Category Archives: Art

But is it art?

November 11, 2014 7:34 AM , Leave a Comment ,

The National Novel Writing month (NaNoWriMo) has  commenced and all across the nation budding Stephen Kings, and Michael Crichtons and Mickey Spillanes all pour their thoughts and feelings down on computer screens.  Most of these novels won’t ever go anywhere but at least the seeds of writing will get planted here and there and who knows maybe some day one of these writers will be a best seller.

I don’t really entertain such lofty aspirations for myself.  For me it’s enough to set all this down on paper or in the computer and get it out of my system.  If someone reads it, understands it, maybe even appreciates it, then so much the better.

One thing though that I have yet to answer satisfactorily, at least to some folks satisfaction, is it art?  Is writing really an art form that can be posted alongside paintings, or sculpture, or musical compositions.  Those you can look at and even if you don’t like it you at least acknowledge as art.

Whenever I attend an art gallery or showing or whatever and the question inevitably arises “What do you do?” my artist friends reply that they paint or sculpt or whatever and when it comes to be my turn I answer that I write.

A pause fills the air.  An unspoken “Oh, that’s nice” seems to hang there.

People don’t really know where to take the conversation with that.  With painters you can ask them what medium they work in or what style of painting or their particular subject matter.

With writers though you firstly don’t know what a good follow-up question is (hint:  ask what genre they work in), secondly I think there is a bit of a misconception that writing really isn’t all that special a skill, that it really doesn’t require discipline or creativity.  Anyone can write is what most people feel.

Another challenge is that with a painting, a photograph, a sculpture that you can see the art work in its totality right then and there.  With writing you might have to dig several chapters deep into a book, really curl up in a chair on in bed for a long time to start to finally appreciate the work.

For example, a sports writer writes up a review of a football game or a boxing match and waxes poetically about the event, he adds historical allusions, adds similes, really goes all out and doesn’t just provide cold hard facts. Is that art or is it just an overwrought report?

Some guy writes up a story about space aliens and bug-eyed monsters that’s been rehashed over and over again and is so predictable that it’s boring.  Again is that art or just someone dealing out the same tired storyline?

To that I say that just as there are great thought-provoking paintings and just like there are paintings of dogs playing poker, there is good writing and there is bad writing but the main thing is that it’s all art.

We may have to pour in a thousand words to say as much as your one picture but the point is that we do pour in those thousand words and every little blog post, short story, or even great american novel is worthy of being regarded as art. We stress and worry over the placement of every paragraph, the structure of every sentence, the choice of every word as much a poet choosing the right color or a songwriter choosing the right note.

If the point of art is to elicit a response, to make another person think, to communicate an idea then yes writing is an art form and writers are artists just as much as anyone that ever picked up a brush or strummed a note from a guitar.

Posted in: activities, art, writing

The importance of being Earnest review

April 13, 2014 6:31 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Classical Theater Company (CTC) closes out its season (an all too short season in my opinion) with my favorite Oscar Wilde play, “The importance of being Earnest”.  I’ve previously covered the Dr Faustus performance back in February.

Typically CTC will tweak classic plays to make them more contemporary and relevant to current events.  They chose to do “Hamlet” with a nod to the controversy of the NSA surveillance scandal that was going on at the time.  With “Earnest” they didn’t really tweak it as the play takes place in 1895 and is pretty relatable to today’s audience.

“Earnest” was Wilde’s masterpiece and forms the basis of many of the romantic comedy movies of the last 75 years.  The misunderstandings, the unspoken loves, the complications are all elements to fans of romantic comedies.  Besides that “Earnest” held up a mirror up to Victorian society and exposed some of the ridiculous but all too real opinions and mindsets of the upper class of the era.

The play opens up to Algernon (or Algie) lounging at home.  Algie is a lazy and overprivileged young man.  He doesn’t work and spends all his time pursuing carnal pleasures.  He is expecting his Aunt and his cousin to visit for tea when his friend Ernest from the country shows up.  Ernest is similar to Algie in that he also doesn’t work and lives off his investments.

Ernest is pining for Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolyn, and wants to court her but Algie objects due to an incident in the recent past.  Algie found Ernest’s cigarette case and it is inscribed “To Jack from his little Cecily”.  At first Ernest pretends that this is his aunt but finally confesses that Cecily is his ward and that his name is really Jack.  He has been assuming the name Ernest in order to visit London and lead a double life.  Far from being horrified, Algie congratulates him for his “bunburying” as Algie calls it.  Algie has been doing the same thing but in reverse.  He assumes the name Bunbury while visiting the country to carouse and carry on.  Ernest tells him about his ward, Cecily, and Algie is determined to meet her but Ernest won’t give him his country address for fear that Algie will corrupt her.

Algie’s aunt, Lady Bracknell, arrives with Gwendolyn.  While Algie  distracts his aunt Ernest asks Gwendolyn to marry him.  She readily agrees but when the subject of his first name arises, she confesses that she loves the name Ernest and would not accept being married to a “Jack”.  He then determines to get his name changed at the first opportunity.  Lady Bracknell returns.  She objects to the engagement due to the fact that Ernest is an orphan and was left in a handbag at Victoria station.  As he cannot account for his lineage, Lady Bracknell determines that he is unacceptable and leaves.  Gwendolyn promises to marry Ernest even if she has to run away.  Ernest gives her his address in the county while Algie listens in secret.  Algie calls his butler and gets ready to visit Cecily in the country.

Act 2  begins in the country.  Cecily and her governess, Miss Prism, are in the garden preparing her lessons and discussing “Uncle Jack’s” worthless brother Ernest and his latest escapades.  Miss Prism disapproves of Ernest but Cecily is thoroughly fascinated.  Algie arrives.  He tells everyone that he is Ernest and has come to see his brother Jack, knowing very well that Jack is in London.  Miss Prism won’t leave them alone but Reverend Chausable arrives and asks Miss Prism out for a walk.

Cecily is fascinated by Algie and tells him that she is quite disposed to marry him.  Algie finds himself unexpectedly smitten but when the subject of names comes up it turns out Cecily also adores the name Ernest too and won’t marry him otherwise.  Algie decides to get himself re-christened by Reverend Chausable.

Meanwhile Jack arrives in mourning clothes.  He has decided to “kill off” his fake brother Ernest.  He tells Miss Prism and the reverend that his brother died from a cold in Paris.  He asks Reverend Chausable to re-christen him Ernest in honor of his brother.  Cecily and Algie arrive and Jack is forced to accept Algie as Ernest or else expose the charade.

Act 3 begins with Gwendolyn arriving in the country.  She has run away to be with her Ernest.  She meets Cecily and they both find out that they are both engaged to “Ernest”.  After getting into a huge argument, Jack and Algie arrive and they have to explain the whole farce to their respective fiancées.  Both Cecily and Gwendolyn are furious at being lied to.  They break off their engagements.

After making apologies and both pledging to be re-christened Ernest, the men manage to assuage their fiancées anger and restore the engagements.

Just as all seems well, Lady Bracknell arrives looking for Gwendolyn.  She still opposes Gwendolyn’s engagement.  Algie tells her of his engagement to Cecily and she opposes this until she finds out how much Cecily stands to inherit.  But now Jack objects.  As her guardian he won’t allow the wedding unless Lady Bracknell approves his nuptials.

Miss Prism arrives and Lady Bracknell recognizes her.  It turns out that decades earlier Miss Prism left a handbag with a baby in Victoria station.  At first Jack thinks she is his mother but Miss Prism corrects him on this point.  At this moment Lady Bracknell informs Jack that he is in fact the son of her sister and is therefore Algie’s older brother.  Though she knows Jack was named for his father she can’t remember his first name.  After some research, they determine that Jack’s real name had actually always been Ernest and he declares that at last he has realized the  importance of being earnest.

One thing I will say is that CTC missed an opportunity here to relate this to the “Peter Pan Syndrome“.  Both Jack and Algie are prime examples of males that live for the moment and for their selfish pleasures rather than growing up and accepting responsibilities that their contemporaries are embracing.  I feel something could have been done with this.

The play lasted a little over two hours but the jokes came constantly and the time seemed to pass by quickly.  A thoroughly enjoyable experience.  I can’t wait till the next season of CTC begins sometime in the Fall.

Posted in: art, theater , Tagged: , ,

The numbers of life

February 22, 2014 6:59 AM , 2 Comments ,

Have you ever read a book or a poem or listened to a song or looked at a painting and thought to yourself how perfect it is?  Have you ever looked at a landscape and pondered that it somehow resonates with you somewhere deep inside just because it is the way it is?

I don’t mean that these things are just pleasant to contemplate but that the way that these things are put together (whatever it is) are for lack of another word, perfect?

Well things like the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio do exist in nature and it seems many natural phenomena and living things use these ratios.  Life seems to be able to express itself using math in various wonderful ways.

But I want to focus more on human arts.  The way that you are sometimes reading a book and you read a passage and you stare at a sentence and marvel at the way it is put together.  Every word carefully chosen, the structure just right.  When you finish reading it the result is poetic or even melodic to your mind.  Any change, any word substitution would ruin it and the result would seem off-balance.

I remember a sci-fi show years ago where an alien civilization came into contact with humans and were amazed at our music as they had no such concept of their own.  They were a culture totally devoted to math.  They valued the music not for the song contents but for the mathematical expression of the musical notes.  To them this was a new way to appreciate numbers.

I sometimes wonder that if we were to express novels, or poems in some mathematical fashion that well written works would come out as well written and beautifully complex mathematical equations that balanced out.

Perhaps then maybe we too can be expressed as mathematical equations.  Maybe if we were able to express our lives in terms of numbers and equations we could clearly see what was unbalanced or wrong and take steps to correct it.  Would it be that easy?  Would we even be happy if we knew how to do this?  Or would we continue to live life as we have previously done so because to us the equation seems perfect no matter what the numbers say.

Posted in: art, prose, science, thought

Dr Faustus review

February 4, 2014 6:32 AM , 2 Comments ,

I love small theater venues.  You get a much better sense of what’s going on and the story becomes more intimate.  Actors spend long hours not just memorizing lines but practicing acting and reacting to each other and to the story.  It’s nice to be close enough to see all of that.  Large venues can be impersonal but small venues bring the action almost into your lap.

The Barnvelder (or the Barn) is such a place.  The stage dressing is minimal and the costumes are pretty spare but the acting is top-notch and really that’s what you’re there to see.

I first became aware of the Classical Theater Company at a convention a couple of years ago.  As the name suggests they do only classical works of theater but with small modernizing twists here and there.  Dr Faust was a good example.  The actors were all dressed in 1920s style clothes and old-time music played in the background on a Vitrolla but the story itself wasn’t changed.

Most people just know Dr Faust for the catchphrase “Faustian bargain” but know little more than that.  Often they will confuse it with the American short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and assume it ends well.

In the story a young German student is deciding what course his life will take.  He is bored with medicine, law, science, and considers religion to be stifling.  However he is fascinated with necromancy and sees it as a liberating field of study that will set him above his fellow-man.

He summons a devil called Mephistopheles and asks for this power.  Mephistopheles  answers that he can only do that if Lucifer allows him and the price for that would be Faust’s soul.  Faust readily agrees without thought and signs a contract for 24 years.  He assumes he has cheated Lucifer as he does not believe that the soul exists and that when he dies nothing will happen to him even though Lucifer has made it plain what it will happen and introduces him to the seven deadly sins.

So for the next few years Faust and Mephistopheles travel the world and do whatever they want.  They pester the Pope, they meet with royalty, they summon the spirits of Alexander the great and Helen of Troy, and generally Faust has a good time, until he meets an old man on a country road.

The old man tells Faust that he has squandered the most precious thing he owns for petty gains and that he will spend eternity in torment for it.  This creates doubt in Faust and his resolve cracks.  He thinks about repenting but Mephistopheles chastises him.  Faust says that he will never again repent if he could spend a night of passion with Helen of Troy.  Mephistopheles grants his wish.

As his time is coming to an end Faust becomes more and more worried.  He begins to see that he has made a horrible bargain.  On his final day on Earth he tries to repent and pray but is restrained by the bargain he had made with Mephistopheles.  He cries out to the mountains to hide him, to the ground to open up and swallow him and to the stars to lift him up but it is to no avail.  Hell opens up and drags him off.

The play itself was portrayed by 4 actors.

James Belcher from the Alley theater acting company portrayed Mephistopheles

Adam Gibbs played the title role of Faust,

Dain Geist who had previously played Hamlet played the part of the chorus as well as other small parts such as Lucifer, and the pope,

Joanna Hubbard who played Ophelia in Hamlet was also part of the chorus and other small parts such as Helen of troy and a cardinal.

Posted in: art, theater , Tagged: , , , ,

Creatives

November 20, 2013 8:49 PM , 2 Comments ,

I’ve been on a bit of a culture kick this year.

Going to art galleries, live theater, listening to new types of music, going to book readings and just really getting to know more about this world.

It’s not just the art work that draws me in but the people who created the works themselves.  I find it fascinating to learn about these creative people and how they came up with their ideas.  Mostly I love to hear about how they decided to share those gifts one day with the public and tell everyone ” Here I am!”

I can’t even fathom how that works.  To take something that was so private and so innate to yourself and think “yes, this is great and I must share it”.  I don’t know if I could do that.  So naturally I look up to artists.

I am also amazed at their levels of talent.  When you think of the amount of time and dedication put into these art works.

Simply amazing!

Posted in: art, ideas, talking, thought

Ink

September 13, 2013 7:43 AM , 2 Comments ,

I’m going to be 100% honest here.  Overall I don’t like tattoos.  They’re definitely not for me.

I find most tattoos to be ugly, ill-conceived, badly executed, and poorly planned.  Most people put little if no thought into getting a tattoo.  Usually it’s a spur of the moment decision brought about by too much peer pressure, liquor, emotion or a combination of all three.

To me it represents a juvenile thought process that doesn’t take into consideration any future repercussions of a decision that will be with you for most of your life.

Now, all that being said there are some exceptional examples of body art out there.  Some people have embraced tattooing and have put months if not years into crafting a whole body mosaic of what they want to express to the world through the tattoos on their bodies.  They pick out a style, they consult with top-level tattoo artists for weeks or months and together they go through and come up with a unified plan of how they will execute this plan.  The individuals that do this understand and embrace a lifestyle that will include if not make tattoos the centerpiece of their lives.  It is a carefully considered and adult decision process.

These people also understand that their bodies are living canvases for their art.  They take care of their bodies and keep fit.  They understand that in order to keep the art at its peak condition that they must take care of their skin.

These people I can respect.

But for most people I have to say tattoos are not for you.  Think about your life as a whole, what is it you want to accomplish?   What is it you want to be?  Where is it you want to be in ten years?  Is it going to be part of some counter-culture clique?  Will you be a bohemian artist in Soho?  A biker in southern California?  A Maori warrior?  A yakuza?  A top model in London?

Or will you instead be working at Giant Corp and living in the ‘burbs wearing dockers and a long sleeve button down to cover your tribal armband that you got in Cabo back on spring break of ’94?  Will you be regretting that “tramp stamp” you got at your cousin Suzie’s bridal shower when you and the girls went to the “bad side” of town and you had one too many tequila shooters?  Is it worth getting Sheila, Mary, Melissa, Angelica, or Deidre inked on your arm when you’re 18 and falling in love every other week?  Is it really worth getting that pithy little quote you picked up last week stenciled on your body?

I can’t tell you what to do with your body or your life.  That’s up to you.  I can however tell you to appreciate the body you have.  If it needs enhancing, then work out.  Make yourself the best you that you can be.  It’s a lot more permanent and more satisfying than any tattoo will ever be.

Posted in: art, life in general

Cross cultural inspiration

July 5, 2013 5:26 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Rolling Stones performing country music

A few weeks back I posted about cross pollination

People from different disciplines, walks of life, and viewpoints coming together and inspiring each other to come up with totally new ideas.

Slightly less important but more common is the practice of people from similar fields studying the work of others.  This is very common in music.  Much more common than fans or even the performers like to admit.  The Rolling Stones playing a Waylon Jennings tune is odd but I’ve heard similar stories out there.  Sean Combs “Puff Daddy” admitted that he sometimes listened to Johnny Cash.  In the Beatles songs “Eleanor Rigby” and “All you need is love” have classical music elements thrown in throughout the songs.

This is harder to find outside of music but there have been some cross genre writers and of course some painters and sculptors that have progressed from one school to another during their careers.  Something about those other schools of thought that inspired and made them want to try other things than what they had previously done.

I think that’s when you can tell that an artist or performer is really worth listening to or admiring.  When they take the time to study and appreciate not just their own genre but look further afield to other genres and either apply what they’ve learned to create something new or enter that genre themselves to compete outside their comfort zone.

Have you ever considered stepping out of the familiar and friendly into unknown territories?

 

Posted in: art, ideas