worn off. Rather than inheriting a coherent and organic culture, each individual makes his or her own culture by picking and choosing whatever broken bits of other cultures they find appealing at the moment.
While I would change the terminology in his first sentence to say “any culture is the same as the rest” — which is what I think he meant — writer Tim Jones’ point is well-established. There is still color in local cultures if you look hard enough, but big business in America has worked tirelessly over the past few decades to root it out. Big-box retailers, fast-food franchises and our own insatiable consumerist pursuit of the latest factory built goods has left us with a largely monochromatic national landscape. “Haven’t we been here before, Rocky?” Bullwinkle asks as the two cartoon characters drive across America in their most recent film. I can understand why you’d think that Bullwinkle.
Let’s hope the trend to buy from local artists continues and isn’t simply a reaction to an art market bubble.
