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Response to Timmmmyboy's "We Are All Artists"

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 in

In Timmmmyboy's post about "We are all artists" he goes into the idea that when you practice anything you get better. Therefore, if an environment is created to help you get surrounded by people and ideas that are creative will in turn help you become more creative. The idea comes from in sports when people practice there is a better outcome is achieved out of this activity. When you can make something complex into something simple an idea can become powerful. Inspiration is all around you, so take those ideas and make a new one.


My response to his position on that during this time "we are all artists" is that I agree with it. I think that this is true, since now everyone can afford to create 90% (if not much more, just a guess) of the art work out there. Also the money for the art is spread out far more than it was in the past. During the past in human civilization the time for creativity could only be afforded by the elite of society.

The time for creativity has since spread much more out to anyone that can sacrifice the time for it One of the classic examples of in history were the elite of society were defined by how good they were at art was the Heian period in japan. The art in this time is some of the best in the world. The art in japan after this did not innovate, but tried to mimic. The economy was not doing good enough to match this time. Even though the times after this there was many more artist, they were not original like they were during the Heian period.

Heian Temple by bradlby, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License  by  bradlby 

So my point is that everyone can do art if they push themselves, but the level of quality is really low. There is no benifit to being as good as the artist were during the Heian period, but the push is to be "good enough". During the Heian period there was a push to be "god like" top keep their elite status. People that were elite meant they were good at art and if you were not the top a master you were not an elite. So during this time we just have a lot of really low quality art in general.

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3 Response to Response to Timmmmyboy's "We Are All Artists"

November 6, 2011 at 7:11 PM

Important issues here - thanks for the thoughtful post.

I find it somewhat ironic, or maybe paradoxical is a better word, that the pursuit of creating art is usually considered an individual pursuit. But as you and Tim suggest, the network of feedback and collaboration afforded by online networks does have a motivating and useful purpose.

I'm also intrigued with the idea you raise about the quality of art not reaching the highest standard if anyone can be considered an artist. I'm not disagreeing - but I'm led to think who are the people who define the standards of what is good art and what is not?

I think for example of one of your classmates who mentioned receiving criticism for a photo she mailed to a relative - the person said you are not a good photographer.

November 7, 2011 at 2:01 AM

I am not an art historian, so maybe I can't back up what I said very well, but I was talking about the average piece of art is low quality. An example is that everyone can write, but not many can write a (quality) book.

I think in one way the people in that time define what is high quality, but also history defines it also. History defines what is a high standard in many different ways. One way is popularity over time, but I think the most important way is how it changes the medium. One thing is to be popular to the public who doesn't know much about the craft, but how an individual impresses people in the same field is key.

November 7, 2011 at 2:40 AM

One of my photos was taken down. "This member is no longer active on Flickr."

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