Art, Craft, Vessels, Weedpots, and Materials

That's two votes for interesting.

So's a "Welcome Friends" duck, but none on my door.

When it has capacity to hold something, I guess. Weed pots are just form with a hole. Note that the "form" can be as beautiful as anything "hollowed to 1/8" wall thickness" and you haven't noticed.

With a lot of "art," there's more in pretentious prose than in the piece itself, that's for sure. They didn't publish the "artist's statement," though.

Greeks and Egyptians sure did. I believe Mike got hot under the collar about mis-attribution and "signed" the Pieta, though.

Wouldn't that depend on the piece of art? There are some pretty spectacular carvings, oil paintings, glass sculptures, etc. out there.

When you take the weeds out.

I used to ask that same question, then I looked at some awesome pottery, glass and metal pieces that were also "enhanced" to where you would ask "why use glass?" or "why use pottery?" I guess the answer is "why not?" if that's the medium you enjoy working with and can create something beautiful. If you like to eat potatoes, don't you fix them in a variety of ways rather than only enjoying them mashed or (in my case) raw?

I learned that if you do your craft the same way all the time, you're a production worker. If you are creative and do a variety of items in your medium or expand by combining materials, you are the subject of a lot of posts on forums! : ) This is a good thread.

Ruth

Sure, but there is a lot of art that is not spectacular.

acrylic work must take some real effort. Craftsmanship is craftsmanship and necessary, at least in my reactionary mind, for good artistry.

weedpot become a vessel? A weedpot is a vessel, but so is a bowl, a vase, a box, a something that is able to hold something. The question is rather when is a vessel a bowl, a hollow form, a weed pot, a ...

weeds) and might not show the wood properly, but it certainly looks like they could have been created in glass, pottery, or even acrylic. Brass might be good, as brass can be chemically blackened quite easily. Very difficult to see any distinction between artificial materials and natural "elements".

used for the canvas? If it is intended as multi-media, does the object lose something if you can't tell one media from another?

I guess I would ask, "why not use wood?" If I wanted to paint something I would use and have used wood. While I could stretch a canvas I am next to useless as far as making pottery or brass items to paint and my understanding is that the preparation for such materials is more complicated than wood. A potter or brass worker would likely disagree but I am more familiar with wood. It is also in the family af a long tradition. Many of the old masters used wood for a painting backing. Even the Mona Lisa is painted on a small piece of poplar.

As much as I admire his work, what is the relevance of the question? Besides, the man was originally a fine stone worker and he covered the fine stone work of the Sistine Chapel with magnificent painting.

A very nice set of questions. Thanks Lobby.

Thanks Lobby, for asking good 'why questions' to balance the many 'how questions'. "Please Sir, I want more."

Hi Ruth, Another of your usual perceptive and sensible posts. Thanks.

I won't upset a Steelers Fan by calling at 6:30 pm EST tomorrow to thank you for the CL-TL cup. Regardless of which team wins it won't be Titans or Dolphins :(. A proper Woodturner--Football Nut will raise one of your great CL-TL cups to both teams. I'm testing mine with Lorraine's coffee even as I type. :)

Coffee or distilled malt, whether from Tarje' or Neiman-Marcus, just tastes better in your cups, even if you don't turn them from wood. :) Proper protocol also requires corking the bottle with a SSNiles stopper. If too late for some, they can buy now and "just wait til next year!"

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Hi Ruth,

Haha...so by that reckoning, when you put weeds _in_ it, does a Ming "vaahwz" become a weedpot?

Does smack a bit of snobbery, doesn't it? I heard a recent illustration that if one likes coffee but drinks it sweet and light that they don't really like _coffee_. Pshaw...that's like saying if you must actually season it, then you don't really like any food. Mmmm, eggs with no salt or pepper.... : * P

Please let me know when you are gonna fire of one of those gems. I am now cleaning coffee off my monitor... but it was worth it. In my mind's eye I am seeing a conversation with Charlie Chan and Number One son. That was great. Kinda sums it all up, doesn't it?

Whenever these art vs. craft discussions start, it usually boils down to this: an unresolved discussion of what >you< like compared to what

And in my understanding of art and of craft, that is really all there is to it. You like it, or you don't. You appreciate the effort, or you don't. You understand the learning curve and dedication needed to achieve certain results, or you don't. You appreciate the imagination it took to use certain materials, produce certain shapes, or combine certain techniques or you don't.

Many times what appears to be snobbery >>So, why use wood? Is it just a canvas?

When I was a child, my mother always kept 3 ceramic flying ducks on the living room wall. You know the kind, they get smaller as they fly up the wall. Since then I have been very averse to 'art' or 'craft' in the shape of any fowl.

I suspect the objects in question are indeed hollowed.

I'm not sure they didn't publish his statement. I think artists - or their agents - put out press releases just like any other business. The text reads somewhat like a press release.

And its a shame we never got to see them in their original state. Imagine all those blank eyeballs with pupils and irises painted on!

Do you know if he had a grind named after him? After all, he did use chisels.

I meant just this work. And, in fact, I kind of like the piece on the far left. Got a less contrived look to it.

Thanks Ruth, at least that's cleared up! :o)

Raw potatos?! Boiled, fried, mashed, scalloped, and a rather odd deep fried with fluff inner I had 40 some years ago in a restaurant in Paris.

I was halfway down the path to 'medium you enjoy working in'. Could also be the medium you learned first and the techniques you mastered. If you want to broaden your horizons, perhaps you want to do so in a manner that uses your existing skills. But, the wood then becomes the 'canvas' and is it still 'woodturning'?

Good. Let's set the cat among the pigeons. I'm going to suggest that a woodturner has crossed the boundary beetween craft and art when she throws away as much as she sells and doesn't include an explanation of how the object was finished.

I hope I didn't imply that I didn't appreciate what had been done. In fact, I think that one component of Art is that it raises questions.

Well, it is a good material with many functional and non functional uses. IIRC, virtually all Russian Icons are painted on wood so the wood in that case is literally a 'canvas'. There are other examples. The Byrdcliffe group of the Arts and Crafts movement did a lot of landscape or still life painting on their cabinets.

How could the artist live with the Shame?!

I have to admit that I would see staining of good curly maple as an abomination. :o) But hey, it's your wood and if you want to put a coat of outdoor latex on it go right ahead. Speaking of which, you can sometimes find some great buys hiding under paint. Once bought a painted dresser for $5.00. When I got the paint off it turned out to be birds eye maple.

I don't see that as reactionary. Just common sense.

Sometimes ruminants just aren't responsible for what they come up with.

They're on wood because they were normally painted on panels in a wooden iconostasis which was torn up when the church was trashed by the Turks or the Reds.

What has survived are a pitiful remnant of an immense amount of art that decorated many churches. Take it from one who still makes the sign of the cross in the "wrong" direction, iconostases often consisted of hundreds of paintings.

Darrell posted this over a year ago. I thought it was nifty and have gone back to read it upon occasion. I reposted it for your reading and remembering pleasure. eNjOy!