(Untitled)

[photodharma]

When you have a sense of art -- which means a sense of aesthetics -- it means a sense of the sacred, from an Indian point of view, because aesthetics and the sacred are two sides of the same coin with us, or even are interchangeable. When you say the earth is sacred, that is an imaginative, creative, artistic point of view. Because when you set out

Comments

[angiereedgarner]

These attitudes about art=sacred=beauty are common amoing UUs to my experience-- and they hamstring artists who wish to deal with the full range of human experience-- not just the positive happy reverent bits.

Writers are allowed to deal with difficult/painful issues, but not artists, because of these inane and banal beliefs about proper place of the visual arts.

[photodharma]

You know, I was recenlty reading a book called Creative Utopia: 12 Ways to Realize Total Creativity by Theo Williams. One whole chapter was about how your home and studio space should be all feng shui and there should be no disturbing images or anything that would evoke feelings of sadness or anxiety, etc., etc.
I just put the book down at that point.
If you've looked at my da gallery, of course, you'd know why I had to differ. Much of my art deals with less reverent or happy subjects than pretty landscape and pretty butterflies and all that.
I mean, artists, in my experience, embrace all of life and express it all. Seeing the world through rose colored glasses won't make anyone a better artist, IMHO, at all.
So, I agree, in so far as I don't think that ALL art needs to evoke "a sense of reverence and beauty". But, that, to me, doesn't invalidate what the author of this quote says, because, sometimes, for some artists, it is our role to do as he says.