Am just home after a weekend away along the coast doing singing for various different people. Left early sat morn and am just now home and ready for bed. Tomorow back to the shop for the week. excepting Wednesday doing more session singing on my day off.
The music projects this weekend where not as fruitful as i would have liked but i am still going to carry on with them. I believe its only the beginning and that artistic ventures take time to grow. I just have to be patient and have faith.
Though inspiration can hit quickly and we can all get excited its the grafting and crafting that takes me the most energy and the longest time, but thats how it works. The same for many things in life.
Whilst sitting in the garden i always end up thinking about how everything grows at different times and paces and how the seasons work. We are not machines and neither is creativity. It ebbs and flows like the elements.
I believe the forum will work but i think it is early days and we must patient. It takes people time to become accustomed to new things and ways of communicating. I think we should persist and it will come into its own being.
Hope this doesn’t sound to much like a hippy ramble. Its how i feel and i am trying to be honest rather than be silent which would be my other stance to take.
But on this topic i cant be silent i think it is very important we don’t give up.
Hope this finds everyone well.
I’m going to bed with my hot water bottle.
April showers
Nicolette
If we are looking for the roots of art, I think art began with
mankind’s response to the beauty or power of the natural world.
Why is one particular bit of coastline considered more beautiful than another?
Why is one particular, mountain or valley or river or tree selected to
sacred and to have qualities that set it apart from all the other
mountains or valleys etc?
Often Myths are an attempt to explain or at least respond to some
aspect of the natural world- Apollo as the sun in his chariot blazing
across the sky, or Narcissus drowning as he contemplates his own
reflection.
These myths are among the earliest surviving examples of art- powerful
creative story telling? literature? drama? Certainly myths can be
considered art.
What were those early storytellers trying to do?
capture one unique sensory experience?
Was capturing the moment a way for one person to remember it?
Was it for the community?
Was it a way of giving thanks
Was it a way to try to find some meaning or pattern to the natural world?
was it to convey a thought about the natural world?
Was it to convey a feeling about the natural world? joy? respect, terror? awe?
Another thought. It might be important to separate the art and artist.
I firmly believe that lots of people who do not consider themselves to
be artists, have created art.
How could they not know this?
The borders of what is called craft and what is called art are very
unclear. When early potters created bowls to hold food, the first
impulse was just to make practical and needed object.
A bowl for food does not have to be beautiful, but at some very early
point in time, potters began to shape and decorate their bowls
Clothing, and shelter follow the same path.
A blanket to provide warmth does not need to be beautiful, but the
weavers craft? art? is sometimes remarkable
What motivates the craftperson to take the extra time and effort?
At what point do we call a beautiful piece of craft “art” ? Is the
distinction worth discussing?
I think that gardeners and cooks sometimes create art and sometimes not.
A famous chef was asked if his cooking was art.
He said something like this.
On some rare nights, when the ingredients are right, and the clients
are right, and I am right and the mood is right, at those rare times
the food from my kitchen is art. The rest of the time I am just
cooking dinner.
One more thought
One of the most brilliant artists that I know, the puppeteer Ronnie Burkett says he doesnt consider himself an artist. I don’t agree with him on this point but his
thoughts-as usual- are challenging.
He said
“You must understand, that “artist” is a word I do not apply to myself
yet. I hope to, before my last gasp. I am aware that I am surrounded
by no end of people who easily and quickly call themselves artists or
Master Puppeteers and so on, but my own definition of the word is
almost unattainable, for personally, I will not be an artist until I
have created a piece of work that cannot be discussed, only felt.”
I’m starting to think Art might be a spirit or energy in itself, requiring
agents to make it happen, nurture it by performing it, learning from it, and
enjoying it.
How else could we explain its presence even when there was no intent to make it?
I don’t feel so confused to believe humans just made up the concept and see it everywhere, like some kind of objective hallucination, perhaps to make a dreary existence less unbearable..
Some people believe that though.
Could Art be a deep manifestation of LIFE?
Wouldn’t this explain its continuing presence in nature, in us, in events,
in thoughts, in every human activity?
Wouldn’t this explain why toilets, of all things, can be beautiful pieces of
design?
Puptcrit Digest, input by Steve Abrams, Topic: Art as communication.
]]>Two other quotes from unknown authors:
“Hope can change the world. We don’t know what our actions have done to change the world for good. We only know that we must continue to hope. ? Hope alone won’t get you very far. Hope combined with action that moves toward that hope will move not just mountains, but worlds.”
“The downside of all of the focus on the current economic problems is that so much of the focus is on the darkness and so little attention on the flickers of light. Sometimes it has the effect of blowing out the
candles “in case we need them later,” yet the candles are the very thing needed to dispel the darkness and show the way out. In this deep dark hole, we have a match, a candle, a lantern, and a bon fire. Which do we light first? The match. Then we can light the others. Got a match? Hope so. May your “little puppet show” be the light in someone’s hour, day, or life.”
SOURCE:
puptcrit digest (online community of puppetry)
A leading British composer has warned that atheist liberals are using “increasingly aggressive” means to drive religion out of public life and culture.
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent /
Composer James MacMillan warns of ‘ignorance-fuelled hostility to religion’
James MacMillan said that that embracing spirituality is now one of the most radical and counter-cultural moves a musician can make Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY
James MacMillan, one of the conductors of the BBC Philharmonic orchestra, claimed in a speech last night that the “ignorance-fuelled” hostility to faith shown by “metropolitan arts, cultural and media elites” risks making society bland and uniform.
He also accused pop culture of inhibiting musical curiosity in the young and leading to greater conformity.
MacMillan, regarded as the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation, added that embracing spirituality is now one of the most radical and counter-cultural moves a musician can make.
In a lecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Sandford St Martin Trust, a charity which promotes radio and television programmes about religion, he said: “The ignorance-fuelled hostility to religion, widespread among secular liberal elites, is in danger of colouring society’s value-free ‘neutrality’ in ways that are both bland and naïve.
“They are also impractical, unattractive and, I suggest, oppressive. A true sense of difference, in which a genuine pluralism could thrive, is under threat of being reduced to a lowest common denominator of uniformity and conformity, where any non-secular contribution will automatically be regarded as socially divisive by definition.”
MacMillan said surveys have shown only one in five people who work in TV consider themselves as religious, compared with seven out of 10 among the general public.
“If this is the case with the TV industry, you can be sure it is the same for the metropolitan arts, cultural and media elites,” he said. “These are people who speak only to themselves and have convinced each other that the rest of the country thinks just like them. They are wrong.”
However, the composer, who is Roman Catholic, claimed that atheists have not succeeded in “beating religion into a pulp”.
“The campaigning atheists, as opposed to the live-and-let-live variety, are raising their voices because they recognise that they are losing; the project to establish a narrow secular orthodoxy is failing.”
He added that the religious must carry on expressing their beliefs in the face of growing opposition.
“A smug ignorance, a gross oversimplification and caricature that serves as an analytical understanding of religion, is the common intellectual currency. The bridge has to be built by Christians and others being firm in resisting increasingly aggressive attempts to still their voices.”
He concluded by saying that our lives will become meaningless unless the “mists of contemporary banality” are penetrated and the idea of the sacred is restored.
“I believe it is God’s divine spark which kindles the musical imagination now, as it has always done, and reminds us, in an increasingly dehumanised world, of what it means to be human.”