Sacred Cows-My Philosophy On Art

I wanted to start my first post with an explanation about my blog title.  First, I must pay homage to one of my Professors, Coach J, who is the inspiration for it.  He was not referencing art at all in this conversation.  Instead he was referring to our College's requirement that we learn to swim in order to graduate. He was explaining to us on the first day of Survival Swimming that he is also the track coach and that he had forced one of his former track stars to take this course 3 times, because he could not swim properly.  He went on to tell us, "There are no sacred cows. I love you all the same."  We would all learn to swim or we would fail and retake the class.  We would not graduate until we did. 

What on earth does this have to do with art, you might ask.  Well, everything.  I will go back to another conversation I had with a friend who is a Professor at a University in Kansas.  I was helping him to erect a rather tedious outdoor sculpture (that is for another blog).  He was giving me some free advising.  In Matt's opinion, knowing what you value as a person is just as important as what you want study.  Do you want to make a lot of money?  Do you want to help people?  What drives you? These things are not necessarily good or bad, they just are.  When I described my ideas to him, he smiled and told me plainly that I was a Populist.  He did not mean this in a political sense.  He meant that I want art to be accessible to all kinds of people, not all people do.

I love to watch reruns of Kenneth Clarke's BBC show Civilisation (this is not a typo--the British spell it with an s).  Clarke was an art historian who talked to you in your living room about art in a way that you could understand it, even if you had never studied it formally.  I find a lot of people either don't visit museums or if they do, they are confused by much of what they see.  Some don't understand why something is worth looking at.  Modern art is just scribbles and Vermeer is just a dead guy.  The devaluing of art begins in at home (art is for girls) and in schools (when it is removed from curriculum).  Granted, some museums and galleries do a better job than others with having text panels that explain what you are looking at, holding gallery talks or educational events.  Still, many people in the art world believe that art is not for the untrained eye.  Art events are priced so high that middle class or low income couples and families cannot afford to go.  They are for wealthy donors who support the institutions. Of course, this is only part snobbery.  It is also survival because art is largely privately funded and needs the money.

 I am calling this blog "There Are No Sacred Cows" because I want to write a blog that anyone can read and enjoy about art.  I hope that people who love art will like it.  I also hope that some people who always wanted to know more about it but were afraid to ask will read it and learn to love it too.  Art is not just for some people.  It is for everyone.  In my opinion, it is the most basic form of creative self-expression a human being can make.  There is a reason there are cave paintings in France that are 32,000 years old.  We have always had this drive to make art.  I myself enjoy creating art, but my truest love is looking at it and talking about it with other people. I hope you will join me.