What Is Art

[Happy Monkey]

If the thing you're making has any meaning past being the thing, then it's art.

That's why I consider my tapecraft a craft, rather than art; they have no meaning or intent.

[Spexxvet]

I think if you can use it for something (quilt, bowl, sweater, chair) it's a craft. If not, it's art.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

If the thing you're making has any meaning past being the thing, then it's art.

That's why I consider my tapecraft a craft, rather than art; they have no meaning or intent.

I logged in to say that "craft" is not an insult. Some of our most beloved works are craft (even as defined by the individual who has produced them). Happy Monkey is happy to define his work as a craft.

Personally, I derive boundless pleasure from the accomplishments of advancing the craft of my drumming, i.e. techniques perfected in order to achieve a desired, reproducable goal. As a craftsman I can make myslef like a machine--a machine that produces something useful.

One of the applications of craftmanship is that it can be utilized in the production of art.

So what is art? Is it that which evokes an emotional response? That is one of the things that art can do. It can also evoke (or provoke) other kinds of reactions. Art "pushes buttons" inside the human mind, because the artist, either intentionally or unwittingly, has laid bare a principle which is native and universal to the human psyche.

A debate often arises regarding the validity of "modern" art. If it does not have an obvious emotional element--how can it be art? I would argue that it is perhaps an even greater work of art if the artist is able to distill something universally human without resorting to cheap emotional stimulus.

So what are they dealing with? Perception. Pushing the evolutionary buttons of raw perception, without the safety net of a "bowl of fruit" to guide the viewer's expectations. I would argue that modern art is perhaps a more pure art--because of the lack of an easy "subject" on which to focus.

...


One of the ongoing debates in my household centers on the subject of Jackson Pollock. Please take a moment to absorb these facts:

• Scientists have studies various amounts of scattered visual patterns to determine which are most pleasing to the human eye (determined by the preferences of test subjects).
  
• The highest-rated visual patterns resemble something like looking up at a canopy of trees overhead.
  
• These patterns can be classified according to a mathematical description of their properties.
  
• Computer programs can evaluate visual images in order to determine how they rate on this scale of human preference.
  
• Over the course of Jackson Pollock's career, his works steadily progressed further towards this mathematical ideal, finally settling and remaining very near the "perfect" score.
  
• In fact, said computer programs can determine a counterfeit Jackson Pollock painting, or evaluate a genuine Pollock to accurately predict at which point in his career it was produced.

Tell me this: how can a drunkard madman, flinging paint at a canvas, arrive at a point where he can reliably produce images which are later determined to be mathematically perfect examples of what the human sensory mechanism perceives as ideal??? THIS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. I leave you with a question: is this art... or craftmanship?

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's crap.