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Nursing...,
Create to Order...,
Vagabond...,
Vagabond--Evolution...,
Aphorisms...,
Woodcuts...
Bravo. You've done a great thing by exposing this. Keep it up, as it ultimately promotes sensitivity for those who have suffered.
Name withheld
New York, NY
I don't believe that the issue is as simple as whether art is produced to order or to prescription; society is not what it was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Theoretically speaking, we are living now in the age of the individual while in the past we were not. The artist was not an artist in our sense, but rather a craftsman (though I often wonder myself what the difference is, the words connote different degrees of individual input). What is considered the most desirable for an artist to be now is pushing the envelope of society, a 'genius' whose ideas are ahead of their time. Ideally this creates a space for the artist on the fringes of society, but still, their still remains room for the figures who decide what is 'art' and what is not, there is still room for some elements of society to decide what is socially acceptable. The basic idea remains for an artist to be 'great' or 'visionary' either now or in the future there must be some sort of resonance between the audience viewing the art and what the artist has produced. Society must label the individual 'genius'. This development of what an artist is historically took place about the time that Mozart was around and became fully enfleshed in the romantic period (think Percy Shelly and such). What we think of as art is to some degree tied up with societal conceptions of art and the artist.
The problem with commercial art is just this: how visionary is something which is produced to seduce the consumer? Personally, I think that commercial art can be wonderful in a personal sense. It may seem sick, but the culture I grew up in has made a resonance to the commercial: the lonely poetry of convenience store signs speaks to me of the solitude of the soul and if that makes me a sap so be it. Maybe it isn't art to begin with but can be appropriated to that effect. Much of what I personally find most visionary and most resonant is appropriated from commercial culture.
In any case I am tacking on an example of my own work as demonstration of the resonance of commercial culture (to an extent). Sadly, poetry (a letter poem).
to Anne, God knows where
5:47 Thursday afternoon
Johnson Creek Road
convenience store parking lot.
"Cheep beer. All lottery games here."
All I got left of you is two numbers
(812) and (317) and a dead houseplant.
Dialed 0 for operator; neither one is right.
She says no one like you is even in the book.
You got a lot of nerve not calling me.
This guy in a Dodge Dart wants to use the phone.
I got better things to do than love you.
Since I got no one to call I better leave.
(Thanks for putting up for my late night ramblings, as part of my thesis dealt with the individual vs. society I appreciated the chance to do some spewing.)
Suzie
milkshake@usa.pipeline.com (galaxy craze)
Hello, William,
I've just been threading my way through several of the electronic issues of your newsletter, The Vagabond Pages, and I have to confess to you my admiration for their effectiveness as a mode of communication and dialogue, and for their entertainment value. You and I have corresponded via the conventional mail route, usually on topics we wrote about for Ron Hoeflin's _In-Genius_ "Hi-Q" journal, but not once in any of those letters did you mention that you had this impressive WWW presence. A pity; I could have been enjoying the thought-provoking articles months ago.
I've bookmarked your site, and I look forward to reading more Vagabond Pages.
Jeff Rawlings
Yellville, AR
rawlings@cei.net
Hi William,
... The essays are from the heart and the illustrations are precious. More illustrations! You got a good eye for the essential gesture and this is the key to signal.
Walter Alter
walter@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~walter/arts.htm
A very well thought newsletter, thought provoking and intellectually stimulating. I will add a link to it via my favorite links page.
Did you see my Idiot of the Week Page?
shane gledhill
shaneg@getnet.com
www.getnet.com/~shaneg/idiot.html
The title 'Vagabond' is good since I suppose you mean (Intellectual) Vagabond rather than the usual homeless hobo underclass currently peppering the streets of all major cities. But sub-titles could be more accurate: 'attached to nothing' should be 'believes in nothing' and 'aware of everything' should be 'questions everything'. I'm sure that's what you mean, so why not say it. Your skeptical nihilism ( = nihilistic skepticism) is probably genetic, so you will just have to live with it, I suppose, until genetic engineering advances to the point where it can retrofit the suffering.
Comments on evolution (by which you and they really mean Darwinism) are interesting. Basically Darwinism is a tautology: whatever happens happens, so it can never be refuted. But is it explanatory? I think not. Darwinism's real value is as a job description; it gives thousands of biologists and others jobs mapping out the 'tree of life'. This ultimate puzzle is a pleasing way to earn a living. Although Darwinism is a modern alternative to 'creationism', it is not much less religious.
So when do I see your philosophy of art?
Warmest Regards,
Russ Shurig
Toronto
I'd just like to let you know that I am really impressed by your writings, and to congratulate you... hopefully some positive response can brighten your day.
Alicia
alicia@nectar.com.au
William,
"Wit is the epitaph of an emotion" - Nietzsche.I've been reading an excellent anthology of essays on writing called "A Bread Loaf Anthology - Writers On Writing." The above aphorism from an essay by a William Matthews titled: 'The Soul of Brevity'. It's a good read and thought it might interest you.
Hi,
I was just wondering where you obtained the picture (of a horse(?) with an inclusion highlighted in red) that appears above the caption "The Vagabond struggles with ideas ..." ; and, whether the highlighted portion is your interpretation of an inclusion or appears as such ?
My thanks for your help in advance.
Steve Berlant
berlant@dynanet.com
What you saw on Vagabond's index page is a woodcut print representing a horse and a man, struggling. The horse pushes in one direction and the man in the opposite. The name of the work is "Struggle." This is my own work as are all the woodcuts you see in each issue Vagabond on the "Extracts of Existence" page. Of course all the woodcuts you see have been scanned from the original. WM
William
Thanks for the info on the woodcut. The resemblance it bore to the prehistoric glyphs at Lascaux -- at least on my computer -- led me to believe it might have been from there or a similar site. Some of the Lascaux glyphs, including one of a horse, can be viewed at http://www.daap.uc.edu/CERHAS/lascaux.htm.
keep up the good work.
Steve
Dear William
saw the lovely woodcuts on your site. I have developed a new (I think) technique to make plates for intaglio and letterpress printing using a laser engraving machine and digital or scanned originals. (It uses laser light to engrave.) The examples pages [on my site] contain some 100 different files where the technique used is clear for those who are familiar with old printing techniques and computer technology
Best regards
Bengt A. Berglund
gravolaser@synaptic.ch
Gravolaser (Switzerland)
http://www.synaptic.ch/
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