My father retired from his honourable profession, and then promptly went to Art College. His outlook and perception of art, the world, art and the world, the art world, the world and art, radically changed. He still lives in Ireland; I left nearly twenty years ago and I now live in the UK.
He recently pointed out an article 'Long Live the Critic' by Cristin Leach, an art critic for the Sunday Times Ireland. I was interested in what she had to say, and the pertinence of her points were delivered with a refreshing clarity. I was also interested in the cultural differences of how effective communication is hampered or enhanced by cultural norms and expectations.
There is one thing that I wanted to pick up on. Leach says "No one enjoys receiving criticism, but most artists will admit that, once out of college, honest assessment of their work is rare and valuable." There was much gratification for me in this comment: that critical debate about art, in the flesh, is a rare and valuable thing; that a critical debate about one's own work with another person is also a rare and valuable thing, and that I had invested myself wisely in co-directing a new, small non-profit peer artist group, artistsmeet.co.uk, but there was a lot of me that sees the potential in a level playing field, as it were, of a range of artists of differing disciplines (that is, if we're at all defined by a discipline any more), experiences and aspirations, coming together to discuss whatever is put on the plate on that evening each month.
But to commit to the written word is another thing altogether.....
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