[Darkwolf377]

the title was "Untitled # 16". Even the artist didn't know what it was - ;o)

We could go on about this stuff all day. I recall the 60 Minutes segment on Baquiat, which showed all kinds of art being bought in NYC--a pile of ping-pong balls, for example.

Contemporary art is so far away from communicating to the mainstream public, and the artists DO NOT CARE. ALL the art you see is political in nature, ALL of it hard-left, or it's about someone's menstruation cycle or other garbage like that.

On the other end you have illustration, which is really dying. Each year I pick up the annual Spectrum book of science fiction-themed illustration because there are always a few good pieces in it, but 99% of it is rip-off Frazetta stuff, or CGI futuristic crap with giant weapons.

Art in this country has been so politicized because of the politics of the art school teachers--it can only be combative, or it can be like "Purple Spaghetti"--if you look at it funny you are told you "just don't get it," but I DO get it, it's lazy Pollock rip-off stuff which follows the only aim of artists these days--to shock.

I am lucky to live near Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, where I can still go and look at some beautiful things. I am hugely inspired by art (I write fiction, nothing you'd know though I've sold six pieces of short fiction so far this year) and grab every art book or art website I can for inspiration. It's too bad so much of that inspiration is not from current work.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Are the artists attempting to go so far to the Left that they will come out on the Right -- like going so far to the west the you will end up in the east? It's the nature of the beast to push things to the limits. These may be experiments rather than commitments.

[TradicalRC]

If you ever head north a ways to Andover, Ma., the Currier Gallery has some interesting pieces, not to mention the Fogg over in Cambridge.

[maine-iac7]

Frazetta

love his stuff - reminds me I have a book of his illustrations around here somewhere - will have to dig it out.

The destruction of art in our country was one of the points of the Communists Party's plan to destroy our society - along with music, education - etc. I'm old enough to remember Khrushchev banging his shoe on the UN podium back in 1960; "We will bury you within 50 years and we will not have to fire a bullet!"

I, also, write - tho' retired great-granny now and mostly just maintain my column (18 years now).

This is one of my silverpoints - I really like the medium: