Josse Ford :: Art Journeys and Conversation ::

Art and the Soul

I am greatly enjoying a book called "The Mission of Art" by Alex Grey, a New York based visionary artist. I especially enjoyed what he had to say about Art and the Soul.

"Art is communion of one soul to another, offered through the symbolic language of form and content. An artist creates a sensible form, through harmonious use of the medium (paint, clay, music, and so on), which expresses content, by subject and feeling. We absorb metaphysical sustenance from the balance of formal means and expressive ends. Art expands the appreciator's consciousness by providing a glimpse into the hearts and minds of strange beautiful humanity. Art is nutrition for the Soul. The soul cannot thrive on junk food.

Many artists develop technical skills - they can draw, paint, or play an instrument - but seem to have little that is fresh, original, or worthwhile to say. Other artists really have something important to express but lack the skills or courage to express it. Rare is the artist with skill who offers a significant statement.

The only way to formal inventiveness and technical ability is to work and work, studying and perfecting the craft. Artists discover unique features of their medium that contribute to actualizing their personal vision. A well-crafted work of art requires discipline. Devotional labor lavished on a work of art radiates love and care to the viewer."

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Art That Nourishes Your Soul

Recently I have been enjoying a book called "Nourishing Wisdom" by Marc David about the idea of eating food which nourishes our body on all levels. In the book Marc encourages us to observe what happens jwhen we think about food and when we eat it, and how both our thoughts and the food affect our bodies and emotions?

I was wondering what this would be like applied to art. Can art nourish not only our Souls but our bodies and our emotions?

• What effect to the images that we surround ourselves effect our emotions and the way we see life?
• What happens to some of the cutting edge "hip" art so popular with collectors today. Do they display it proudly in their living room, like a trophy, to provoke their friends or does it end up in some bank vault, an investment for a rainy day
• How much affect does our state of consciousness at the time of painting affect the finished piece?
• What are some of your favorite artists that nourish you on a deep level? (Mine are Van Gogh, Nicholas Roerich, Georgia O'Keefe, Agnes Martin

Speaking of favorite artists: Van Gogh's drawings are on display at the Metropolitan from October 18, 2005–December 31, 2005.

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Are you an Astronaut or an Astronomer

A magazine that I subscribe to "Art Calendar" had lots of useful art marketing tips for artists. The lead article this month (by Jack White) poses the intriguing question: Are you an Astronaut or an Astronomer?

The idea behind the article is that there are two kinds of artists, Astronauts and Astronomers. "Astronauts actually believe that they can make it to the stars; Astronomers only dream of what it would be like." In other words, it is your beliefs that determine if you will make it as an artist or not. If you believe in yourself, not one person, insiitution, government or structure can stop you.

Jack gives the following example:

"Too many people are grounded, like an elephant tied to a stake. The powerful elephant could easily yank up the stake and walk where he wants to go. However, he was trained as a baby by being chained to a stake he couldn't pull up. Once trained, he never again tried to break free.

There is one artist we know who won't pull up the stake. He has immense talent; he is one of the most brilliant people I know. But he is determined to remain an Astronomer and cannot get it into his thick head that he can become an Astronaut. The truth of the matter is, most of the Astronomers are smarter, and many are better educated, than the Astronauts. Yet it is the Astronaut who walks in space - the same space the Astronomer gazes at during the darkest nights."

RESOURCES

• www.JackWhiteArtist.com
• www.artrepreneur.com
• www.artcalendar.com

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Healing As Art: The Tale Of The Painting Doctors - Robin Good's Latest News

I haven't been in internet land for quite a while (as you have probably noticed :-) but I came across this satirical story today which i quite enjoyed: Healing As Art: The Tale Of The Painting Doctors - Robin Good's Latest News:

There was once a small group of medical doctors (MDs) who wanted to create art.

To accomplish this, they first decided to study art to find what it was made of.

Using elaborate microscopes and measurement devices, they discovered that art was made up of ink on a canvas. With the help of the best high-tech equipment available, they applied thousands of tiny blots of ink to a canvas in the hopes of creating art.

But it wasn't art. It was just ink on a canvas.

Hoping to improve their results, one doctor noticed that art was usually made of different colors of ink. To succeed in creating art, he suggested, they would have to study these colors and find ways of applying them to the canvas.

Using even more elaborate instruments, they determined that ink colors were created by specific, measurable wavelengths of light reflected off the surface of the ink. By isolating different chemicals that absorbed certain wavelengths of light, they were able to synthesize chemical pigments with the appearance of different colors.

With this success in hand, they once again turned to the canvas, applying large quantities of chemical inks, in all varieties, in their attempt to create art.

But it still wasn't art. It was just a lot of different colored inks on a canvas.

Frustrated by the failure, another doctor in the group came up with the idea that since art obviously wasn't produced by the colored ink, then it must somehow be found within the canvas. They proceeded to dissect the canvas.

Using medical imaging equipment and an elaborate system of fiber classification, they were able to catalog and name over two hundred types of microscopic fibers found in the canvas. With this knowledge, the doctors were certain they now understood art. They knew the fiber structure of the canvas and the chemical composition of the inks. What more could art be made of?

Armed with this new scientific knowledge of art, they gathered enormous samples of all the fibers, chemicals and inks now known and combined them in a giant mass of ink colors and canvas fibers.

Only it still wasn't art. It was a flattened blob of canvas covered with multicolored inks.

In frustration, the doctors declared there is no such thing as art.

"If it cannot be scientifically replicated in laboratory experiments," stated one doctor, "it does not exist."

And thus art was thereafter banned from all scientific discussion, and artists were ridiculed for dallying in their colorful parlor tricks.

The art laboratory was abandoned, left to fade into dust, forgotten by the scientists and doctors who once thought they could understand art by naming its chemical constituents.

Not long after, a young girl happened across the abandoned laboratory. There, she was surprised to find the most brilliant collection of multicolored inks she had ever seen. They reminded her of a dream she once had with rainbows and fields overflowing with wildflowers.

Spotting an empty canvas, she dipped her finger into a pool of brilliant blue paint and began to smear it across the canvas. She followed that with a warm yellow sun, luscious green fields, and brilliant blotches of color that looked like flowers.

She didn't notice the wall charts, diagrams and reams of data around her in the room. She knew nothing about the chemical composition of inks, nor the structure of canvas fibers. She only knew that brilliant colors and a fresh canvas tugged at her creativity, opening a window of possibility through which she traced the dreams that once danced across the canvas in her mind.

It was art:

Healing is like art.

Neither healing nor art come from the physical matter, the chemicals, the molecules.

Neither healing nor art can be measured or understood as an inventory of parts.

Neither healing nor art exist anywhere but in the minds and hearts of those who materialize observable artifacts by acting on utterly non-scientific dreams and intentions.

Healing and art are much the same. Hence the term, "Healing Arts."

This story was originally written by Mike Adam from NewsTarget.com.

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