Getting back to blogging is a stumbling process...What shall I remind myself of today? Since this blog is really all about me - I'm pretty well the only one to read it...save those might stumble in (There's that word again!) It is a season of vernisages and I am fortunate enough to have some artist friends and some artist acquaintances...so I am vernisaging. One show featured my friend who is working in ten foot panels of digital manipulation. She uses transparencies. And I immediately thought of all the photos I could make transparent.
The other artist works in clay. Stunning clay statements. Her largest work, Autobiography, is a desk with clay telephone and note paper and detail. She made that one in art school twenty some years ago when representational art was a no no and she had spent her whole life being told no by those who know. She actually was in Our Town, a play I directed when I was a new teacher. I didn't know her; I only knew she was such a relief because she knew what she was doing...and I didn't...know what I was doing. She spoke of her blog. I went to her blog. The most recent input was warning retired persons who thought they might like to make art and sell it that they shouldn't! And it brought up the damn fool dilemma I face. There's no doubt but I love taking pictures. I have a good camera. Not expensive but good. But in order for me to do art, I'm going to have to manipulate pictures and that's where it becomes messy. I don't want to sell art but I do like playing with pictures.
      This picture is not art. This is just...a good picture!
      The other show was that of my friend who does stunning art...representational at one level but also symbolic. Someone pointed out her piece of a ten-year-old girl standing strong and obstinate...in a nice dress but with great big bare feet. We are all stuck at some phase of our life and I had to laughingly admit that that ten-year-old was me...right down to the feet.
      What I am considering is that art, like writing, is a matter of manipulation. Anyone can write a blog. Anyone can take a picture. It's what one does with the writing or the picture that counts.