“Pictures must not be too picturesque.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

 

Illustration (left): Pablo Picasso, Grande Tete de Femme au Chapeau Orne (1962), block print. Private collection

Eye on the Future: The Pottery Wheel-of-Fortune

All of us at ARTES, fine arts magazine, wish you a happy and healthy New Year. There has been so much strife and discord in the world in recent years, we can only hope-against-hope that those deep political divisions, cultural and ethnic biases will ameliorate in the months to come. This is an election year in the U.S. and we can certainly count on the vitriol and accusations to be flying in every direction. One consolation is that some politicians speak for only a small minority of us when they stake out their extreme positions on various issues. With claims from the right and the left proclaiming that the country faces ruin unless they are elected, remember this: they are wrong. The solid middle ground remains the ‘high ground’ when it comes to anticipating a meaningful fix for our economy and our future as a nation. Shovel-ready, labor-based infrastructure jobs are a short-term band aid; high-tech training for another segment is useful in the long run, although it will never be a sufficient replacement for the loss of vast numbers of manufacturing jobs to foreign markets. Self-reliance and personal initiatives aimed at creating and building your own future, developing your own business, product or service—working at the edge of pure creative inspiration and self-sufficiency—has never been more crucial.

Take heart in the fact that American cultural enterprises are alive and well. Understand that the odds of ‘trickle-down’ economics affecting your future are remote to none! Wall Street is out for itself; Capitol Hill is mired in partisanship; Main Street has moved to the Big Box stores at the suburban mall. Our job is to put aside our indignation and rage and roll up our creative sleeves: paint, decoupage, design and build, spin, weave, bake something wild and delicious that everyone will want to taste. Come on…turn on your creative juices!

ARTES has noted that museums are redefining themselves in the face of a constrained economy: artists are responding to declining markets for experimental work and returning to more traditional, studio-based methods of painting; auction houses are noting that mid-range art and antiques are now more affordable than ever; Magnet schools are thriving, in part because an emphasis on reading, music and art offerings enrich their daily curriculum; New York’s Broadway is booming; art fairs are springing up all over the world and are heavily attended; high-quality artisanal crafts—from cheese to silver earrings to lighting fixtures—are finding new markets on the Internet and with recession-fatigued consumers (Web sales up 16% for Christmas `11! ).

Let’s learn from the past.  Between the two world wars, precious raw materials were in scant supply for European furniture designers and architects. From this dearth of supplies came some of the most timeless designs for chairs, tables and the spare, beautiful building designs that we now associate with the Internationalist Movement. Molded plywood, woven , spare bicycle parts and other surplus goods became the raw materials of Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chair (right), Alvar Aalto’s stacking stools and curvaceous Paimo chair and Hans Coray’s bent-metal, hole-punched side chair.  As they say: “necessity is the mother…”

The cultural scene tends to thrive when times are rough and people are looking to feel better about themselves and the world. When all is said and done, we will be economically leaner and meaner and we’ll be choosing to embrace the people and things that enrich our lives spiritually and aesthetically.

So, put on your creative hat, have a seat at the ‘pottery wheel-of-fortune’ and become a part of that economic revival!

Looking Good!

Thanks to the hard work of new ARTES advocate Mark Johnson and intern, Katya Popova, our Facebook page has grown to become a state-of-art gathering place for friends from all over the world. There are lots of great reasons to check in to the site and check it out! We’re now offering special incentives if you ‘friend’ us. And there you’ll find our new QR code that lets you instantly download ARTES to your tablet or smart-phone device. ARTES is compatible with all of these tools and will continue to search out ways to improve your reading enjoyment of the regular features of the magazine.

Go to: https://www.facebook.com/ARTESmagazine

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Thanks for reading and again, a happy and healthy New Year,

Richard Friswell, Publisher & Managing Editor

Illustration (above, left): soon-to-be-released Sky Lanterns, Art Sea Street Fair, Lincoln City, Oregon