I wrote to some artists and thinkers in different fields and posed some questions: Which arts are important to you and why? In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful? How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art? What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work? What do you look forward to? And thus far, have received a few responses, here below.
Dege Legg
Writer-Musician, (bands) Santeria and Black Bayou Construkt
Solitary Walker: Which arts are important to you and why?
Dege Legg: Every day is a work of art. I admire people who create art out of the seemingly mundane elements that compose their daily lives. Garden. Walk through room. Stop. Stare at cracks in sidewalk. Say hello to a cow. U-turn on the highway. It’s improvisation.
In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful?
Art talk is only useful when those involved have a sense of humor. And heart.
How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art?
Constantly. The two are intertwined. Creativity is a spiritual practice for those without an orthodox religion.
What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work?
N/A. Not sure. It’s all one big/strange/long blur. Discovering Gabo Marquez was pretty significant.
James Wagner
Art World Observer, JamesWagner.com
Solitary Walker: Which arts are important to you?
James Wagner: All of the arts, without exception.
Why are they important?
They are all equally important to me because I have always believed it is the arts that make life worthwhile; or to put it another way, I believe that once we have looked after the material requirements of the body and our need for love and for sexual satisfaction, except for the need to remain open and responsive to the needs of others, it is art which animates our human being. I believe this is true for everyone.
I understand that not all men and women believe in art as I do, some maintaining, beyond my understanding, that they just are not interested in it, but I suggest they have just not allowed themselves to see or hear or imagine what they might. Some argue that they just do not have any time for the arts, and certainly there really are unfortunates who are on the very edge of simple survival who really cannot make or enjoy art, and when we find them, their condition tests our faith even in art.
But I believe nevertheless in the supremacy of the arts above all other human consciousness or endeavor.
In the best of all possible worlds (admittedly a world which will never be), our own basic needs, and the needs of others, would finally be secured; at that point there would be no truly human function remaining but art. In the meantime our best occupation is working to that end.
In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful?
I am not a good judge of the usefulness of art criticism, since I have always read very little of it, preferring instead to look at or read art first hand. But perhaps by way of partial explanation I should reveal that I have absolutely no academic experience of any of the fine arts.
How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art?
Let me say first that I have absolutely no use for religious spirituality except as a subject of historical study (but having escaped parochial school for secular, then become apostate, maybe I seem to protest too much); I am not even certain that I can approach religious spirituality in a purely aesthetic fashion, but I also do not think of myself as a particularly materialistic person. I'm pretty rational and intelligent, but I'm easily moved by work that is moving. So, yes, I do bring philosophical and spiritual insights into my experience of art, but while I have a substantial background in philosophy, ethics, history - and aesthetics (that one self-taught), I think these tools are now so much a part of my being that I can't separate their separate contribution from my overall experience while contemplating of art.
What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work?
I am taking a chance on being wrong about myself with my initial response to the question, but my first thought is that, because of my attraction to, even passion for, the avant-garde in all the arts, in even the most shocking form, and on account of my life-long engagement in social and political issues as one (imagined and tiny) tribune for the powerless, my strongest responses to works of art in any medium are generally a consequence of experiencing works that are both strikingly original and somehow socially or politically engaged, however subtly.
What do you look forward to?
Two things: The successor to the current political world, which will serve justice, opportunity, transparency and the diversity of both people and peoples; and the increasingly-connected social world, which will find all people and all peoples engaged in the arts as never before, and all interacting on a scale and with a civility unimaginable today. All of the problems which the planet's existing systems of government have created, in the stupidity, greed, power hunger and secrecy-obsession of their operators, problems which appear unavoidable or insurmountable (as these governments want them to appear), can be resolved when this comes to pass. It will take a while; I don't expect to be here.
Dege Legg
Writer-Musician, (bands) Santeria and Black Bayou Construkt
Solitary Walker: Which arts are important to you and why?
Dege Legg: Every day is a work of art. I admire people who create art out of the seemingly mundane elements that compose their daily lives. Garden. Walk through room. Stop. Stare at cracks in sidewalk. Say hello to a cow. U-turn on the highway. It’s improvisation.
In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful?
Art talk is only useful when those involved have a sense of humor. And heart.
How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art?
Constantly. The two are intertwined. Creativity is a spiritual practice for those without an orthodox religion.
What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work?
N/A. Not sure. It’s all one big/strange/long blur. Discovering Gabo Marquez was pretty significant.
James Wagner
Art World Observer, JamesWagner.com
Solitary Walker: Which arts are important to you?
James Wagner: All of the arts, without exception.
Why are they important?
They are all equally important to me because I have always believed it is the arts that make life worthwhile; or to put it another way, I believe that once we have looked after the material requirements of the body and our need for love and for sexual satisfaction, except for the need to remain open and responsive to the needs of others, it is art which animates our human being. I believe this is true for everyone.
I understand that not all men and women believe in art as I do, some maintaining, beyond my understanding, that they just are not interested in it, but I suggest they have just not allowed themselves to see or hear or imagine what they might. Some argue that they just do not have any time for the arts, and certainly there really are unfortunates who are on the very edge of simple survival who really cannot make or enjoy art, and when we find them, their condition tests our faith even in art.
But I believe nevertheless in the supremacy of the arts above all other human consciousness or endeavor.
In the best of all possible worlds (admittedly a world which will never be), our own basic needs, and the needs of others, would finally be secured; at that point there would be no truly human function remaining but art. In the meantime our best occupation is working to that end.
In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful?
I am not a good judge of the usefulness of art criticism, since I have always read very little of it, preferring instead to look at or read art first hand. But perhaps by way of partial explanation I should reveal that I have absolutely no academic experience of any of the fine arts.
How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art?
Let me say first that I have absolutely no use for religious spirituality except as a subject of historical study (but having escaped parochial school for secular, then become apostate, maybe I seem to protest too much); I am not even certain that I can approach religious spirituality in a purely aesthetic fashion, but I also do not think of myself as a particularly materialistic person. I'm pretty rational and intelligent, but I'm easily moved by work that is moving. So, yes, I do bring philosophical and spiritual insights into my experience of art, but while I have a substantial background in philosophy, ethics, history - and aesthetics (that one self-taught), I think these tools are now so much a part of my being that I can't separate their separate contribution from my overall experience while contemplating of art.
What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work?
I am taking a chance on being wrong about myself with my initial response to the question, but my first thought is that, because of my attraction to, even passion for, the avant-garde in all the arts, in even the most shocking form, and on account of my life-long engagement in social and political issues as one (imagined and tiny) tribune for the powerless, my strongest responses to works of art in any medium are generally a consequence of experiencing works that are both strikingly original and somehow socially or politically engaged, however subtly.
What do you look forward to?
Two things: The successor to the current political world, which will serve justice, opportunity, transparency and the diversity of both people and peoples; and the increasingly-connected social world, which will find all people and all peoples engaged in the arts as never before, and all interacting on a scale and with a civility unimaginable today. All of the problems which the planet's existing systems of government have created, in the stupidity, greed, power hunger and secrecy-obsession of their operators, problems which appear unavoidable or insurmountable (as these governments want them to appear), can be resolved when this comes to pass. It will take a while; I don't expect to be here.
