I have no opinion

I am not going to try to define art.  Greater thinkers than I’ll ever be have been trying for millenia, and we still can’t come up with a solid foundation on what art even is.  Sure there are a lot of pretty quotes, and tons of conjecture, but really at the end of it all, art is subjective, and can therefore never be defined.  At least that’s what I think.

That being said I think they should change the name of the Utah Arts Festival.  I don’t know, maybe the Utah Trinkets Festival, or the Look What I made in My Spare Time Festival, or the I Didn’t Have an Original Though of My Own, But I Did Like Putting a Zombie Twist on Someone Else’s Unoriginal Though Festival.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not posting this out of anger or frustration.  I’m not intentionally attempting to sound jaded or cynical.  I had a wonderful time at the festival.  If you were there and saw me, you probably would have seen me smiling most of the time.  I was among friends, and drinking up moments.  Its just that the so called art had little to do with it.

When asked what I thought about any particular piece I would simply state…”I have no opinion.”.  It was true at the time.  It still is.  When I first said it, I hadn’t even really put any thought into it.  I was just responding to the question.  It wasn’t until later, upon reflection and examination of the truth of that statement that I realized how incriminating it really is.

I am no student of art.  The most I’ve ever researched it at any given time was when I played Picasso in “Picasso at the Lapin Agile”.  I don’t know anything of the technical aspects of it.  I do know that most of what I saw today was a display of some considerable talent, and that I can appreciate.  A lot of stuff I can’t do, and that I can appreciate.  Art though???  I honestly don’t know.

For me for something to be artistic it must evoke some sort of visceral response.  Love it, hate it, at least SOMETHING it.  No opinion though…that’s something to think about.  Absolutely no visceral connection to anything.  At all.  Appreciation sure.  Entertaining?  A little bit…sometimes.  Emotion?  None.

I know the argument can be, and has many times been made that I’m pretty disconnected from my emotions anyways.  Maybe this just maybe makes me more critical.  Maybe it makes me a douchebag.  Either way I can live with it.  

Thing is though…I wanted to have an opinion.  I really did.  I wanted to connect to something.  To have something resonate.  To see art.  Instead I had a wonderful time with friends.  People watching.

I’m also quite possible a Theatre snob.  That’s where those moments happen.  At least for me.  

The first show I saw when I arrived in SLC was at Salt Lake Acting Company.  It was something I’d never heard of before called Skin in Flames.  I love seeing new theatre and I was pretty excited about it.  Now, all these years later I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about it.  I remember bits and pieces.  A vague memory of what it was about…but…but…

What I do remember is a moment.  There was no dialogue.  There was just a moment, performed by one of the actresses of such brutal and intense honesty that it burned itself forever in my memory.  That kind of moment that you come back from later and realize that the reason your heart is racing is because its trying to make up for that brief period when it stopped working altoghether.  

This happens to me sometimes.  Those moments when you’ve seen something.  When you were part of something shared, but just yours.  When everyone is looking at the same thing, but you are positive that you’re the only one who really…REALLY…was there for it.

I get that in theatre.  I’ve read that in books.  I’ve seen those paintings.  I’ve understood that…THAT…as art.  Perhaps that is my problem when I go to UAF.  My own personal standard of what art is/should/can be has been set to high by my own experience of it.  

And I’m also not stupid.  I fully understand that those moments are rare.  They have to be in order to have any meaning, but I would at least like to see someone who is reaching for that.  Who understands that that is the potential of art, and what can be achieved by it.  To me…painted shoes that cost 200 bucks isn’t art.  Another black and white picture of some naked chick done with a digital camera isn’t art.  I’m not knocking it… in fact I even like it… but I have to ask Mr. Artist…  What are you trying to say?  What emotion are you trying to connect to?  What is your goal?  Why…Why…Why….