Vook Bebiew X

As we rebel against beauty, the issue of "design" comes in: not design as composition, but design as - I'm sorry! - a judgement call.
My senior art project in college was my hand-built coil ceramics that were totally non-functional, but meangingful - like a sculpture - and completely unique, but the only hint of beauty I could ascribe to them was an earthy but sparkly glaze that a fellow student-gal kindly lent me. I applied it in a couple different hues, to all the pieces. "Rule-wise" there was no glaze required, but something within judged the whole design as insignificant, if it didn't have at least an attempt at beauty.
That's a judgement call, and that's where the Da-Da ists made their departure. They moved into left brain. They made left-brain choices that became so extreme that they could declare that "extremity" is art, that contrast is art, that anything displayed could be art. But I say:
No design. No beauty.
No standards.
Little art.

Vook Rebiew IX

MEANINGFUL AND UNIQUE, BUT NOT BEAUTIFUL.
In his book Whole New Mind (WNM) Dan Pink says (and I'm paraphrasing) that Right-Brain is "meaningful, unique and beautiful". I like this premise, and he elaborates upon it throughout WNM. To me this is the most pure definition of visual art, whether it's 2- or 3-dimensional, and of music, dance, theatre, authorship, calligraphy, flower-arrangement, singing, public speaking, performances, even stand-up comedy. (I heard it said - as a side-bar - that Jerry Seinfeld says "if you work CLEAN, you can work ANYWHERE," and that to me is where "beauty" comes in, added to "unique" and "funny"!)
But back to Right-Brain as a definition. D. Pink, in WNM, says that "intellectual" is not considered Right-Brain, but Left-Brain. And there's obviously a place for "intellectual". However in art, for example in DaDa-ism, which for many is extremely MEANINGFUL, and of course UNIQUE, (that's a given!), I feel they were clearly rebelling against BEAUTY.

To me, it's a question of DESIGN.
Stay tuned.

Vook Rebiew

A Whole New Mind, (WNM) by Dan Pink, says, in his introduction, and I quote,

"The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind -- creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people -- artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers -- will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys."

I've read the book now three times. (I love it.) Mr.Pink does not ignore the Left Brain, but I must say I feel that most arts are always a combination of Left and Right. It's like mastering the scales on the piano, (left brain) so that great music and fun (right brain) can be performed by you on that instrument. Or learning which amounts of water will do what (left brain), with watercolors, so that art, and fun, (right brain) can be produced. What I'm talking about is the combination.

Primitive Interior

We're going to go on a little tourist attraction today: about 20 minutes from where I live in southeastern Arizona there is a large Spanish Mission from the 1600's, San Xavier Mission which, you guessed it, is chock full of ancient paintings done on the interior walls, throughout.

Its location is just south of Tucson on Interstate 19, off the road about a half-mile: you can easily see its inspiring spires from the Freeway.

From the outside San Xavier architecturally resembles any other gorgeous Spanish Mission (and very well kept up), all in white, with the arches and the domes, and the steeples, and the palm trees and cactuses, but it's the interior walls that present today's 2-dimensional subject.

All this artwork is like decoration, in the sense that all the painted lines run into each other, and all pictures, and designs, and borders are juxtaposed, one thing right next to another, from the interior top of the domes and steeples, down to the floor, and also on the walls from side to side. (It is a huge photo-op!) It actually reminds me of being inside a wedding cake, with all the cake decorations somehow projected onto the retinas of my eyes.....

Wallflowers!

Wallpaper is not something we usually think about ...but obviously it presents a great possibility for enhancing the atmosphere and artistic mood of our own homes. A good painting also looks good hung up on a wallpapered wall.

One of the things I like about wallpaper is the huge variety that is available out there, and one can see them in so many sample books, in the various "home box" stores. Not only do you see the endless variety of color schemes, but same for the designs, and the sizes of the designs. Some people like tiny teeny little vignettes - eg. carefully spaced moss roses - and some people like expansive and wonderful stripes - Coco cabana! - and some people even like still life's. I have to admit, grapes and grapevines are very popular.

Then there's the textured look, where the whole wall is simply an exercise in texture, often a reproduction of a pattern applied with a sea-sponge or a "rag," and in one color, or two colors, or sometimes in three colors, carefully selected of course, with a certain color-scheme in mind. And sometimes, the homeowner skips the store entirely and uses her own paints and sponges!