October 20, 2006 – Lampasas , Tex. – A group of people from all age categories and all walks of life met at Fourth Street Gallery in Lampasas on Thursday, October 12, to watch a DVD put out by PBS's TV series ART:21. Al “Pablo” Solomon, a local sculptor, introduced the DVD and then led the lively discussion that followed.
The theme of the evening was “Art and Memory.” Four artists – a painter, a performance/assemblage artist, a photographer, and a glass blower – appear in the video, each talking about his or her work in the studio or space in which he or she creates. As Solomon noted in his introduction, some of the work is challenging; not everyone would like all of it. And the theme of the DVD was broad and far-reaching. Memory is an emotional term; it can be both good and bad, Solomon said. And it sometimes means forgetting, or understanding, or healing, or all of those things.
One artist, the painter Susan Rothenberg, who now makes her home in the Southwest, said that when she first moved to this part of the country from New York , she found herself replicating the light she had in her New York Studio. In that way, it might be said, she carried the memory of her life and work in New York with her. She remarked that she rarely cleans her brushes, leaving the paint from earlier canvases on them and thus transferring their memory (so to speak) to the next canvas she works on.
In the discussion that followed the screening, Solomon brought out that each artist had a different idea of what he or she wanted from art. Rothenberg wants a certain truth from art. Mike Kelley, the performance and assemblage artist sees the role of art as provocateur. He feels that the artist should challenge, to criticize to raise questions about our preconceived notions and unquestioned beliefs. The photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, who makes an interesting connection between the fossils he collects and photographs as the “fossilization of time, sees the task of the artist to make imagination possible for everyone. And finally, the glass blower Josiah McElheney believes that art is about seduction: his goal is to present an idea or concept in the most sumptuous way possible.
At the end of the DVD a short film clip aired. In this section, two police sit in a cruiser with coffee. One tells how she wakes every morning hoping to remember her dreams long enough to write them down, but just as she picks up paper and pen, her memory escapes her. She likens this to “sitting in an empty movie theater.” An apt description for a life without the texture and richness of memories or dreams.
One of the most interesting comments of the evening came from a member of the audience. After Solomon suggested that an exhibition space could be made available for those who, inspired by the program, wanted to create art, this viewer remarked that “everyone is an artist in whatever they do,” and that “our life is our art.” Solomon closed the evening by saying that as “life artists” we have to be aware that we are always on stage. “We have a responsibility to make it as beautiful as we can.” Hear hear.
For more information on ART:21, visit www.pbs.org/art21 .
Source Link: www.pbs.org/art21/
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Nancy Gray Art Consulting