re: #629 Walter L. Newton

We are sort of talking across each others bow, both agreeing and not agreeing and sometimes missing a point.

Everything you said makes sense, and since you appear to be deeply knowledgeable about painted art, every one of your points are correct, according to your informed knowledge of art.

But, that’s what I like about art, it’s for everyone. A totally uninformed person can look at art and come away with a positive opinion, a n understanding of some sort, and maybe even insight. And that same uninformed person can look at a piece of art and say “dog shit.” And that’s fine with me. Because I see art as something that is available to all, informed, uninformed, it doesn’t matter.

So, for you, informed, you know DIFFERENT than the other person, but not better. Because art is what it elicits inside of a person, not what you deem as the correct, proper and informed response.

You are an art elitist. I can’t stand art elitist. It’s people like you that kept me afraid to visit the numerous museums in Paris, even though I had been to Paris a dozen times. It was people like you who made it impossible to enjoy art for arts sake. When I finally decided to respect art and let it speak for itself, let it speak to me, and turned out the elitists like you, then I had a revelation… I understood what art is.

I hope you have that epiphany someday.

You might be getting me wrong, I’m mostly just a guy who is very opinionated about art. Opinionated might look like elitism, but if we were to sit down and groove about art, you’re not going to find a bunch of elitism from a guy who grew up reading X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics. When you look at my work, it’s not elitist, it’s more silly. My stuff is mostly spooky nerdy genre fantasy influenced by comic books, strange fashion, and horror movies. I like really low-class stuff too, one of my favorite artists of all time is Coop. Yes, the dude who draws fat devil chicks. I love Pushead, who draws skulls for concert t-shirts. I love rock posters. I love abstract art. I love it all, because there’s something to be learned from it all.

I’ve had that ephiphany, I had it a long time ago. But I still like to argue, and I still get pissed off when someone attacks a great artist and compares them to racists. The art speaks for itself, but I speak for myself, and I personally will become offended and RAGECAPSLOCK if someone unfairly trashes the imagemakers that helped shaped my work.

I don’t want to make it impossible for anyone to enjoy art, and I don’t believe that getting mad at someone who attacked the man behind the work is preventing anyone from enjoying his work. I hope that I read as a guy who likes Warhol a lot and is offended that people want to make snap judgements about his entire life, his morals and his sanity. That;s ultimately all I am, is a big fan and someone who is seeing a hero tarnished.

If someone wants to trash the work, they can trash the work, hate on it, say it’s crap, whatever. But, and I emphasize with judicious boldface: But they don’t get a pass when it comes to calling artists racists. That’s out of school, that’s beyond the scope of what you’re talking about. I’m not being an elitist for calling that out. Your point is taken though, I have done that in the past, I have often been the know-it-all about painting, especially painters that I am influenced by. I’ve been in two dozen arguments about Picasso. Picasso keeps coming up!