What is Art? Reading 1 -Post #1

      I enjoyed Jerry Saltz's "Seeing Out Loud" article. I believe he was very well articulated and his words were very visual. If I had to pick an artist’s work I appreciate most, I’d have to say that it would be my little sister Michelle. She began painting as a child and never took any classes for it. She was lazy with her work but when we felt in tune with wanting to create something new, she never held back when it came to stepping outside of her comfort zone.

My sister is what Jerry Saltz would refer to as a "natural artist". He describes skill as having nothing to do with technical efficiency but rather flexibility and skill. She once sat me down and spoke to me about Pablo Picasso's fascination with wanting to study children and how they draw. He referred to every child as an artist. She said that children were very free spirited and that they were able to imagine things because they haven't been  faced with criticism. Criticism from others is what destroys true artistry.

As children we are taught to go with our feelings and draw things like people with three eyes or more; if that is something we want to do. In Jerry's piece he describes how artists are self-taught and constantly de-skilling themselves. It is the basis for what I believe to be genuine artistry.

Breaking away from structured ideas of how faces should look or how skies should be colored is what constantly redefines art as a whole. Jerry describes art as being a way of thinking and I agree with this notion. I believe that in order to be an artist, you must be open to view the world and everything in it in different lights. A picture in the daytime does not look the same at night.

I believe that art is changing. It isn’t an exact portrait of someone’s face but rather being able to take something as simple as the human body and looking at it in many ways. Why do we grow up as adults who think that drawing 3 eyes isn’t correct because we’ve only seen 2. It’s our imagination that creates art and the things we have yet to witness.

"Dishearteningly, many critics have ideas but no eye. They rarely work outside their comfort zone, are always trying to reign art in, turn it into a seminar or a clique, or write cerebral, unreadable texts on mediocre work. "
 -Jerry Saltz 

Keith Haring
Ignorance = Fear
Poster
1989