Date:         Tue, 25 Nov 1997 11:27:26 EST
From: Quacked Up <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      FILLER: Another Fondle on Art? (was: Re: FILL:Just a little
              testy...)

[just idle fingering, no criticism intended...]

on Tue, 25 Nov 1997 02:49:30 EST, Bill Lantry <wlantry@EROLS.COM>
:) The common elements of art, she says, are elegance, simplicity, and
:) originality.
:) It is recognizeable by most, but more recognizable by those who
:) have thought about the subject. It induces some kind of emotion in the
:) viewer/reader.  One of the elements of the sublime is sincerity.

and I scritched my balding noggin and wondered...

there's the experience inside your head when you are "creating"
something (the thunking, the parting of the memoires, the oily smoke
when the gears engage, you know, all that stuff that goes on in there
leading to...)  [you here references the originator]

there's some things that happen outside (oil arranged on a sagging
canvas, lines marked in the clay, sound whiffling off the fleshy
cords, sand mounded in piles, or whatever...even letters written in
pixels!)

there's some experience inside your head when you
sense/perceive/engage/etc. your self with those outside things.  (in
similar ways, there's thanking, the snags of memories, inhaling, and
other fanciful interactions of that kind) [you here references the one
who is perceiving]

[please note, I've left out the social milieu, the long turning when
the perceiver becomes the creator in response, and all that
complication which makes up the great unending intercourse of which
this little produce-consume action is but a tiny flake.  And in
ripping that flake out of context, I may have lost its meaning.]

Now, _art_ might be a component (flavor? seasoning! whatever...) in
that first portion (the creation!).  We might claim that it lies
somewhere in that internal writhing and striving?

Or we could blame it on the outside stuff.  Does the fanciful fall of
leaves into the paint--random, unasked, yet somehow just right--could
that be the art?  or perhaps the art lies on the boundary where the
two... well, anyway, there could be art there somewhere, out there?

Or perhaps, just maybe, it happens in the experiencing?  _art_ is in
the eye of the beholder, along with the mote and the beam and all that
other stuff?  probably makes it difficult to clearly see what is out
there, but...perhaps the artistic experience is a grain in the eye?

Or it could be that art is a kind of bundle, wrapping up some
experiences of the originator, some concrete expressions out there,
and some experiences of the perceiver?

Maybe we should ask what is NOT art?  Would that provide more clarity
on the topic?

Oh, and then, of course, there is always the question--does this art
(or artlessness) do something for us?  Suppose I could write a poem in
either mode -- the artistic and the inartistic?  How would I know the
difference?  Would my soul be lost forever if I wrote inartistic?
Would it gain the riches of heaven if I wrote artistic?

Or should I just settle for money?  (and is cold cash artistic or
not?)

elegance, simplicity, originality, sincerity?  sound a bit like
attributes of the originator?

whereas the recognition and induction of emotion sound a bit like
comments on the perception...

what if art be a verb, not nominal at all?

Perhaps art is an attitude?  or should that be aptitude?

pondering
tink