State of the Arts

Sometimes an artist will paint a scene from story that we already know. What part of the story will the artist choose? The most exciting scene? The happy ending? Artists can also introduce us to people from long ago or describe places that we have never seen—some are real, others are imaginary.

These artists provoke us to think about our own stories: the characters and caricatures, the morals and messages that define our real and imagined lives.

If you were to look closely enough, it must be that everyone has the experience, just a poetic experience of being here in the world, an experience we have poor language for but which is felt as the miraculous fact of life, the mystery and wonder of life.

And we don’t have a background that recognizes this or supports it. So, it gets lost and people have to simply make a living. They fall under the mass ways of living and forget about the Art and what it might give us or inspire us for bringing in a new wave to our routinely led lives.

With the Renaissance of downtown Fargo, unique and special art galleries have begun to appear. The number of art galleries in Fargo is not that enormous, and a lot of them aren’t making a profit. Art is difficult enough to sell in real life.

Money, meanwhile, make its circuitous way around the art world. It is dangled by commercial enterprises. The art should not exist just for people interested in it, but instead the principles and concepts implemented in art creations might be applied to everyone. As you discover more about the art, you will add an imaginary candy to a bowl, an action that later might become the first step forward to love the art and contribute to its prosperity.

Rusty Freeman, vice president of Curatorial Division at Plains Art Museum put his first candy into the bowl long time ago. Art gave him a chance to reflect and see the reality of life in even more than three dimensions, to reveal the beauty of art and show it to people.

“Art is an insight into human nature, a privileged glimpse into the primary state of things and who we are, into our identity and souls. It’s a way of making poetry out of living,” Freeman said.

Nevertheless, art cannot be considered as just a pink conception. The romantic notion of the artist’s struggle as part of the creative process merely obscures a much more mundane issue of simply getting funds for art creations. That eternal struggle to have the time, energy and sponsor to pursue creative goals more fully and thoroughly is one of the main issues for becoming an artist in today’s world.

Freeman agrees that today’s artists face many struggles on their way to creating art works and masterpieces.

“Most of the modern artists are forced to have a day job to make a living out of it and to allow themselves to create art works. Art also has its price,” added Freeman.

He believes that modern artists are constantly in search of time, resources to buy art supplies, a studio space, and galleries to show their works at.

What has finished, however, is not artistic production, but a certain way of thinking about art. Art has not always been that what we see today. Before becoming an art work an object might not have been perceived as piece of art when it was created. Especially these days as artists use new materials and emerging technology to create art works. But art still remains an act of expressing the feelings, thoughts, and observations that come to the mind of artist.

Freeman believes that there is no certain line that distinguishes between craftsman and artist.

“I don’t think we make a distinction between those people. You can do both, and in both cases you will be doing the work of art,” Freeman said.

He went on to say that it also depends on the point of view of the spectator and the interaction between the object of art and person who looks at it. The value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium in order to strike some universal chord by the rarity of the skill of the artist.

The art reflects the aesthetic interests of our various communities. It inspires, engages, and sometimes, surprises us. According to Kiki Smith, one of the today’s famous artists, art is just a way to think.

“It’s like standing in the wind and letting it pull you in whatever direction it wants to go,” Smith said.

The great service of the artist is to transform the sometimes unbearable discrepancy between the way things are and the way they ought to be, into something that makes us want to adore the product of Art.

The assumption of new values in art or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur alongside with a complete rejection of the pursuit of the art works which are aesthetically appealing. As Joan Miro, Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramist, once said: “The painting rises from the brush strokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later.”