Once again 'words' I would like to ponder over.
Credit :Art Blog in absolute arts.com 12/16/2005: "THE WRITING ON THE WALL" by Walter King.
Tom Wolf was only a little off in suggesting in his famous book “The Painted Word” that painting would become an illustration to the text on the wall explaining what it meant. In fact by the mid 80’sThe text on the wall had often become the work itself. In fact painting (or sculpture- remember Robert Indiana’s famous sculpture of the word “LOVE” of the 60‘s?) has disappeared altogether in some instances as artists take their cues from art magazines and art professors who were not trained to draw or paint or sculpt themselves who had developed ways to circumvent those traditional disciplines. It has become a laughable joke inside some artist circles. The problem is that art as text, at least a large amount of it, is neither very visual nor verbally very elegant in any significant way. Most of it is cliché with little depth, open ended platitude and innuendo fit for any occasion or circumstance, the Hallmark Greeting Card of the art world in many cases. It often does with words what painters and sculptors are accused of doing with images in that it is little more than free floating word association. Some of it reminds me of those old books of quotes that can be so inspiring to a young mind beginning to grapple with the world of ideas. Some simply reeks of propaganda.

I remember when I was a small boy telling my mother I would clean my room tomorrow. She smiled and sweetly said “honey, tomorrow never comes…“ a phrase that I played like a loop for weeks in my mind as I began to understand the philosophical and temporal aspects of the saying. “Tomorrow never comes…” why I asked myself? Because it becomes today! What an epiphany for a 5 year old! An epiphany for a 16 year old interested in art cam when I first read the Picasso quote that “art is a lie that explains the truth” or Voltaires statement that “those who think absurdities eventually commit atrocities.“ I heard the Voltaire quote for the first time only a few days ago. I may be giving more credit to many word artists than they deserve when I suggest that some have discovered that the general audience is at about the same intellectual level as I was when my mother told me that tomorrow ceases to be when it becomes today. The fundamental use of oppositions, something one learns early on in any good creative writing class or even in a good illustration course lesson on visual metaphor is assumed to be the end rather than the beginning of a much deeper and richer formal language. At best this kind of work would not belong in the visual category at all but rather in the world of literature or publishing. It comes from a modern poetic tradition with lots of precedents. Yet I perceive that being published in a book would not help the context any more than being printed on a gallery wall. Any quote will accomplish the same kind of conceptual connections when the quote is taken out of one context and placed in another. And every good speaker has a book of quotes to help them fill their time limits. Every good writer learns early on how to take a suggestive phrase and turn it into a title for a book or an essay.

Much of this supposedly conceptual genre is deeply anti-visual in that it simply assumes the form of existing commercial screens or monitors and other media most often connected to advertising. Of course the artists often argue precisely that point… that it comments on or uses the same methods as advertising graphics and other forms of propaganda to make its statement. Generally there is little done in the way of type design or color as this would require some visual discipline. And this stripped down dependence on given templates, typefaces, letter and line spacing is called minimal to hide the lack of skill with typography.

Most of what is said in our so called word art is so generic that it usually misses the point anyway. Much of it can be compared to the 9 second sound bite that does more to obscure the truth than reveal it. (Maybe it is a comment on the current length of our attention span shortened by the kind of technology we embrace.) The result is we get more text, recorded tours and curatorial lectures to explain the work of the text itself. This is an even more interesting and convoluted twist on Wolf’s premise. An entire economy of arts writers has evolved from these circumstances. Artists often do more to build the economy by creating all these jobs then any politician ever has. Hell we’re one of the biggest industries in the country when you get right down to it. Without our creative and inventive intellectual property where would publishers, gallerists, museums, arts writers, copyright lawyers, judges who try intellectual property cases, professors of art and law and arts administrators draw down a paycheck? Not to mention the fact that everything manufactured by a human is touched at some point in its development by at least one or more artists…so we could actually include every single industry in the country if all they do is hire an artist to design their logo-- Ah, but I diverge…I often get buggy during this holiday season of consumerism. I often imagine the Christ child blessing us from the manger saying “For those who have ears to hear and those who have dollars to spend you will have me with you always in the meantime thou shalt buy, buy, buy!”

There are a few word artists who do actually blur the line between verbs and visuals usually joining their cliches with a visual joiner, signifier or qualifier. They were once called illustrators. But the modern tradition of illustration was discounted after the Second World War. The best of them have not been taken seriously for some time as artists. Even now when word art has become all the vogue the illustrator is still given short shrift. They do not often use the language of semiotics to explain their work since it actually needs little explanation. This clarity is seen as a negative as great works shouldn’t be understandable to any but the initiated (God forbid the entire economy could crumble at a moments notice). And this is an illustration of how the apologists of contemporary thinking over the last century never looked back on the history of contemporary art with the same skepticism or deep critical questioning as it has older traditions. Post modernism especially rarely holds itself accountable for its own intellectual dishonesty, folly or short sightedness. It can’t, or rather isn’t allowed because each generation of artists disavows the work of the artists of the previous generation en toto. It is one of the tenets of postmodernism that it keeps no tradition. The whole precept of modern and now so called post modern thinking has to do with the destruction/deconstruction of tradition and the idea of the new. As soon as the new appears on the scene it is cannibalized by the next generation who never even seems to realize it was given to them in the first place by their predecessors. This allows for an avant garde that will not admit that it has an asshole simply because it has never turned around to see it.

This sheds light on the anomaly that we face today. If an artist doesn’t have a sufficient amount of verbiage accompanying his/her work whether it IS the work itself or just on the wall explaining the work on the wall next to it then the general public seems to assume (or has been taught to assume) that it can’t be all that deep. If someone with higher authority from the art gods isn’t there to explain it to them then they don’t get it. I’ve mentioned many times the dynamic in this country for the audience to never venture their own interpretation of a work but to always consult the “wall”…that is to ask the artist or the gallerist or curator what it means. Usually the answer is “Oh”. In Europe and South America the opposite is often true. First the viewer will tell you what they think the work is about then if you the artist don’t agree or want to add to the discussion you can. It certainly leads to more interesting discussions as it is very hard to take “oh” any further.

Younger artists simply are the result of their surroundings and make the leap that “if words are what gets you noticed then that is what we’ll do.” they do not think critically about it as a form unto itself or how to pursue it as a visual or verbal language at any deep level in the beginning of their explorations. Looking back to history whether for a basis or as a criticism is done at the shallowest of levels. They simply practice what is touted and accepted as important and significant. Touted in University art departments who want to be perceived as the most up to date, contemporary and scholarly. Because they have the reputation of a University to support they create reams of paper to follow any visual premise as in a doctoral dissertation. The same model that is used for a scientific treatise is used as a template for a body of art work. This alone is often misguided and has added to the idea that the uneducated couldn‘t possibly understand artistic and visual works. The very idea that visual art is its own language (and our first language long before we learn to speak and spell) seems to escape them. This follow the leader mentality assures that little original thinking will occur and guarantees an audience who has no idea how to read that language.

Ok, so maybe I’m being a bit of a curmudgeon these days and have come down a little hard on those who advocate word art…Word art comes from poetry you know. E.E. Cummings was doing word art in the 20’s. There have been word artists around since before the middle ages and the days of manuscript illumination! The ancient Egyptians predated word art for that matter as heiroglyphs.

I met a very talented poet in NY who specializes in this sort of thing. In fact I would argue that ‘Word Art’ is more appropriately a form of poetry than visual art anyway. We had some very interesting discussions about how word art developed, who is doing it these days in poetry departments and painting departments…who is good and who is bad at it. Word play, contextual positioning, reversals, moot and free floating metaphor, arranged spacing, up and down alignments within a text or verse, alliteration, rhyme, innuendo, these are all games that writers have used for centuries. The fact is I love words. I love the art of putting words together to say something beautiful, something instructive, something silly or funny, something to make you laugh or cry, something to make you think about something bigger than yourself. Word art is a legitimate formal idea and can communicate deep ideas about how we communicate, how we create with both linear and lateral thinking and can be quite beautiful and profound. It can also be a complete waste of time and energy when handled by someone without talent, sensitivity or intelligence who has nothing important to talk about. So just because the writing is on the wall doesn’t mean its worth reading.

I think what I’m really trying to get at is that a few sly fools who ran out of “new” ideas a number of years back began to suggest that because they couldn’t think of anything new to paint somehow painting must be dead. They had their own agenda-- that is to make themselves famous. That isn’t all that bad an ambition in itself. Any artist who doesn’t want people to see their work and give them some credit for it is probably faking humility to some extent. But some time back I got a bit tired of hearing that painting had nothing of importance to say. Visuals are an a priori language. We couldn’t leave it behind if we wanted to. It is the way the brain functions long before we sound out words in our heads. We humans still dream dreams because that is how we think. Then and only then do we put those dreams into words.

(Credits: The Spider image that begins and ends this blog is by Gustave Dore [public domain], the word art samples “Tomorrow never comes“ and “New Paradigms” are mine done in about 20 minutes worth of goofing off), the image with the words that say “Can you say it without words“ is called “Blind Angel“ and is also mine. Blind Angel can be seen in its entirety on my site at:
absolutearts.com/walterking.
The illuminated manuscript with gospel overlaying Christ is from the middle ages and also public domain. )

Here's a bit of information I found in an arts site. Worth considering as so many of us go through a struggle to get viewed rightly.
Credit : absolutearts.com
12/19/2005: "Is there an ‘art mafia’?" by Andrew Wielawski

For artists trying to get their work shown, it often seems like there’s a group of ‘insiders’, whose work is always being shown, who always get invited to shows in other places, and who seem to have always been in the spotlight. If an artist comes to town anywhere without knowing anyone, they find that as much as they try, no one even wants to see what they’re doing. And perhaps they’ll be in a bar one day, and a newcomer from Los Angeles, that no one has ever heard of, suddenly has a show in the town’s museum. They’ve gone from zero to number one in an instant, leaving observers baffled as to how they did it. Frustrated, other artists conclude that there’s some kind of organized effort to promote certain people, and not others.

In traveling around the world, we might visit the largest contemporary museums and walk away with the same impression. Wherever we go, the same artists are always there, with very few new ones we don’t already know. It’s rare to find an artist in one museum and not in others as well. The same is true of public works. In Kansas City, or Madrid, or Berlin, they always seem to be made by the same people.
Has there been some kind of worldwide organized effort to promote artists like Jenny Holzer, Bill Viola, and Julian Schnabel? And to close the door on other artists who don’t have their foot in yet, no matter how good they are?
I think not. But art is, after all, primarily a business, and not the caring for a cultural treasure. Artworks only become cultural treasures after they have established a business track record.
If we carefully consider what objectives art professionals want to achieve, be they museum directors, critics, curators, gallerists, or backroom dealers, all have one priority ahead of any others in their individual strategies for personal success. It is, to make themselves ‘big time’ players in a game that has little or no pity for those hampered by sentimentality.
The perception is, if you associate yourself with greatness, some of will rub off on you. It’s easy to do, while, on the contrary, the discovery of new talent is both risky and difficult. A museum which needs to accumulate work will inevitably choose the work of well known artists because it makes their museum more important. That this hides a lack of ability to judge quality is of no importance. The people visiting the museum and looking at the work will be even less qualified, and therefore even more drawn to names they already know.
If you were charged with the responsibility of selecting works for acquisition by a museum, you would have to justify your choices to the museum’s board, which means to those who give you your paycheck. These people are less qualified than you are, because board members are generally not art professionals themselves, rather they are in elevated social positions and need you to explain, in terms simple enough for them to understand, why you made the choices you did. The easiest way to do this, the path of least resistance, is to say that the work is already in the collection of another museum. The board will tell you you’ve done a good job, and you will retain your position.
In other words, as long as you respect the criteria of a Bree Van de Kamp as to what behavior in your role is acceptable, and what isn’t, you’ll get by. And if a few Rexes die along the way, while you’re making the bed, or tempting the pharmacist, at least you’ll sleep soundly knowing you didn’t technically do anything wrong.
If it seems there is an art mafia, that is because we perceive ourselves to be passengers in a vehicle going down the road. We assume someone is driving it. In fact, that is very irresponsible on our part. We haven’t even looked to see who it might be.
One of the ways which enable museums to exhibit the work of new artists, is to get a group of curators together and agree to acquire the works of a certain artist for a group of museums all at once. Each one can then say that other museums are in the process of acquiring, or have acquired, the same works. Inevitably this is where the collector becomes involved.
A collector with a significant number of works by a certain artist, will work hard to get these to pop up in a number of big name museums, all at once. He will agree, therefore, to donate seven of his collection of fifty to seven museums, keep the curators safe, and create publicity, by doing it all at the same time. He’s left with forty three, and their value will triple or better in the twelve months to come. The curators haven’t risked their skins, and everyone walks away smiling. The public will never know things happened this way, as their impression will be that an emerging artist has suddenly been recognized. This situation exists because nature abhors a vacuum. If no one is driving the car, then whoever can gain by jumping into the driver’s seat, will.
Why is it that the critics always seem to have the same opinion, one that is almost always a positive, glorifying tribute to whomever they review, with one slight negative observation? This last is to make themselves appear strong, and the rest is because they’re too weak to do other than praise the work of an artist already in the spotlight of the international community. They either tag along with a group they believe is powerful, or they resist that group by themselves. Few critics are strong enough to do that. After all, nobody wants to swim upstream. The critic who applauds work that has already achieved star status has become a part of the debris cloud circling that star.
There is no organized ‘art mafia’. There are no ‘bosses’. But the art merchants, and the slews of stage door Johnnys that go with them, be they critics, curators, or local government officials handling cultural events, will always walk downhill on the path of least resistance. We’ve read, here on this site, about where we can go to see the art that the desperate housewives of the world think is the right thing to go see simply because it’s been so heavily promoted. The people who champion established artists have no power themselves, but serve to reinforce the power of the people running things by agreeing with their choices, and even falsely proclaiming to have been a part of the selection process. As with the museum director who falls in line with the flock to keep his job, such individuals allow themselves to become important only through the abdication of their individuality, by becoming foot soldiers who back the self serving choices the biggest, most serious collectors have made so as to increase the value of their collections.
What I have described is as natural as the arrival of rain in the Amazon. If a vacuum exists, it is soon filled. The opportunity to collect art, and then be able to increase its value through a museum is a relatively recent phenomenon. That Charles Saatchi was able to do this so easily with the Brooklyn Museum should tell us something. The best defense against art on steroids, is film and literature. If writers ridicule, and film makers expose, then real art has a chance. The public, that sea of humanity that affirms and legitimizes things they know nothing about, has to be made to laugh the same way Eddie Murphy made them laugh in that gallery scene in “Beverly Hills Cop”. The misplaced faith the public has in self proclaimed professionals has to be revealed for what it is; the epitome of ignorance.
If you’re a buyer buying for investment, stick to known names, the more well known, the better. You will have a veritable army of people working for you to increase your acquisitions’ value, most without a direct financial interest in the works themselves. If you are buying because you are struck by a piece, buy without fear of criticism, trusting in your own judgment. You’re the one who will have to live with your choice. You won’t have the security of the approval of your peers, but you can be happy in the knowledge that almost all of them don’t really know anything about art anyway, besides what they’ve read. And the observant among us know why what they’ve read was written, and why the status the writer was seeking to achieve was of primary importance, and the content secondary.
Nature provides opportunities for every beast in the jungle, including you and me. To be able to seize the moment when it comes your way, you have to know what makes the machinery hum, how it works, and why. You need to be as knowledgeable as possible to see not just what happens, but the naturalness of its happening. You also have to know which animal you are. A rabbit can’t play a tiger’s game, but in the love shack, he has a lot more fun.
Nature also provides risk, to allow the best examples of a species to prosper, while the weaker ones are swept away. Be strong. Accept the game you’re in, the cards you have been dealt, and play them like a pro.

Every child loves to draw and therefore we can state that every single person has been an artist at some point of time at least. While dealing with the rigmarole of life, if the creative spur is left behind, one does not call himself an artist.

An artist is considered a highly sensitized person with a polished talent or developed skill to create what is considered art. This art in turn casts its spell upon viewers and art having a long history interestingly records its varied impacts on man’s life.

Art therapy on the other hand is a term used clinically to discover the latent dispositions of a person, to give vent to or elevate to treat the problem of an individual through the employment of art. Therapeutic Art, often used synonymously, indicates the use of art for therapeutic purposes.

It is well known that Art Therapy is more of a necessity practiced abroad and yet to find strong foothold in India. Art therapy is generally associated with hospitals, cancer societies, adult and child mental health organizations, family or social welfare centers, Rehabilitation Homes, de-addiction centers, prison service and so on. This clearly indicates that Art is used not only as a means of detecting the tendency, damage or pain in the patient’s mind but also serves as an agent or a medicine to ease, normalize or strengthen the affected individual.

To a trained eye the quality of lines in a drawing indicate specific qualities of the individual drawing them. Similarly colors are deeply connected to various emotional and subject-object associations. The repeated choice or avoidance of certain lines or colors can help reveal links to deeper issues.

Does this instantly give a kind of morbid association to Art therapy? Give it a closer look and see that Art can offer a catharsis or a cleansing after which it can become a vehicle of pure feelings, childish delight or romantic beauty too!

I wish to bring to notice the role of the thumb and the forefinger in the exercise of art. It is called the Chin mudra and often found as a gesture for meditation. It is seen with deities in Indian and Buddhist art and indicates the activating of consciousness or intellect. While painting or drawing one employs these two fingers mainly and it is believed to kindle the acupressure point related to the brain. Similarly, the Japanese Shiatsu, meaning pressure with fingers, is a massage technique where the fingers are used in various ways to create well being in a person. Thus, besides through acupressure points, Art Therapy offers an individual a means of escape from physical or mental stress and pain through the intense concentration and involvement it calls for.

A client or patient of Art Therapy need not know to draw or paint, nor learn or understand its high fundamentals. The patient on the other hand responds and performs better if s/he only follows the basic instructions of the therapist besides his/her instinct.

Since Art Therapists need skill and sensitivity it calls for mature and flexible people. Theoretical and experiential work besides a first degree in art and some experience in social work comprises Post Graduate trainings offered at training centers. They are required to maintain standards and uphold the professional body. Like Drama and Music therapists they too can be State Registered under professions supplementary to Medicine. There are several forums or societies too besides books, journals and online groups. (try www.ArtTherapyForum.com)

However, it must be stated here that not all art used therapeutically needs the constant involvement or guidance of the therapist. In fact the role of a therapist is primarily to observe and facilitate suitable self-expression in an apt environment. All other factors vary from case to case. The relationship between therapist, patient and image and the guidelines are variable in nature. In some cases the client never gets to see the therapist but only receives instructions and is reviewed under strict secrecy as in the case of psychiatric examinations. It can also be a general class with common instructions for all or it could be a personal one to one relationship.

The working of Art therapy can be broadly explained as follows. Art serves as abridge between the inner and the outer, the private and public experience that reveals a spontaneous moment of the psyche just as with dreams. This imaginal activity is observed on the basis of Aesthetic, Jungian and Psychoanalytic theory. It provides a means of developing associations with dreams that lead the psyche further in to the imaginal realms (characterized by multifaceted and evanescent non-linear narrative) and then back into the real (i.e. a recording of the imaginal activity by fixing it in tangible material). Therefore, all art therapy outcomes cannot be made visible to the public. Various practitioners hold various opinions. However, the outcome can be used in a group to initiate a discussion, a dialogue, to tell a story or to solicit explanation in order to assess the individual or as in the case of this exhibition to simply share a conviction.

Finally, the efficacy and effectiveness of art may often be subtle rather than explicit. Evaluation and measurement tools may be borrowed, created or derived. Qualitative research encompassing subjectivity and quantitative objective methods help refine and validate existing theories.

All the challenges and achievements of the therapist and patient are finally resolved if there is a positive response, an ethically desired change and improved self-expression; and in the event of public sharing – a vocal response of the viewers.