Re: Judges Comments

I think somewhere there is a saying that, to paraphrase,
art is grace fulfilled. And frankly, in  that respect,
it wouldn't matter if anyone ever saw it, it'd just BE.
So I agree with you there. 

But I kind'a want to tack onto that that art is about
communication. And onto that, to be more picky, it is
sub-verbal communication. If it transcends, in the dark or
no, then it is art, for it has survived trend and
culture and language and time, to be exactly what it is, 
wonder-full.



Spunky the Tuna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Morgan Larch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 

>> 
>> This is all sooo curious to me! The analagy of sitting in a cave
>> and making stuff is just that, sitting in a closet and talking
>> to one's self. That is to say, if one's work does not talk
>> to an audience, it does just that, it speaks to no one and wont
>> ever pass for art, by definition.

> Well, I don't know that I can completely agree with that.  It's something 
> that I've been giving a lot of recent thought to, as it happens.  I was a 
> poet for a long time and came to the realization that, for me, the 
> perfect poem was spoken once and once only into exactly the right ear and 
> never repeated.  The very ephemeral nature of it was part of the art, 
> part of the longing to reach out and touch that drive all communications.  
> IMHO.

> Now I'm embarking on a different kind of art.  There's something that 
> Peter Voulkos said one time that stuck in my brain like a lance. He made 
> reference to his later works being increasingly gestural.  That notion of 
> a pot being a gesture frozen in time has become a very powerful image for 
> me.  As I'm learning what interaction with clay is most satisfying, I'm 
> realizing the very simple and obvious truth that graceful gestures create 
> graceful pots.  Duh! That realization shouldn't have taken more than 
> about a nanosecond's thought, but it came as kind of an embarrassing 
> shock to realize it.

> The moving from an evanescent art form to a tangible art form is an 
> interesting transition.  Or maybe it's not.  It is, at least, to me.

> And one of the notions that I find most interesting is the notion of how 
> people's pedigrees are important to their work.  Frankly, it seems like 
> utter bullshit to me.  A graceful gesture, a vivacious pot is what it is 
> regardless of whether is a complete dumb accident or the result of being 
> institutionalized in a land-grant university or life in a garret around 
> the corner from the Sorbonne.  Why should that matter?  Beauty is.  It 
> shouldn't need to know it's name.  It's existence, it seems to me, is 
> enough.

> Whether something is regarded by the ages as sacred or profane is quite 
> possibly as much a function of fashion and trend as it is anything else.
> -- 
> Spunky the Tuna