Tag: Art

Fine Art

The world of art is filled with nebulous definitions. “Art” itself is an act, an object, a concept and perhaps more. “Professional” artists earn money and are expected to produce highly skilled astounding work, but some artists considered great – like Van Gogh – never sold a painting. And on this continuum cloud is the designation “fine art” .

In the monetary collector’s world, “fine” has become synonymous with “rare” or even “unique”. To a connoisseur, “fine” implies degrees of difficulty and craftsmanship invisible to most of us. The vast crowd of amateurs more or less need to trust museums and scholarly essays to weed the wonderful from the trash. Lately, that seems to be failing .

I’ve pretty much given up. I like to think that what I create as a hobby is on the borderline of “fine art”, but certainly not as fine as a Michelangelo statue. On the other hand Klee and Basquiat are ranked highly and I would not bother having either hanging on my walls. I can’t even experience some forms of fine art very well – food, dance, film, and areas of music. It’s a big bouillabaisse of all kinds of stuff, junk for some, treasure for others .

I guess what I’m getting at is that “fine”, like many other terms (evil, good, right, proper) has lost common meaning in our culture until things stabilize a lot more .

2026 Methodology

Future posting methodology follows that of the last year:

  • Essays are written longhand several months ahead on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and are edited before they are posted.  
  • Essays and recent local cellphone photos are posted to WordPress blog on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to Facebook on Monday, and a summary list of the week to Bluesky on Friday.
  • Artworks previously posted over the last two years are reposted on WordPress and Bluesky each Tuesday.
  • Previously unposted artworks are selected for WordPress, Facebook, and Bluesky on Thursday.
  • All artwork postings also show media, year created, and size (length by width in inches), with any accompanying text written on the picture.
  • Please visit the WordPress blog (https://weeklyobservations.blog/), and my website (https://sites.google.com/view/cabinetofvanities) which contains a catalog of all artwork, various biographical essays, and links to several books I have either self published or provide as digital documents.

Museum

I contend, contrary to current corporate creed, that there is value in public expenditures and public places. Plazas, parks, churches, and, for the purpose of today’s thought, museums .

A public museum is a marvelous place. Its purpose is always to arrange stories and show versions of reality. Sometimes bones or rocks, sometimes paintings or sculpture, sometimes any oddball mix of anything. Objects usually with a story attached to amaze, mystify, or educate .

There are claims that with the advent of virtual spaces on the internet, museums are obsolete. That may be true in terms of tagging objects. But another function of public places is as a setting for everyone’s street theater, to see and be seen by others. A crowd sharing some momentary focus. 

You protest that is also true of things like private parties and such. Sports events. I agree. The bounds are fluid. But by being open to all, a public space provides a wide variety of experience. To get back to the title, I love museums. Old, new, whatever. They make me consider what some other folks considered important. They let me see how contemporary peers react .

Such public interaction is a great binding experience, less frantic and directed than a stadium light show .