Robert Bettmann – Page 81 – Robert Bettmann

Judge Art Now!!

I frequently meet people who are scared to judge Art. This is fascinating to me, because as I understand it, Art is an inherently personal experience, a gift from the artist. It is mine, and so mine to judge, like bad breath or bad shoes. I feel comfortable assessing a Van Gogh as second rate, a Pollock as mediocre, or an unknown coffee-shop drawing as brilliant. It is a sign of the (perceived) irrelevance Art has in modern life that many do not feel licensed to judge it.

Most lay-people evaluate Art (be it music, visual art, or dance) with simple standards. Discouraging the use of these standards does us no service. It is never in an artist’s best interest to imply that he/she is more intelligent, or sophisticated, than the audience. It is interesting to consider the public’s disinclination to judge Art in contrast to its inclination toward the judgment of sport. Sports teams, which have a loyal community based on geography, are the subject of constant – and usually completely uninformed – discussion.

The act of judgment is an act of ownership, and investment. Sports teams have public support, in part, because the public is empowered to critique them. Art is reliant on encouraging the engagement and investment of its community. How does one encourage engagement and investment? By encouraging judgment. Burdening potential stakeholders with the correct means to evaluate an experience is asking too much. As we move forward to the discovery of the Art and audience of tomorrow encouraging judgment could be meaningful to the growth of the Arts community.

This was published in the dance magazine Contact Quarterly a few months ago as a letter to the editor. It’s the short short version of a 1500 word piece.

I would add here that I find sports to be a common ground in our society. When I don’t know what to say to people ‘out in the world’, I can usually strike up an engaging conversation on sports. (I’m not faking it; I do genuinely like and follow some sports.) Perhaps in the 18th or 19th century it was different. Maybe then people talked about sonatas, witches, or taxes. But I find comfort – and I think many do – in the common shallow shared passion that sports provide.

I do not mean to imply that sports are bad. I am simply trying to explain the mass appeal. A conversation on the relative merits of sports vs. arts for children and adults will be forthcoming.

A Word for Love: Bloom

flower band

One of my college professors once told me that the Alaskan Inuit have a hundred and twelve words for snow. This now reminds me that this culture is poor in the words that we have for love. We dont communicate gracefully about this subject. That same professor wrote that good design – as in architecture – is a marker of good thought. “Architecture is crystallized pedagogy,” is what Dr. Orr said.

Our modern American culture is amazingly clear about some very complex things (microchips, genetic engineering, even dance) and yet very fuzzy about love. Our words, our architecture, for love are poorly developed, which is a good sign that we dont think well about this subject.

Inuit culture was rich in its appreciation for what surrounded them. And though love surrounds all of us here -even in the lower 48 – we are encouraged today to notice commerce. My understanding of the words “success”, “wealth”, and “rich”, is strangely tied to commerce.

money

To love is to risk. But as with many things, to do nothing – not to love – is an even greater risk. I had a younger first cousin, my fathers only sisters second youngest. He died when I was eight, he seven. He was a kind, otherworldly boy. We buried Rafael in the wood lot on their farm, and planted a tree on his grave. A few years later, my great-grandmother died. Though she was 104 years old, it was still awful when she died. Just as it was when Rafi died. And theres nothing that I can do about that.

I hate to be Hallmark, but death is a part of life. When you need to control things in order to feel comfortable, you have a hard time appreciating the things that you cant change. I watched the movie Pay it Forward again the other night. I always cry at the end. The song “calling all angels” when the community brings flowers to Helen Hunt’s house just does me in. The movie reminds me that people place flowers in mourning

We place flowers in mourning. But flowers are a birth. They bloom. Why do we use them at death? Is it to make ourselves feel better with their bright colors? Or is it to remind us that even in death there is life? Maybe we are letting the flowers remind us that even in death, the mourned individual still blooms. Whatever once bloomed in them is beautiful, still.

Every flower withers. Whethe we notice it was ever there, whether we see the bloom again or not, everyone who has lost a loved-one knows that while remembering beauty is painful, forgetting beauty is worse. Society as a whole seems befuddled by love in life, but in death we know our love is a flower.

Love is expressed not one way, not two ways, but in 6 billion human ways, and innumerable non-human ways, including with the letters B – L – O – O – M. The only thing we can control is whether we notice and encourage our own bloom, and the blooms around us.

all the lonely people, where do they all come from?

[original written 10/5/06. this version 8/9/08 – Both, Copyright Robert Bettmann]

Am I Not A Man And A Brother?

I was reading some American History and came across the following phrase from the abolitionist movement: ‘am i not a man and a brother?’

For some reason the phrase really captured my imagination. I found a decent explanation on this site.

The first and most identifiable image of the 18th century abolitionist movement was a kneeling African man.

Members of the Society of Friends, informally known as Quakers, were among the earliest leaders of the abolitionist movement in Britain and the Americas. By the beginning of the American Revolution, Quakers had moved from viewing slavery as a matter of individual conscience, to seeing the abolition of slavery as a Christian duty.

Quakers, who believe in simplicity in all things, tended to view the arts as frivolous; but when the Quaker-led Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade met in London in 1787, three of its members were charged with preparing a design for “a Seal [to] be engraved for the use of this Society.”

Later that year, the society approved a design “expressive of an African in Chains in a Supplicating Posture.” Surrounding the naked man was engraved a motto whose wording echoed an idea widely accepted during the Enlightenment among Christians and secularists: “Am I Not A Man and A Brother?” The design was approved by the Society, and an engraving was commissioned.

The design was symbolic both artistically and politically. In addition to evoking classical art, the figure’s nudity signified a state of nobility and freedom, yet he was bound by chains. Black figures, usually depicted as servants or supplicants, typically knelt in the art of the period, at a time when members of the upper classes did not kneel when praying; this particular image combined the European theme of conversion from heathenism and the idea of emancipation into a posture of gratitude.

Josiah Wedgewood, who was by then a member of the Society, produced the emblem as a jasper-ware cameo at his pottery factory. Although the artist who designed and engraved the seal is unknown, the design for the cameo is attributed to William Hackwood or to Henry Webber, who were both modelers at the Wedgewood factory.

In 1788, a consignment of the cameos was shipped to Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, where the medallions became a fashion statement for abolitionists and anti-slavery sympathizers. They were worn as bracelets and as hair ornaments, and even inlaid with gold as ornaments for snuff boxes. Soon the fashion extended to the general public.

There’s some obvious connections to several aspects of our lives today.