October 25, 2010
August 12, 2008
There is the saying that 'life imitates art', which is true, but even truer is the fact that our lives are daily intertwined with art. As I tell students when I do school visits, an artist is not just someone who paints pictures. An artist designs the clothes you wear, the packaging your food comes in, the furniture you sit on, the car or bus you ride to school or work in. An artist designs the [more]books and magazines you read, the sets, costumes and the title sequences of the television shows and movies you watch, the covers of the cd you listen to and the music player you listen to song downloads on.
Fine art is a very important facet of civilization and culture, but art goes far beyond paintings, drawings and sculpture. Art is what adds visual appeal and interest and emotional engagement to the everyday things in our lives. There was an old phrase, commercial art, that used to mean art that was done for a business purpose. And crafts were the things that were not 'fine art' and were not 'commercial art'. But they all use the same means to achieve the same result. Color, pattern, shape and form are manipulated to create an aesthetic or emotional reaction. It's not even about beauty, although beauty can be a part of it- it's about engaging your emotional interest.
Cultures throughout history are defined and differentiated not just by their ideology or influence and power, but also by art and the unique design of the everyday and the mundane- the clothing, the pots & jugs, the furniture, the tools. Art defines us and connects us to our past, the threads of design running back through time. Art was being put on stone and on skin long before words. The first writing was pictographic, pictures communicating meaning... art.
As you go through your daily life, take note of the colors and patterns and shapes of the things around you. Think about the artistic decisions that were made to make things look the way they do- it's seldom arbitrary or accidental. An artist is communicating to you.
August 6, 2008
Whim, that fleeting point of time that can define the path to discovery or loss, success or failure, victory or defeat, and the grey ennui that blurs the edges. A succinct word, a fleeting instant when a decision is made before the idea of decision is even formed. It becomes innocent with whimsy, and lyrical and musical and playful when it becomes whimsical. [more]
It has an even more musical variation that goes back at least to Medieval and Elizabethan times. Whim-wham was a trinket or whimsical ornament for clothing. This was a time of peacockery, when excess in dress was expected for those who could afford it, men and women alike. It was both admired and ridiculed. The poets and playwrights left their eloquent opinions of whim-wham and it's wearers.
A thrumbe hat she had of red,
Like a bushel on her head.
Her kercher hung from under her cap,
With a taile like a flie flap,
And tyed it fast with a whim wham,
Knit up againe with a trim tram,
Much like an AEgiptian
Tarlton - Cobler of Canterburie- 1590
They'll pull ye all to pieces for your whim-whams,
Your garters, and your gloves.
Fletcher - Night Walker- 1640
August 4, 2008
Vernazza's harbor, tucked safely away from the Mediterranean behind its seawall, is crowded with fishing boats and cafe tables shaded by brilliantly colored umbrellas. Cats prowl among the sea-scented boats and sleep on their canvas covers. The afternoon is indolently peaceful in the hazy warmth.
On the table sits wine from the vineyards that cling to the terraced cliffs towering above the village. The wine, dry and bright, exudes the poetry of place, the undefinable sense of being and belonging. The rocky coast, blue with distance, stretches on, fading into the haze-painted blending of sea and sky.
Red Umbrellas, Vernazza, Italy By Larry Dowell
July 21, 2008
On the San Antonio Mission Trail during the hottest summer ever in central Texas. Not the hottest temperatures, but consistently, day after day, 100°-105°. But it seems appropriate to see these Spanish Colonial treasures in this dry insistent heat. The nearby San Antonio traffic and planes from the Air Force bases scattering the area fade from thought, replaced by a sense of history and survival and persistence. This the frontier of Indians and Spanish monks, the 1730's, long before cowboys and ranchers and railroads and the struggle to make Texas it's own country and then a state of the Union. God, the Catholic God, and Catholic education were the tools for civilizing the Indian culture, although guns were the backing authority. This can be seen in the gun ports of the thick stone fortifications around some of the missions.
Each of the five missions glows with it's on unique aura; but Mission Espada, the smallest and furthest from the Alamo and the city center, is the jewel. It is still used as the neighborhood church and it glows with an indescribable peace and welcoming. The scent of incense and fresh flowers floats in the air and a timeless sense of place and belonging touches you as you enter.
