- to change your perspective on amateurs and art making (or WHY you should stop watching and start making):
Where only a few hundred years ago it would have been unthinkable that people would not regularly sing, dance, recite tales, etc., it is now assumed that most never will. The underlying assumption is that this vast number of artistic non-participants will have their artistic needs met, not by actually making art themselves, but rather by consuming the products of the art-specialists.
It seems inevitable that a society whose basis lies in the buying and selling of commodities would turn art itself into a commodity. Art had to be, in a sense, taken away and alienated from people so that it could be sold back to them as a commodity.
As a result we live in a world where art-specialists 'manufacture' artistic products for us.
But while this is undoubtedly a convenient ideology for a capitalist culture, it is fundamentally wrong. Listening to music, for example, is simply not the same experience as playing music, anymore than sitting and watching the performance of a play would be the same as writing or acting in it. When we experience someone else's art, we perceive their ideas, shapes and sounds. But we are still passive, for we play no role except that of an observer.
For example, no matter how much I might like Ingmar Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal", and even though it may have great meaning for me, I can only appreciate it, not contribute to it. We cannot continue to confuse in any way artistic appreciation with artistic expression.
The cultural and artistic hegemony of the specialist has not only created a situation in which most people readily accept the lack of artistic-expression in their own lives, but has also made it very difficult for those non-specialists who still desire to be artistically-expressive to do so. These non-specialists, described as "amateur" artists, are seen by our society as being peripheral to art, unable to compete with the specialist who is able to spend more time and develop superior technique. Indeed, we have denigrated the amateur to such a degree that the very word connotes a second rate quality. The best an amateur can hope to do, it is thought, is give a reasonable imitation of the specialist's work. Amateurs themselves are aware of, and intimidated by, these attitudes.
The Leonardo de Vinci s happily applied themselves to a wide variety of fields and thought themselves the richer for it. In our time, however, Leonardo would be considered an amateur or hobby painter since for him it was only one activity among several.
There is certainly no direct artistic interaction between the amateur public and professional performer, except that of the manufacturer and alienated consumer.
Medieval Europeans saw art integrated into all aspects of life. Art was a part of the greater whole and had to be judged as such.
For artistic-expression to play a significant role in people's lives once again, it must be thoroughly integrated into the framework of society, becoming a part of people's daily work, home and social routine.
We have so completely lost our traditional, everyday art-culture (the singing of "Happy Birthday" and Christmas carols being among the last remaining remnants of this) that we no longer think of singing, dancing or storytelling in everyday situations because there is no longer any conception that it should or could be done in them.
Even for those students whose curiosity about art is piqued by a school arts program the question remains as to what the child will do with their love of art after they have grown up. Because, unless the child fanatically devotes him or herself to becoming a professional art- specialist and then succeeds in this endeavor as an adult (which is by no means guaranteed), he or she will have to maintain an interest in making art as a hobby. This means that, in the adult world, art will be regarded as a secondary activity, taking place in relative isolation, and susceptible to being displaced by pressures of work, family, and time. In addition, people that pursue art in this manner often do so under the implication that making art is a frivolous and extraneous activity, an 'indulgence' of the person that does it. As a result of these various pressures few schoolchildren succeed in consistently making their own art once they move into the adult world. To fill the void caused by this lack of artistic-participation they will instead be encouraged to become art- consumers.
janainaart
theartofmadeline
areudirty
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
gummygunk
annaxmalina