Merry Christmas Eve Steve:
You speak very well. I wish we could talk more.
Thanks for the encouragement and the feeling that you afford that says I may be of use to the world as you value it.
I argue that artists serve others who are too busy serving the world in other ways. I have limited authority to speak for people. But we share certain things : gender, cultural heritage, family, love of nature, respect for duration and maybe the physical presence of stone to name a few. So I’m interested in hearing from key representative of the constituency that I have even any amount of authority to speak on behalf of.
I have no authority to speak for the things First Nations artists value or women or scientists or red necks or….? But in terms of beauty and in terms of power or in terms of presence and physical…I’ve experimented now for quite a few years. And in some ways maybe those thing transcend politics, heritage, history and time.
In short great and beautiful things have the power to fight for their existence even over conquering civilizations. I’m not sure anything I’ve made is worthy of that status but I aspire to that challenge! I’m not going to be satisfied easily. I study beauty but I certainly don’t think that The truism “ beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is true. Sure kids love jello and for a while sugary treats are the “best foods” but after a while of becoming an expert in what makes one bowl of Jello better than another we finally recognize that there are more nutritious foods and each of them can be compared, the first steak against the second against the third and so on until we are all experts in our own way . Sure some like salty more than sweet or rare more than well done but more or less the range of human taste is definable.
I argue that music with no lyrics is the most abstract in all the arts. It goes right to our hearts. A piano played in a certain way can sound like a gentle breeze or a soft rain or a hurricane of dire consequence….yet the piano sounds like nothing in nature at all. Because of its power, humans have studied music. We know that a harmonic chord is one where each wave from each note in a harmonic amplifies the other and that a harmonic chord is uplifting and balanced. But move one finger one note off and we get a dissonance that feels melancholic or wistful.
So , why in the world would colour not be studied in the same way? Harmonic colours are not any easier to arrive at than tuning a guitar or a piano. It takes concentration and tools and both. Tuning colours in a painting are as hard as tuning a piano in my opinion. One needs to know the wave frequency and know how to “listen” and check.
So, why in the world would proportion not be the same? One rectangular block is elegant, the next more stocky , the next scrawny but the next Lithe ….and a sculpture with a series of masses and volumes, surface passages and visual vectors all affecting each other is a symphony of relationships using major chords and minor chords etc.
This supports the idea that those who study cooking or study music or study painting are experts to be differed to. But, I argue that when it comes to excellent art, we all know what excellence is. Training or no training, we all know when a choir member is out of tune, or the piano is out of tune. And we all reach for our camera over certain sunsets but not all sunsets!
So I always aim to empower my fellow Albertans, my fellow humans, to feel invited and with all the skill needed to decide if something is beautiful compared to all other like experiences.
Life is about comparing. It’s one way to savour!
I show one painting of a horse by excellent artist Norman Rockwell to every first year group and they like and admire it; then, I show them a painting of a horse by Rembrandt and they all know it is better. They may never have studied art before but they all know it.
If I ask a kid to sign their name on the black board 30 times and then they and every student in the group pick the same five as being the best of the set. Before during and after they study, humans know what beauty is.
Sometimes I think we expand techniques, expand ability to articulate what is or isn’t being seen and felt in words but in terms of assessing quality, only eating all the various mixes of jello makes one an expert in Jello, only studying the greatest paintings gains us the power to compare wisely .
I respect your opinion on life and look forward to exchanging more as life goes on. I only ever aim to promote others in their way, so if I ever seem snooty or arrogant , please take me down . Anything that compares to the best experiences in life are art!
Merry Christmas Eve Steve, no need to be coy Roy.
On Wed, Dec 22, 2021 at 7:48 PM Steven Schroeder <ss wrote:
Hey man, I think I might (barely) be able to understand what you are saying. What you do, and teach to others is something that is difficult to convey. I find it unfortunate that our society rewards vulgarity and boisterous imbeciles who portend grandiose promises and claim to speak for the masses. Love of guns, a lack of respect for the sciences and the worship of graven idols. Where is the appreciation for beauty and the admiration of creating pleasing forms, voice, taste or sound?
I learned something from a phycologist at the French immersion school Katie went to for junior high. We as parents, only raise our children, and install our values, until about grade 8, then society raises our children. Facebook, Tick Tok, Snap Chat et al have taken over. I may have spelled those programs wrongly as I am not a user of such drivel. My brain is turning to oatmeal quick enough on it's own that I don't need some influencer helping things along. However, we continually try to change our surroundings and make things better for those in our sphere. And, society, and the ills of society are continually trying to change us. Buy this! Do that! Eat these! It's a struggle.
People are more interested in displaying the spoils of their own wars of sorts, and don't seem to take time to admire what the natural world supplies for us, or that the gifted can offer to our senses. The Arts. If I were to offer any simple observation, it's that what you provide will be around for generations to admire, and the beauty will endure. Tick Tok....will be gone tomorrow and replaced by the next whiz bang idiotic fad.
As you stated, sushi is not steak, and tofu is not steak, but sushi is not supposed to be steak, and tofu, well it's trying to be something that its not. The great pretender. Tofu takes up a significant spot in my wheel house now, not because I admire it, but because I've been dealt a hand that well, makes it an option. Sushi, on the other hand, does not want to be steak. It takes it's rightful place in our plethora of culinary options. My limited intellectual capacity sees sushi as the arts. As I read this, I realize it sounds fuckin' corny as hell.
At his stage, and my advanced age, I am only capable of limited synaptic coherence. I no longer understand where the line is between right and wrong, up or down, real or imposed reality. Geez, not to get political but I heard that Jesse Waters, some talking douce bag at Fox News said somebody should ambush Dr. Fauci and send a kill shot to him. Astounding. No repercussions for such untoward behaviour. Nope, just the norm in our dumbass society. We need more of what you and your industry provides. Keep it up.
Hope to see you guys soon. Have a great Christmas. Steve
From: "roydenmills" <roydenmills@gmail.com>
To: "sschroeder" <sschroed
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2021 6:43:22 AM
Subject: Writing
Hey Steve:
I wanted to follow up on my reply to your eloquent and excellent email encouraging me around the marble sculptures. I replied with concern about a trend in the art world that favours academically advantaged verbally gifted artists who have taught art for years and who have connections in the academic circuit . So, people like me. I fear that we write too much or use our positions to feel pretty great about ourselves. But actions in this vein are based merely on words. It occurred to me that maybe when I replied to you that I was seeming to be implying that your great reply to me was in some way less than outstanding.
I am grateful to you for your words, your encouragement and your time.
I am suspicious of my industry but feel that great work in any industry should speak for itself. Anything at its highest level is an art form. Math, medicine, business, farming, plumbing, hockey…but art, stuff called art sometimes gets in its own way by not volunteering to be scrutinized on how strongly it carries meaning-feeling or beauty.
We all know when one sunset is remarkable and worth taking a photo and others not so much.
I propose to empower average people to ask three simple questions:What is it? What is it essentially doing?And how could it be about that in any better way?
Don’t shy away fearing you don’t have the words, don’t look merely for what you think you already like ( don’t criticize sushi for not being steak).
But most of all, to my colleagues, don’t build a set of words that basically seek to exclude people who don’t practice those words because that is simply like when I was nine and I moved to the big city of Red Deer from Camrose and I walked up to a bunch of kids in the playground and they were talking about movies and shopping malls and wearing clothes that I hadn’t seen or heard of. They wielded words and fashion as a way to temporarily keep me as an outsider but eventually …words are cheap.
So , that was all I was saying.
I’m still grading portfolios in three teaching slots for seven levels of undergraduate students. I believe that if the work is good any conqueroring civilization would not throw the work out. Good moves people. I’m glad you like the new work.
Thanks again for taking the time, Roy--
Royden Mills : Sculptor