Not dumbing down for art

Morning light

(work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir © 2010

(Refining the painting.

Not quite done.)

Okay, more on yesterday's thoughts.  I don't mean
that galleries need to dumb down their language
to attract new visitors.  The public that's not visiting
galleries is brilliant, but disinterested. But after I left
the art magazine to write for other magazines I learned
so much.  Good writing is direct.  That doesn't
mean the vocabulary needs to be simplistic,
or that you can't throw in a word like iconography,
or symbolism -- those words and others are
vital when that's what you're talking about.
Don't get me wrong.  I absolutely love going to
galleries and some of the large galleries I've visited
lately are incredibly friendly and accessible.  I was
so impressed by how kind the staff were, and how
informative at the MoMA and the Frick in New York
City.  Here at home I remember a wonderful conversation
with a docent about Emily Carr at the Art Gallery of Ontario. 

Many painters are deep thinkers, incredible
researchers, and informed readers.  But if I talk
about my Dance series, and say that it's my reaction to a
modernist zeitgeist, because I think someone
needs to hear that, I'm making my explanation up.
Now if you say that's what I'm doing, that's
your observation, and you could be right. In
fact I'll probably be so flattered that I'll go
and look up modernism, and be very impressed
with me.

I think perhaps this whole discussion is backing me into
an intellectual corner and I want out.
My point is that of course painters have ideas and
an overview of what they're striving for.  And when
they write about their work in most blogs I've
read, they tell it like it is.  Art buyers who want
a direct link to art can find it here in blogland.
There! Enough said.  Whew!  Next topic?

Have a-talking-the-talk-and-walking-the-walk day.