Here are images to go along with “The Art of Gum-Ball Machines.” I’ve organized them very specifically, so check the text to see examples of the images as you read.
And here is the question: We come back around to still life, in the final lines of Kimmelman’s essay, and from Dutch painters and their lemons to Thiebaud and his baked goods. Along the way we took diversions to South India and the video art, but it strikes me that what almost everything we have discussed this semester has in common, is it is all about valuing and examining the ordinary–the family (Roy), the object (Doty), the bath (Bonnard), the moment (Miranda July). How does this almost unintentional focus confirm/change your ideas about Art?
Wayne Thiebaud: Brown River
Horace Pippin: Domino Players
Pippin: Harmonizing
Christmas Breakfast
Ellsworth Kelly: Dominican, 1952
Ellsworth Kelly: Black, Brown & White, 1951
Chardin
The Smoker’s Case–Chardin
Chardin–Soap Bubbles
Wayne Thiebaud–Eight Lipsticks
Thiebaud–Hot Dog Row (2000)
Thiebaud–River Farm Study (2001)
Thiebaud–Man Sitting–Back View
Thiebaud–Pies
Thiebaud–Cakes
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Looking back over the class, I find it fascinating that while we focused so much on the small things, we discussed the big ideas. This seems to be such a paradox because the two seem so different and yet are so bound to one another. As stated in Kimmelman’s essay, “But it is the ability of more circumscribed artists to slow our systems, calm our minds, and show us reality as we have probably not considered it” (97). While the mind needs stimulation and imagination, the mind also needs a rest from analysis. We need to be able to look at an image and not necessarily try to decipher the meaning behind it because the meaning is there…it just IS. But that in itself is a big idea. We look so deeply at everything that to look at the surface is a statement in itself. Art not seems so conflicted to me. But it works. Because we live in a world where two opposites can both be true, when I think of art, I think of freedom. We have big and little separately. But the little also leads to the big and the big stems from the little. A new kind of truth manifested in the form of Art.
I think that bringing attention to what is considered “ordinary” is what art is all about. I can personally attest to being inspired by the shape of an object, or small details of nature, or even the arrangement a loose thread form when it has fallen from a piece of clothing. All this thought about the question “What is art?” leads me to an assessment of art as a pool of information about what other people see, and that art is a resource for artists to show the whole world a little part of theirs. Perhaps the benefit of this is that all people can have the opportunity to experience many “ways of seeing” as John Berger would put it, or “ways of being human,” as mentioned in Kimmelman’s Gum-Ball essay (page 213).
Kimmelman’s discourse on children’s innocence provoked me to think that art allows us to regain our youthful naiveté and “see the world through fresh eyes” (page 220).
Art may be the population’s opportunity to live forever. When people look at art, they are able to enter another’s world and see what they may not have witnessed otherwise in life. Whether people learn from art, see something new, or just appreciate the aesthetics, they walk away from their viewing with a glimpse into another’s mind, another’s interpretation of the world itself. “Great painters initiate us into a knowledge and love of the external world;” a quote from Marcel Proust in Kimmelman’s essay which supports the idea that with art, every individual can see more of the world than he/she is able to see on his/her own. Doing so can only enhance our consciousness of ourselves, others, and our surroundings.
Rachel brings up a great point, and that quote is really perfect. It reminds me right away of Doty and the still lifes, looking at life through a smaller lense that allows us to focus in completely and totally on the smaller details of life that almost always get passed by. With all of our ideas of art, it has been especially insightful for me because I am not only a writer, but an artist too. These are the same kinds of subjects and thoughts that go into compositions for my work, whether it’s a painting, or sculpture, or drawing, or photograph. I came to U of M as an artist, with many notions and perceptions about art. And although I’ve grown and changed and those thoughts about art have morphed considerabloy, I still know that I make art because I have to, because there is no other way that I feel I can express myself more fully or understand myself the best. When I think about the art that I’ve done, a lot of it embodies these same grand ideas that we’ve already discussed. But it has to be communicated through something accessible and understandable, through the small ideas. To me, figure drawing was an amazing experience that really personifies this concept. I had to be able to capture the essence of the model in his entirety, his persona, his mood, and doing that wasn’t about drawing the perfect human body with exact proportions or with precise lines. What made the drawings beautiful was the tiny uplift of the corner of the mouth, a long, single stroke that made the curve of the back, the negative space in between the fingers. Little, tiny marks on the page that would seem inconsequential to anyone else, but that were the very essence of the drawing.
I think I understand this idea in a much more layered, deep way now after responding to works of art and using writing as a tool for expression. It’s one thing to say you see miracles, or to feel beauty or love, or to say you believe in a God, but it’s another entirely to actually be able to recognize that around you. Those grand ideas don’t (in my opinion) manifest themselves on any huge scale. The hard part about them is that they’re so obvious because they’re right there in front of us, in a lemon, in a stream of milk being poured from a pitcher, in the flap of a hummingbirds wing. It seems ironic that people search their whole lives for something that’s always been around them, hidden to some but agonizingly apparent to someone else. I think those small ideas that we’ve covered this semester are so important because it’s the only proof of the big stuff that we can comprehend and understand, the same way that we need religion, mythology, love, to instruct us on how to deal with life through all of its trivialities.
Examining still lifes (lives?) and other more whimsical works of art, like the ones Kimmelman mentions in his essay, has made me appreciate what Western art began as: representation. My art classes and my interests have so much to do with Modernism, which evolved out of the goal of finding new purposes for art, outside of representing scenes and objects, and therefore the values of the “ruling class” (I hate that expression, but nothing else fits.) But, I guess I had gotten so wrapped up in damning the man that I forgot that representational art isn’t inherently meaningless (or bougie). Like Rachel said, exploring these “big ideas” through little things has helped me appreciate the value in these little things.
For me personally, I think before this class I thought of art as primarily dealing with bigger, philosophical ideas that were way over my head. I knew many artists did like to engage in simpler visuals or ideas, but I generally thought of art as focusing on stuff that while nice would usually take too much effort to understand.
I think my perceptions of art have changed a lot, though, because I now feel that–like Rachel and others have said–art does play on two seperate levels: they contain the simple, ordinary elements as well as hints of overarching, complex ideas. There may be greater, harder-to-understand philosophical ideas laced within a work of art, but that may not always be the artist’s intent or focus. And evem if they were a part of the artist’s focus, they don’t have to be what a viewer focuses on when her or she views the art. The interpretation of art entirely depends on what the viewer takes away from it–and that can be anything. I’m reminded of Doty, and how the still life in his book made him recall his grandmother and his family, even though for others such an association doesn’t exist.
I think Kimmelman says it best on 224 when he writes the following of the subjects of various pieces of art: “These characters may conjure up people we once knew or feelings we had, leaps of association, sometimes wild, the way the gum-ball machines can bring to mind, say, a row of gunslingers–the Earps ready for a showdown in the slanting light of the late afternoon–if that’s how we choose to see them. They are free-floating signs, wide open to our dreams.” When looking at art, a person can overanalyze the intricate details of the work to discover grand, larger-than-life ideas, or the person can have a personal response from something ordinary and not mind-blowing in the painting. Really, what matters most is that the person has a reaction and becomes inspired in some way, and it’s completely possible for such inspiration to come from the ordinary and commonplace.
I have to admit that before taking this class, I thought of art as fairly complicated and deep. That every artist had another intention behind what he or she was trying to convey. It is only now that I notice the artist’s fascination with the ordinary and small things in life. As seen in Roy’s novel, something as simple as family can be a work of art because in its simplicity stems beauty. Just as my classmates have stated in front me, art does exist on two separate levels: simple and complicated. Although the complicated works can often be the most interesting to think about and discuss because they often spark intense conversation, the smaller and ordinary things in life is what make up the world in which we live in today. Art is inspired and inspires and all the power to whoever seems to be inspired by beauty of everyday life.
Art is ordinary. Art is extraordinary. We appreciate art because it challenges our mundane thought and lifts us to a higher level of thinking. It is ordinary so that all can relate, yet extraordinary so only some can understand. We try to understand the artists in all of their inspiration, yet seem to always come up short. Art shouldn’t be about understanding the motives behind the artist, rather appreciating the artist’s motives. We place a high stress on art interpretation when we should really just be observing. Art is meant to appeal to the common man. We can all look, but not all comprehend. This intentional focus upon the obvious seems too simple at times, but it shows the universalness of art.
I feel very much the same as everyone else. I used to think that art was some vaunted philosophical expression that was dealing with topics way out of my area of interest. This class, however, has shown me that art is about the simple things, the small things. Granted these small things can have great meanings. I like the idea that by examining the smallest notion of something we can see a whole new world. Like when Doty looks at a lemon peel, he shows us not only the artist’s technical skill, but the life and ego that went into those few brush strokes. I have learned why art is important to the world. It is not just representation, but explanation of the world we live in.