DERIVATIVISM - sandwiching oils between digital buns

There is a difference in my creative art process between “copy” and “replication.” Let me explain. As artist I start off with digital tools, use oil paints as an intermediate step, then end up with a digital derived final product. So how does this compare and differ from the commonplace procedure of reproducing paintings by copyists? I’ll try to clarify so here goes-

I started off in painting and sculpture, earning a master’s degree in Studio Art (Northern Illinois University, 1975). This developed an affinity as well as artistic sensitivity for the expressive powers of the paint medium. But with the introduction of the personal computer (PC graphics) in the 80s, I decided to emerge along with it as digital artist. I abandoned my paint tubes and brushes. In the beginning I was a purist, never scanning or importing photographs (of course back then there was no digital camera). I took pride in starting with clusters of pixels on an otherwise blank monitor screen. But times have changed and my attitude and approach has evolved along with the medium. My work now is truly “multi-media” or as they said before, “mixed media.” I am now free to use whatever resources are available to make innovative imagery.



Which brings me to the issue of “original” and “reproduction.” How do these terms relate to my idiosyncratic approach to producing art?

Other artists who create a painting may have their work later duplicated by another individual, whether willingly or not. The first painted image is the “original” and the subsequent effort(s) is a “copy.” In this case the medium is the same. Both are paint on canvas. Today because of economics and the advancement of technology, the original can also be “duplicated” through digital photography and digital printmaking. Archival quality print editions called “Giclees” can be offered at a more affordable price to many collectors instead of just one. The original painting so popularized by the multitude of identical print imagery thereby also appreciates in value, or price.

My art making process differs. I start off with a completed digital image on the computer monitor display. My “original” is represented virtually by photons of light called pixels that are directed in visual attributes by computer data stored as files. My “original” is actually a bunch of numbers in a computer data base. Its display as a picture on the screen is merely temporary. When the image file is closed or the computer turned off, there is no picture. There is no visual/visible art. In the “early days” my digital art was either printed or photographed off the monitor. The latter method was used to frame hardcopy prints for my 1988 solo exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum. It was by the way, the first digital art exhibition in China, thereby making Chinese art history.

But from this standard way of capturing the digital image and being able to touch it, frame it, and display it, my work has evolved. Maybe it was because of my earlier studio work in painting and drawing at Northern Illinois. Besides, after remaining the purist as a digital artist, it started to feel stale. I wanted to experiment outside of conventional digital imagery. Supported by an aesthetic theory and philosophy through years of exploring the psychology of art, I moved on to develop my systems approach that incorporated other media besides the digital. My work also embraced a team approach, with me as primary artist and image-making visionary.

I either start from scratch in front of the monitor with a blinking light cursor waiting to be led. Or I can load into ram memory a former digital image and take it further or into a new direction. Alternately I can use my professional photography skills and import imagery from my digital camera. After manipulation with mixed bag of graphic software, I arrive with an image that I judge with confidence in having made the transformation from merely “computer graphics” to literally fine art. I go ahead and “save” a work of art, still in its initial, or “original” state and form.

Somewhere over the decades I evaluated a purely digital image to still be too machine-like, too technically perfect to achieve my specific goal as a digital artist. I aspire to achieve works that convincingly simulate the appearance of paintings manually produced on canvas. So in order to “soften” the unyielding calculated imagery generated through the dictation of mathematical functions, I farm out my digital pictures to be actually painted-by-hand. The task is executed by selected collaborators who are masters in their craft. Remember that in my case the digital image is the original. Therefore the subsequent painting cannot be a “copy,” as this term requires the existence of an actual painting. So just what is the painting of a digital image, for the role that it performs in my creative process?

It is a “replication” of the digital image. It is also, however, transient like the original. The digital image disappears when the file is closed. The knock off painting is merely a means to an end. As good as the craftsman is in replicating the digital “blueprint,” there is subtle variation from the original digital that cannot be avoided. Such “error” in the translation between media is intentionally added by me, the “digital painting designer.” For one thing we are using a different media to transpose the digital. The computer picture is projected dots of light into the human retina. Color and form of a painting are light waves reflected off opaque surfaces (of paint and canvas). One image is made of pixels of light, the other of paint. Then there is human error that cannot be avoided, as the infinite amount of visual information of a detailed digital image cannot be completely captured by the limits of both the paint medium as well as the accuracy and skill of the individual artisan. The human as computer printer is imperfect. As I said before, this margin of error in the replication process is not only anticipated but also desired. Because of such deviance the high-tech, hard edge look of the digital imagery can be “cut” or reduced, giving the secondary image a hands-on feel and appearance. Through the hands of humans my digital picture is “softened” and soothed. By using the limitation of the paint medium, my simulated digital “paintings” are more convincingly perceived as paint.

But the painting produced from the digital picture is not the end of my process. The object is digitally photographed, ironically converting the picture back to pixels. After personally enhancing the captured image with software, printing test prints to proof and doing the subsequent adjustments, this final digital file of the original digital image is offered as a limited edition Giclee print. I define the print as “derivative” of the whole process. I dub it “derivative” art and my artistic intent, process and final imagery as the new art of “Derivativism.”

To summarize, other artists have paintings “copied” or “reproduced.” I instead create a digital image, have it “replicated” in order to “derive” a final digital (once again) print. It can be tossed (in 2006 I literally destroyed 175 canvas paintings), or sold (they are beautiful and masterfully crafted) to an admirer. Or, as documentary of my long-term process leading to an extensive series of print editions, the intermediary paintings could be exhibited in a hall of their own. In such a paradoxical way would they compliment as well as elevate an audience’s appreciation of the monumentally scaled (40”x50”) derivative print collection. The Giclees would be the featured works, installed as the main exhibition of my future digital art museum.

Everybody expects artwork to be signed. So, you may ask, how is the art signed? I back off as Rodney Chang, multi-media conceptual artist. Instead I sign "Pygoya" for the team of Pygoya Productions.

"Sailing in Cyberspace," 2003 - original digital


"Sailing in Cyberspace," 2003 - 40"x50" Giclee canvas print


photo courtesy, V Salon, Manhattan, New York City, NY

Created by Pygoya On 10/09/08 At 10:33 AM

Google pays Library of Congress  $3 MILLION for Orphan Works Legislation

Orphan Works: Connect the Dots     

9.30.08                                                                                     

1. Web firms quietly win copyright victory in Congress

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Sept 29 -- As the media turned its attention last weekend to battles on Capitol Hill over the fate of the proposed Wall Street bailout bill, Internet companies including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. quietly walked away with a legislative victory that could facilitate their use of copyrighted material.

The Senate on Friday passed the Orphan Works Act of 2008, legislation that weakens copyright protection for works whose owners cannot be located. The legislation has now been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

The legislation requires only that a company make a "reasonably diligent" search to locate a copyright owner before using their work in media including the Internet, and limits compensation required for the use of an infringed work.




Orphan Works: Connect the Dots     

9.30.08                                                                                     

1. Web firms quietly win copyright victory in Congress

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Sept 29 -- As the media turned its attention last weekend to battles on Capitol Hill over the fate of the proposed Wall Street bailout bill, Internet companies including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. quietly walked away with a legislative victory that could facilitate their use of copyrighted material.

The Senate on Friday passed the Orphan Works Act of 2008, legislation that weakens copyright protection for works whose owners cannot be located. The legislation has now been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

The legislation requires only that a company make a "reasonably diligent" search to locate a copyright owner before using their work in media including the Internet, and limits compensation required for the use of an infringed work.  

-By John Letzing, MarketWatch Sept. 29, 2008
www.marketwatch.com/news/story/web-firms-quietly-win-copyright/story.aspx?guid={E21206C0-98F5-459B-9506-8133CBD82859}&dist=hpts


2. Google Acknowledges Copyright Infringement Claims Could Harm Business

ILLUSTRATORS PARTNERSHIP Sept 30 -- In March 2007, Google filed a mandatory 10-Q Filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In it, they acknowledged: "copyright claims filed against us [by copyright owners] alleging that features of certain of our products and services, including Google Web Search, Google News, Google Video, Google Image Search, Google Book Search and YouTube, infringe their rights."

Google admitted that "[a]dverse results in these lawsuits may include awards of substantial monetary damages, costly royalty or licensing agreements or orders preventing us from offering certain functionalities, and may also result in a change in our business practices, which could result in a loss of revenue for us or otherwise harm our business." (Italics added.)

--Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, Illustrators Partnership
investor.google.com/documents/20070331_10-Q.html


3. Google Sees Value in Orphan Works

ILLUSTRATORS PARTNERSHIP March 8, 2006 -- At the Copyright Office's Orphan Works Roundtables, July 26-27, 2005, Alexander MacGilivray of Google stated:

 "The thing that I would encourage the Copyright Office to consider is not just the very, very small scale -the one user who wants to make use of the [orphan] work - but also the very, very large scale - and talking in the millions of works. - page 21

 "Google strongly believes that these orphan works are both worthwhile, useful, and extremely valuable." - page 119

"We expect that our use of these orphan works will likely be in the 1 million works range..." (Italics added.) - page 166

"[W]e know that many of them  [orphan works] will be in the public domain, that most of their authors won't care. But there are a few [authors] that really will care and they will come forward [to claim authorship] and it will be extremely inefficient for us." (Italics added.) -page 166
(Page numbers are from Copyright Office transcripts.)

Orphan Works Roundtables were held by the US Copyright Office July 26-7, 2005 in Washington DC
www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/0726LOC.PDF


4. Google Donates $3 Million to U.S. Library of Congress

Australian IT Nov 23, 2005 -- The U.S. Library of Congress is kicking off a campaign to work with other nation's libraries to build a World Digital Library, starting with a $US3 million donation from Google.

-Eric Auchard in San Francisco | November 23, 2005
australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,17339145%5E15409%5E%5Enbv%5E15306-15322,00.html


TAKE ACTION: EMAIL CONGRESS NOW
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party.
_

For news and information:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 75 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498.  Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson  that I oppose the Orphan Works Act."  The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

STOP THE ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Created by Walter King On 10/06/08 At 11:43 AM

Art and National Identity

Before I came to the UAE I knew there were at least 10 Emirati artists. I had their names and images in a book published in 1982 by the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States. However, on arrival in Dubai I faced a major problem - there was no National Museum or Art Gallery so no obvious place to find them. It actually took me six months to find a local artist but it is amazing that just over a year later, I am now aware of more than 200 and have actually seen the work of well over 50.

This is largely thanks to independent arts organisations and the fact that my search coincided with a national identity crisis in the UAE. Concern about losing a sense of national self is particularly acute in Dubai, where nationals are at highest estimates only 10 per cent of the population. This resulted in 2008 being designated the 'year of national identity' by the UAE government making it a good time to propose projects focussing on local culture and local creative output.



The first real result of this is an unprecedented government sponsored exhibition featuring over 100 works by 22 local artists, which opened last week in Dubai. The artists range from veteran painters to a new generation of photographers and graphic designers. There are also literally second-generation artists such as the son and daughter of the UAEs most well known artist Abdul Qader Al Rais.

The conservative tendency in visual arts has been an association with ‘heritage’ as a means of defining identity, generally meaning falcons, dates, horses and camels. A younger and more global generation is obviously rather less enamoured of this limiting image of the nation and ‘nationality’ in art seems rather antithetical to the contemporary international climate anyway. So it was very interesting to see how much would emerge from this show that was distinctly ‘Emirati’.

The first works you see are by Reem Al Ghaith and are familiar from the Dubai Next show at Art Basel. There is a palpable sense of dislocation in her three huge prints of a solitary figure inside a frame or seemingly reflected in a mirror against a backdrop of various Dubai locations. They also make an impression by sheer virtue of their size despite being obscured by several stone pillars. So the initial impact of this show is clearly Emirati.


The only other works in the courtyard itself are nine small sculptures of animals and figures made out of scrap metal by Mohammed Abdullah. With the exception of one in the shape of a mosque, these could have been done anywhere, as could the abstract paintings of Ahmed Sharif and Mohammad Al Qassab in room one. Four collages by Ali al Adnan were definitively regional featuring historical cultural figures from the Gulf including one Emirati. Accompanying these were Karima Al Shomeily's very direct photographs of partially obscured female faces which also had a very local flavour.

In the next two rooms, Khalid Al Banna’s work with its contrasting textures and shades of black, white and grey and Alia Al Shamsi’s photographs of modern mannequins and mechanical fortune-tellers addressed aesthetic universalities. However, Khalid Mezaina’s quirky graphics epitomising a fun and funky side of contemporary Dubai were a great example of modern generational sensibilities. Mohammed Al Habtoor also picked up on this feeling but without making a specific visual connection to the locality. His big cartoon faces suggested Disney on acid to me but provoked much discussion, were very popular among the younger generation and have resulted in a solo show when this one is over!


Similarly, Summaya Al Suwaidi’s photographic images contained nothing distinctly local in content but did seem to be staking a claim for some kind of new local genre of their own. UAE gothic perhaps? The unsettling atmosphere in Lateefa Maktoum’s consumate study of perspective could also fit this category.

Farid al Rais, daughter of the UAE’s most famous artist Abdul Qader al Rais had five works in the show - two large acrylics and three smaller pieces traditional in style if not wholly in content. Her brother Musab al Rais also had five large painted works in a different room. Both are influenced by their father’s work to the extent that all I can see is variations on his earlier themes but I guess this makes them second generation practitioners of a pioneering local style!

Of the other work in the show that connected physically to the locale, Alya al Sanad’s faces covered in sand are sensual and intense while her photographs of vague figures taken through a dirty windscreen are like stills from a UAE road movie that hasn’t been made yet. In one of four video works Khalil Abdul Wahid filmed a short journey through his windscreen with visibility so bad at times due to fog or rain, that I’m sure he was risking a serious accident. It was quite a relief when he put the windscreen wipers on!


There are two more rooms and six other artists in this show who I haven't even mentioned here including several exhibiting for the first time so there is more to be seen and certainly more to be said. The show demonstrates that local artists are creating diverse work bearing little relation to the traditionally favoured images of the past, and are interpreting and revealing a very different present. They are essentially producing what will be the creative ‘heritage’ of the UAE in a few decades time. However, it is unlikely that you will be able to chart these developments by walking into a single public institution any time soon. Considering that you will be able to walk into a Louvre and a Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi and a Berlin State Museum in Dubai, this is a national tragedy.

Another tragedy, or perhaps mystery, is that despite the official support for this show there has been very little publicity and no information is available on the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority website or indeed anywhere else. Hopefully, there will at least be a few reviews before it closes on October 6th but even if gambling were legal here, I wouldn’t put money on it!

Created by Valerie Grove On 10/02/08 At 09:13 AM

The Dichotomy of Rare and Plentiful

Can art, a singular creation, be both rare and plentiful? Unquestionably, any work in its original medium would automatically be rare. When a piece of art is reproduced, what happens to the value of each piece?
 
Obviously, singular, rare and well respected will always be valuable. A recent notable high example is the Picasso Cubist work, Arlequin. Not seen in public since 1945, it will go under hammer at Sotheby's this November with an expected price of $30 million. Purchased for $12,000, it makes the work an incredible investment.

It goes without saying the vast majority of artists will never see a fraction of such monetary appreciation of their work in their lifetime or thereafter. Given the level of competition, (I've seen estimates of 10,000 new fine art students graduating annually. Looking at ArtSchools.com list of nearly 2,000 art schools in its database, such an estimate seems plausible.), and the realities of the marketplace, it is to be understood making millions from one's art is a rarity in itself. Add all those newly minted artists to the tens of thousands already in the pool and a crowded competitive marketplace exists.



Regardless, it is still a daunting challenge to make a full-time career as an artist. It's the one thing they don't teach in art school. That is, "How do I make my art pay?" Fledgling artists may be ready to artistically test their wings, but when it comes to business acumen, they are firmly grounded by lack of knowledge, experience and training.
 
To some degree or another, many visual artists are further impeded in business by an imbalance of right brain dominance, which is to be expected in creative people. Take this fun visual test to determine if you are right or left brained. I saw the figure start to go anti-clockwise and then it jerked back clockwise and I can't see how anyone would see it going otherwise.
 
It is understandably natural for those who pursue a career as a fine artist, or even a decorative artist, to wish for fair compensation. Who could blame them? We all seek to approval for our endeavors and want to be paid as handsomely as possible for them.
 
Collectors are the lifeblood of any artist's career. Without them, there simply is no career. So it behooves the artist to make work with appeal to collectors and to work at building and nurturing a base of collectors. This is so easy to say, much harder to do, especially in light of the aforementioned large pool of talent.
 
I have long proposed one of the ways for artists to increase cash flow from the output of their creativity is to make reproductions of their work. This is a time honored aspect of the art business going back to at least Rembrandt and likely back to whenever the first person recognized there were ways to make reproductions. It makes sense. If you create something with market appeal, the likelihood is there will be more collectors who want to own the piece. Also, some may not have the budget to afford an original, but can swing the cost of a reproduction.
 
Reproductions can be done in virtually any original medium. The range encompasses pricey limited edition sculpture down to inexpensive posters printed on a four-color offset lithograph press. To the beholder, the collector, it is all art. Up until the development of high speed offset presses, most art reproductions were made in relatively small numbers. The idea of numbering the pieces and creating a limited edition from them was a logical extension of the process.
 
The notion of limited editions stayed with the industry and is still widely used today to market art reproductions in a variety of media and price points. In those editions, whether contemporary or aged, where the process naturally limited the number of pieces, the low numbers in the editions are quite often more valuable than the higher numbers. Ostensibly, this is due to the belief the printing fidelity was crisper at the outset and thus the piece more alike to the original.
 
Fidelity aside, there is a natural inclination among collectors to appreciate and value the lower numbers. As humans, we are to some degree competitively obsessed with being first, numero uno, number one and so on. Such sentiment spilling over to collecting art is an extension of us in other aspects of our lives.
 
When thinking of collectors and what they hold valuable, it becomes obvious it is not always the intrinsic value that matters. For example, take first edition books. They are exactly the same in every way as later editions except for the front matter page indicating the book is among the first edition. Nevertheless, because they have come before their exact reproductions, they hold much greater collectible value. Does this make pure logical sense? Probably not, but collecting is emotional and perceptual as much as it is logical, really more so as one looks at it.
 
When one begins to ponder the range of things, objects and such people collect, it goes from astounding to humorous. A surfing safari through eBay ought to be enough to convince most folks that others are a little daff when it comes to their penchant for collecting things such as vacuum cleaners, motor oil cans (full), latex paint cans (full), Wonder Bread NFL Legend bread wrappers, pre-1970s sponges and so on beyond your wildest imagination.
 
Some of these items are more valuable because of their manufacturing date, while others are more valuable because of limited numbers being made and still others merely because they are deemed more desirable by the collector collective. To read more about this mania go to: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38830.
 
Collecting automobile license plates has evolved from a quaint pastime where the display was most often seen on grandpa's garage wall to something altogether different. This is one that proves the dichotomy of rare and plentiful. The CBS Evening News ran a story on April 4, 2008 about the $675,000 Delaware automobile license plate. Seems the lower the number, the higher the esteemed value. In this case, number 11 went for that astounding sum.

Let's bring this discussion back to the art market and reproductions. Today, the most widely used form of reproductions is not what you might guess. If you thought giclée, you would be wrong. Number one in numbers produced remains the venerable offset four-color poster. Despite the poster publishing segment of the industry undergoing dramatic changes, it still produces more prints than any other medium by a large margin.
 
One only needs to assess what primarily sells on Art.com to begin to get a grasp of the scope of the poster market. Or, take a look at the size of catalogs by publishers such as Bruce McGaw Graphics, Winn Devon or many others. They are enormous and they fill a vital need in providing a decorative art component for individuals and corporations with a need to put art on their walls.
 
This is not to downplay the importance in the development and continuing growth of the giclée market. It is without question the single most important technological advancement in the last century. Giclée means more than a print output on a digital printer. It involves the merging of technologies including digital capture, digital enhancement (if not digital creation) and then digital printing on a growing number of substrates. When you include digital photography and digital painting, you have a new medium which I call convergence media, but that is another post.
 
What makes the giclée important is it frees the artist and publisher who seek to create reproductions from having to make a huge upfront investment (gamble if you will) on producing an edition. Further, it provides a range of color not previously available. And, it allows reproductions to be made according to the need (size, color, and substrate) of the buyer. The latter is not used nearly as much as it could be. It should be a major selling point. But as an industry, we continue to cling to that which we know well. We continue selling in one size, perhaps two, maybe paper or canvas and in numerically limited editions. But, coming no where near to what is possible.
 
In the age of the ability to faithfully recreate limitless editions, this notion of using limited editions effectively caps an artist's income and that alone is enough for me to champion ridding limited editions, which for the giclée market are really nothing more than a marketing gimmick.
 
Now, we are finally beginning to see some changes as poster publishers are including giclées in their product mix. Their markets demand open editions and often need large editions to fill their needs. Additionally, poster publishers can now inventory every piece of art they ever produced. Formerly, when an image began to lose sales, it was retired because it became dicey to go back on press because doing so came with the high probability of being stuck with a large amount of paper.
 
The relatively new, but well-heeled, publisher, Artaissance, which is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company, came on the scene straightaway offering giclées in open editions and in many sizes. I applaud the wisdom of this choice. There are underlying reasons why, but don't matter for this post.
 
It seems to me today's artists using the giclée medium can have it both ways. That is, make their editions open and at the same time, number them sequentially. The numbering convention can be whatever they choose. It could be 1/oe, 2/oe (oe= open edition), or anything else that made sense. The only admonition would be to publish and use the same numbering convention consistently.
 
I argue if the print has perceived value, that is the collector or buyer want to own it because they like it and want to live with it in their home or business, they will pay a fair price and not be distressed over whether the edition is limited or not. Further, just as with Delaware plates, you can make hundreds of thousands of them and if some collectors decide the lower numbers are more valuable, then you have a collectible edition in the lower numbers. Wouldn't it be nice to have your art both plentiful and rare? That is my wish for all the visual artists reading this post and beyond. Can I put my dibs on #11 now?
 
Barney Davey
www.artprintissues.com


 

Created by Barney Davey On 09/29/08 At 08:34 AM

I’m finding myself rather mute during this political season in the U.S.

I’m finding myself rather mute during this political season in the U.S. I think I’ve grown tired of the hype in the presidential elections. I have a friend who says simply that to really change anything politically in the U.S. one must start first at home in ones own community, ones own city, ones own county and finally in ones own state. What happens at the national level is so complicated by party politics, compromise and even corruption that nothing you hear will be true. Most of it is just hype to get elected. I agree that little happens from the top down.



My friend has another question that always follows this suggestion. Do you know whom the candidates are who are running for school board, city council, and state representative in your district or governor? Do you know who is running for Sates Attorney General, Clerk of courts or who will be on the committee at the state level to fund or defund your local arts council?


I’ve heard a lot of people complaining about those who believe in the other political party. They always say things like I can’t believe those people actually think that way and much worse. Funny thing is when people are not thinking politics they do pretty much the same things, make pretty much the same decisions and mistakes in life affected little by their political beliefs. Most people in this country are nearer the middle than the extremes yet we have been so polarized by campaign promises and slogan and mud all designed to get you to vote for one party or the other. I’m guilty of some of these things myself…well and so is my friend whose wisdom I’m speaking of. We all are. We must remember that most of our political beliefs are just that…beliefs, theories, faith in something we were taught or think we’ve come to realize in our lives as a truth. The problem with truths are that they are so often defined by our limited point of view.




No one is going to convince a Democrat or a Republican to vote for the other party. Too late for that. Too many decisions have already lead them to their beliefs. So don’t waste your breath trying to convince and convert. Art that becomes propaganda does the same thing. Very little art that has political content converts anyone. Art may support the beliefs of those who believe the same thing and that may be worth the effort. But the funny thing about art is that it can be read from both sides and interpreted to mean things other than intended. Personally I like work that cuts both ways and speaks to many points of view.




So if you are a U. S. citizen I encourage you to vote. But between now and election day do make some effort to do some research on the candidates in your vicinity. Know who they are and what they stand for. Then, if you find one or another who stands for the things you believe in vote for them rather than just pulling a party lever behind the curtain. Make an informed decision and change things on the local level.
Eventually it will have an impact at the national level. And be aware of those issues that will affect you as an artist. Bring these issues before your local congress and other authorities. Write letters, send e-mails. And pay attention to the way things are written…the devil is in the details.

Created by Walter King On 09/25/08 At 08:38 AM