The Art of Asking, Recieving and Giving.

  As I ponder what is art and the artist in our culture, I also question how do we value such art and the artist.  How is the art and artist financially supported and how do we understand the art or the artist to be successful?  This relates to many connecting ideas, some of which are: capitalism, socialism, commodification, non-for profit, patronage, charity, alms, tithing, creative capital, gifting, purchasing, materialism, spirituality, learning...etc. etc.

  One of the struggles that I met when I determined to be an artist, was the shame that came along with choosing a "profession that wouldn't earn a real income".  Of course this statement of not being able to earn a living as an artist is as true or as false as you experience it--there is no certainty to it and it entirely depends on how you define art and artwork.  However, there is a good amount of truth to it if you make nothing to sell.  And since we base our concept of success primarily on the value of the dollar, very few artists are successful--and those that are, are mostly successful at selling their "artworks" as products.

  I am reminded of public high school and being heaped together socially with the other "misfits" at the cafeteria, we had very little in common with each other, other than that we were different.  I feel similarly about being an artist in a vast pool of "artists" that have very little in common with each other--other than we use the title "artist".  But I believe we are all "artists", so lets extend this title to include everyone.  Now that we are all hypothetically artists, why are some being paid tremendously while others are not being paid at all? What are the various methods we have for supporting the "art work" of others? Consider the: Mother, Poet, Dancer, Teacher, Political Leader, Minister, Farmer, Scientist, Doctor, Auto-Mechanic, Painter, Firefighter, Stock Trader, etc. etc.

  I believe that an artist (like myself) needs to challenge the notion of commodifying the art they make--but rather to keep it "free" (Is there such thing?) and "share" it with the public.  Art brings knowledge to the world--it is our ethical responsibility to make that as available to as many as we possibly can.  But in order to do that we need financing to both live and make our art. 

  I've just finished reading Amanda Palmer's book "The Art of Asking".  She is an excellent example of an artist engaged with exploring new systems of financing her work.  She is a musician who is famous for raising the largest amount of money on Kickstarter (a crowdfunding platform) to finance a new album.  She raised over 1.2 million with approximately 25k backers.  She used the money from her fans to pay for the costs of living and production of the album, and then released it freely to be shared, and copied by anyone interested.  Reading the book I related to many points she raised, such as the feeling of shame associated with asking for support.  That it has been ingrained in our society that we should be able to do "it" all by ourselves--and that we don't deserve the help of others (especially towards supporting our work that doesn't feel like work--but more like play!)  She talks about the fraud police (her inner shaming voice) that yells, "Get a job!!"  This inner voice mimics a voice that was once literally yelled at her while she was a street performer...and she thought back, "I have a job, this is it!"  That insult has to do with misunderstanding the value of artistic exchange without a product.  When she was a street performer she was a statue that was standing still to be freely admired, and when a passerby gave her money expressing their gratitude of the experience they recieved-she returned the gift with her gaze, acknowledging her gratitude of their gift back to them...this was a gift exchange.

  Later in the book Palmer describes her asking for money on kickstarter as asking to be paid in advance for products and was not asking for charity.  There was an attitude or feeling that if it had been "just donations" it would have been unethical.  She says on page 237,

“Crowdfunding wasn’t charity, as some people seemed to think; my backers were buying things.  It was a means for implementing a business model based on the currency of asking and trusting...Some journalists didn’t understand how crowdfunding worked, and many thought all the money was donations, rather than advance purchases of actual things that I had to create and deliver.”  

While I am excited about Palmer's courage to ask for financing her artwork, I feel frustrated by how the exchange was more about "buying" rather then "giving", and that it was material based.  For example--a certain dollar amount "given" on her kickstarter was returned with a T-shirt  or something else tangible.

  Interestingly, I googled Amanda Palmer and discovered that just this week she has  launched her second crowdfunding request!!!  This time she is using a new platform titled ‘Patreon.org’ which is different than Kickstarter.  It allows for backers to become subscribers of either a specific artistic project or pay the artist an ongoing monthly amount.  Reading Amanda’s decision to launch this new campaign addressed some of the questions and concerns I have about Kickstarter, and the purchasing of material goods.  She says that she wants the financial support to create unspecific content (blogging, tweeting, singing, painting, etc) that is not always physical “stuff”, hence this other platform allows her more creative freedom.  To me, this platform is braver and involves more trust between parties.  Within her first 24hrs she has raised over 15k for an unspecified creative project from approximately 1,300 backers.  This calculates to an average $10 contribution per person. 

  Awhile back I read the book 'The Gift' by Lewis Hyde which addresses these questions about art and commodification.  Yesterday his newest book arrived, titled 'Common As Air'.  I am looking forward to reading it.  I feel these questions all relate to why Joseph Beuys called for a total upheaval of our society, by reconsidering the role of the artist and revolutionizing our financial system with creative capital.  I actually believe that we are in this process, and that artists and agriculturalists are leading the revolution.  

  Meanwhile I am asking to hear your thoughts about "gifting".  Do you have a gifting practice?  Who do you give to and why do you give?  How do you define giving? You can comment here or on facebook and also by private email.  You can friend me on facebook or email me at dawnbreezeart@gmail.com

I am interested in exploring new methods for financing and experiencing art and the artist!

Aesthetic Arrest vs. Kinetic Art

This past week I read a very interesting collection of writings, including: Ann Bogart's essay 'Eroticism', Joseph Beuys 'Energy Plan for the Western Man',  some of Robert Henri's 'The Art Spirit', and also 'The Art of Living: Aeshetics of the Ordinary in World Spiritual Traditions' by Crispin Sartwell.  Collectively these works all relate to and even refer to Aquinas and Joyce's terms 'Aesthetic Arrest' and 'Kinetic Art'.

What I find most compelling is the duality suggested by Joyce when he states that true art makes 'Aesthetic Arrest' happen, that one is stopped in arrest, versus kinetic art, which he says is a lower art because it moves you with a desire to act, rather then hold you in arrest.  In Portrait of an Artist, Joyce quotes Aquinas on the subject of "proper" and "improper" art. Proper art has to do with aesthetic experience, which is static. Proper art doesn't move you to do anything.
Improper art, on the other hand, is kinetic. It moves you with desire, loathing or fear for the object represented. Consequently, it moves you to action. Thus you're not in aesthetic arrest. Art that moves you with desire towards an object, Joyce called pornographic. According to Joyce, all advertising is pornographic art. (Lee)

Joseph Campbell interpreted 'Proper Art' as having the quality of aesthetic arrest which then moved you to feel something, such as awe, astonishment, or wonder - it will strike an inner, spiritual chord.  It stops viewers motion, both literally and figuratively; therefore, this type of response is deemed "static," and the experience of it is called "aesthetic arrest."

"Proper art, of course, means art performing a function that is proper to art - the kind of function only art can serve.  And improper art is art in the service of something else."   Joseph Campbell, "The Power of Myth"

I find it interesting to describe 'aesthetic arrest' as static, inferring that there is no movement.  I personally believe stopping is movement, and 'art performing a function' is moving, so therefor find it impossible to separate the experience of art from movement.  Isn't experience also movement?

(There is a strange use of the word 'pornographic' in Joyce's explanation--which Campbell picks up again and which I would like to tease out a bit at a later time, as it has similar complexities like the word 'Erotic' in the descriptions of art, creativity, and interest.)

Then we move to Crispin Sartwell, he begins a most compelling jaunt into the theory of art by first bringing our attention to the concept of art as a western concept--that many cultures do not have or make "art" as we understand it (do we understand what is art in the west?).  He recognizes that in every living culture throughout time people are making what we call art--and that it is all with specific purposes and that it also has aesthetic qualities, yet it is not recognized as "art" by those who make or do it.  It is spoken of as "tools", "clothing", "medicine", etc.  His theory is that all men are artists--which is shared by Beuys and myself.  What links us together is that we believe it is our creativity that makes us artists, and creativity is a part of the human experience of life.

Now, Beuys seems to have determined later in his career that 'Socially Engaged Art' was the highest of the arts, as it was the ability to evolutionize human existence, and when asked about his aesthetics, he said "human beings".  He would be classified as a kinetic artist by Joyce.  Looking at Beuys works and contributions as an artist, I am in great admiration of his artistic spirit and I feel a true affinity with him as an artist myself.  However, there are choices and thoughts he had towards his work and artwork in general, that I feel inconclusive about.  Such as when he was asked about the "multiples" that were for sale in the museum, like the $50 felt eraser that had his signature on it.  He replied "It is a kind of vehicle, you know.  It is a kind of making, spreading out ideas, that is what I think." (44)  To me this is no different then advertisement or propaganda and I would agree with Joyce here, that this is improper art and commodification.  BUT, I also believe in the value of ideas, sharing ideas and that they need a materiality, a place in space to be held and moved.  Which is why I, like and unlike Beuys, and like and unlike Joyce, believe in both the value of aesthetic arrest and the kinesthetic aspect of art.  

I believe 'proper' art possesses both the qualities of aesthetic arrest and kinesthetics.  For me the kinetic aspect is "change" or "help", the art changes or helps something with intentions of goodness.  

Integritas, Consonantia, and Claritas

In pursuit of understanding art and beauty (in pursuit of defining it), I begin with Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).  But as I begin to look in to Aquinas, Joyce finds me:

— Art, said Stephen, is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end...

— Aquinas, said Stephen, says that is beautiful the apprehension of which pleases...

— Static therefore, said Stephen. Plato, I believe, said that beauty is the splendour of truth. I don’t think that it has a meaning, but the true and the beautiful are akin. Truth is beheld by the intellect which is appeased by the most satisfying relations of the intelligible; beauty is beheld by the imagination which is appeased by the most satisfying relations of the sensible. The first step in the direction of truth is to understand the frame and scope of the intellect itself, to comprehend the act itself of intellection. Aristotle’s entire system of philosophy rests upon his book of psychology and that, I think, rests on his statement that the same attribute cannot at the same time and in the same connexion belong to and not belong to the same subject. The first step in the direction of beauty is to understand the frame and scope of the imagination, to comprehend the act itself of esthetic apprehension. Is that clear?

— But what is beauty? asked Lynch impatiently. Out with another definition. Something we see and like! Is that the best you and Aquinas can do?...

— This hypothesis, Stephen repeated, is the other way out: that, though the same object may not seem beautiful to all people, all people who admire a beautiful object find in it certain relations which satisfy and coincide with the stages themselves of all esthetic apprehension. These relations of the sensible, visible to you through one form and to me through another, must be therefore the necessary qualities of beauty. Now, we can return to our old friend saint Thomas for another pennyworth of wisdom. (Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

Randy Stice writes:

"Aquinas taught that beautiful things possess three qualities: integritas, consonantia, and claritas. Integritas refers to completeness and perfection—nothing essential is lacking, nothing extraneous is present. Consonantia is the quality of proportionality in relation to an end, “the goal that God had in mind for it.”⁷ Claritas, the third element, is the power of an object to reveal its ontological reality. Umberto Eco describes it as “the fundamental communicability of form, which is made actual in relation to someone’s looking at or seeing of the object. The rationality that belongs to every form is the ‘light’ which manifests itself to aesthetic seeing.”⁸ Something that is truly beautiful has all of its constituent elements (integrates), is proportional to its ultimate purpose (consonantia), and manifests its essential reality (clarets).  


<sup>It is important to note that the concept of beauty as describe by Umberto Eco (Author of 'The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas), is particular to the sense of sight.  I believe Integritas, Consonantia and Claritas may belong to to any sensual encounter.  I am someone who believes in six senses, including the mind as a sense--similarly Buddhist philosophy believes in the mind as a sixth sense.  

I have just placed the order to read Umberto Eco's book...and will be reading more from Joyce.</sup>