Thursday, November 09, 2006

Authenticity

I stood by the lake the other morning and I thought about "authenticity". I have always sought after authenticity in art... music, God fobid-poetry (I simply try to survive writing). With characteristic personal "authenticity' my mind bounded from thought to thought, example to example without a reasonable conscious connection; garage rock, blues history, an elbow through a Picasso, Pluto demoted, Cottagewood mansions.... South Saint Paul, all flowed by with coffee enhanced consciousness.

Authenticity is not honesty, but that is a part of it. It surely is not good taste, infact it may be just the opposite.
In the end I could only settle on examples. Here is my first:

watching
This photo is an unaltered shot. No photoshop enhancing,contrasting, or saturation bumping. 30 second timer. Location, Grays Bay.
Not the best example...

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

WOW!!!! and I think thats all that needs to be said.

2:26 PM  
Blogger Meg said...

I haven't got much to say, but would certainly appreciate your expanding more on what you think authenticity means, please.

12:58 AM  
Blogger minnetonkafelix said...

Meg,
Surely one who lives in distant New Zealand and works endless hours weaving wool on a loom can teach me more about 'authenticity' than I could ever expand upon.
But as eveyone who knows me will concur, that will not stop me.

9:41 AM  
Blogger Meg said...

Minnetokafelix, does authenticity have anything to do with originality? Part of the restrictions of weaving is that there's virtually nothing new under the sun as regards to that craft - most everything has been done before, sometime, somewhere, even if it's not recorded, because just about all known civilization has woven in one way or another. Textiles woven on these latest, spiffiest weaves on gazillion-shaft-computer operated looms have been done with sticks and fingers, and very often the new tools are invented to try to recreate old textile - but more quickly and with less stress. These restrictions are also what allows me to participate in the fringes of 'art' as I have a very predictable, limited range of creativity/originality. So if we are very honest, we weavers, we only combine different elements of weaving (colors, textures, yarn types, weaves, finishes, ornaments, end-uses) and call it our own.

"Authenticity is not honesty, but that is a part of it." After reading this post for the seventh or eighth time, yes, of course, you're right, but why did it sound so untrue the first several times? I haven't even art education since 9th grade, but was I somehow grilled this?

"As an artist I am searching for comfort in pure formalism, but I cannot help slip into autobiographic abstraction." Is the autobiographic element what makes your art authentic? And in turn, how can I include autobiographic elements into my craft?

12:31 PM  

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