Ellen Anne Eddy's Thread Magic Studio: Musings: Art out of the Box: The Glamorous World of Art

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Musings: Art out of the Box: The Glamorous World of Art

7:54 AM |

Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy |

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I'm blue today. This has nothing to do with mood.I had an amazingly awkward moment yesterday when I set a whole basket of mixed dye cups flying across the room with my elbow and much of it landed in my face. It's amazing what a little bleach can do, but there is a bluish tinge over one of my eyes and I'm so glad it's not a bruise. Or that I don't have to go anywhere. I do have pictures but we haven't figured out how to get them out of the cell phone. I'll show you when we do.

When I got done rinsing off and laughing at myself the words came back to me, The Glamorous World of Art. It does seem like a joke of some sort.
Perhaps I just never got the knack.

As far as I can figure out, art is a series of incredibly messy projects.This might not have happened in a room where five of them were going on at the same time. Or it simply might have been inevitable.

It's only that moment when you're standing in front of an audience at a lecture or a group in a gallery explaining that the whole glamor thing kicks in. Of course that has its moments too. I was at a group show artist reception this Sunday where the 30 artists roaming the show, stalking for compliments the way you might look for Easter eggs Since it was a sparsely attended show, there weren't quite enough eggs to go around. Was their work good? It was lovely! But the truth is, your art is first off, for you. If you haven't spoken through your mouth, your eyes, your hands, your voice, yours, you understand, then it's an exercise in technique. If you're waiting for accolades, it might be a while.And when they arrive, they might be irrelevant. The real question is, "Did this piece change you?"

There are those projects done for others, done for shows, done for commission. Someone with good art skills can take that project and make it sing in their own key, but often they lack what I would call veracity. It's not about them. Sometime's it's eye candy. Nothing wrong with that, but like candy, it lacks something nutritionally.

There's also a limit on what authentic work, work out of your heart, can do as well. It's therapy in a way. What makes it art instead of art therapy? Perhaps when it moves something in someone else. Is therapy glamorous? If it is, I'll just spend a glamorous day mucking out the basement. That's how I remember therapy.

There's another meaning to the word glamor that we don't hear often any more. Used as a noun, a glamor was a fairy spell, put on someone to make things different than they appeared.Someone would give you a handful of gold and when you left, you would find yourself holding leaves or rocks in your hand. Glamor doesn't last.Real art, that rocks our soul and world, lasts forever.

I have an art friend who says that being a good artist is like being a good plumber. It's a specialized bit of knowledge and you work with your hands.

There's a big difference between being an artist and doing your art. Perhaps it's the moment when you're dripping blue dye off your face. And you know that's just part of it all.

1 comments:

Paula, the quilter said...: Just 'send' those camera phone pics to your email. Then you can download the pic from your email to your computer.; December 9, 2009 at 9:56 AM