was (Re: creativity, gestalt, dreams)

[don dougan <dondougan@zzzzzzzz>]

Hi all;

I don't often get into these discussions about where it all comes from or
where it all is going, but the very reason I don't is why I want to
comment this time . . . and Norman (and everybody else too) has brought
up some very good points that deserve some sort of reply.

I don't usually reply for the simple reason that I can rarely put it in
words as to what I am doing, until after the fact.

Like Noguchi said - there are two types of artists in the world: those
that decide what they are going to make and then make it, and those that
make it and then figure out what it is they have made).  I am of the
second type.

I carve and make sculpture because the process gives meaning and
understanding to the world I inhabit.

Though I know exactly how Bill feels when he quotes  "You ruined it.  You
ruined it forever."  I don't think it is ever ruined.  It just changes,
and it is up to me (as sculptor) to find out what the change can allow me
to say and understand.  Not that I don't regret the passing when the
'wrong' piece breaks off unexpectedly, but at the same time it is an
opportunity to find another view.

Meaning?  It varies with the context.  I don't think there is an answer,
though there are many answers.  Clive's approach in setting forth a
self-examining context to operate within will allow the individual to set
the boundaries. Through the process of defining the boundaries some of
the possibilities of what is on the other side of the boundaries comes
into better focus.

I tell my students when they ask that I like to make sculpture because I
can stub my toe on it.

As far as   ". . . wonder how hard it is for museums to choose what might
be "important" artwork for our times"
(speaking as a part-time curator of a history museum and as an artist,
and as an educator )
Again it is the context and varies with the individual curator -- there
is not a world-wide agreement on what is 'important' -- just look at the
controversy about the Venice Beinnale every time a new director is
chosen.  Each time they take the Beinnale in the direction they (the
director) think is the most interesting to themselves, and the
'art-world' always has something to both criticise and/or laud them for
no matter what they do.  But when you have several hundred artists
collected together you are bound through the law of averages to have some
good ones, some ho-hum ones, and some 'why did they ever let this guy
show?'  Of course getting everybody to agree on which artist fits in
which catagory is the tricky part.

These rather unconnected-seeming comments are the best reply I can give
to this thread.
Hope it helps, Norman and all . . .

Good Carving to All,

Don

http://www.dondougan.com