[BLOG POST 9/29/24] Recently I started re-watching the 1990s tv show "Northern Exposure". Dear reader if you aren't familiar is was a "fish out of water" show about a NYC doctor who ends up working in a remote town in Alaska. It was a comedy but also explores a lot of interesting topics that I didn't really pick up the first time I watched it in the 1990s. One of those things is what I'm writing about today.
In the show one character, Chris, is a morning radio DJ and artist who is the catalyst for the writers to explore philosophy, spiritually, and art. In one episode they define art as the act or process of creating something. Artwork is the product of the art.
That really got me thinking because art is a hard thing to define. Is a blank canvas art? Is a beautiful plate of food art? Is the Japanese tea ceremony art?
But as the show pointed out, all of those things are the PRODUCT of art. Whereas art itself is the creation process.
Indeed many artists (poets, painters, sculptors, musician, etc) talk about being a conduit between the creative energy of the universe and the physical world.
— Mary Gabriel (author)
And then there is this quote that floats around being attributed to Albert Einstein but apparently he did not say it:
“Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy."
Stay with me for a moment dear reader, I'll come back to the conduit theory in a moment but right now I want to talk about a volunteer job I'm doing.
I am on the board of the New Mexico Women in the Arts (NMC) and as such I serve on their subcommittee putting together their first ever collaborative show with an illustrious gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, Turner Carroll. The show is only open to members of the NMC and the deadline to apply is today. Currently 140 artist members have applied. Each artist on average has submitted 3 pieces of artwork. That's a total of 420 pieces of artwork.
Part of my responsibility on the subcommittee is to check each entry and make sure it is accurate in the database. After all the submissions are complete I will give the database to 3 jurors and it will be their job to decide on the artists who will be in the show. There is room for about 20 pieces of artwork in the gallery (depending on the sizes of the pieces) so they jurors have a big job ahead of them. BTW they plan on selecting one piece from 20 artists so the show will have a lot of variety.
Listening to how the jurors plan to sort through all the artwork and make their decisions broke my heart. I can't totally blame them, after all they are humans with full and rich lives who are volunteering to do this difficult task. So when they talk about how quickly they will review the art, make snap decisions on what they like, choose keystone pieces and then fill in around them with artwork that compliments them I feel very sad.
Granted we are putting together an art show and we all want the artwork to sell but the idea of judging art has left a bad taste in my mouth.
I mean, how do you judge the divine's expression through human hands?
Instead I want the jurors to really LOOK at the product of the creative process and take time to feel and appreciate the vision of the artist. Even if they don't personally respond to the product/artwork I want them to understand the vision and the passion. I want the artist to be fully seen.
Circling back to Chris in the Morning on Northern Exposure let's look at process vs. product and the idea of the artist being a conduit.
When you define art as the creative process or the conduit of expression, that allows a wide appreciation of human creativity. Then, if we as a society valued that process then we would support artists regardless of what they created. We would create safety nets so artists could create without worrying about how they will pay their bills. We would teach our young people to foster their own creativity and celebrate it in whatever form it takes.
Instead we focus on the product of the process--the song, book, movie, painting. And judge how good it is based on the standards of the day. We decide one thing is more valuable than another based on completely arbitrary and subjective criteria (abstract art is widely accepted now but was ridiculed when it first came on the art scene). We are greatly influenced by "important" people and what they like (for example social media influencers). So the art market is fickle, artists work multiple jobs, and people focus on buying instead of supporting art.
If I had a magic wand I would shift our society's perspective to value the ACT of creation and celebrate it in all its variety and stop focusing on valuing the product.
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