photo credit: Bernadette Ann

Hi everyone (nice to see you both!)

Things are a bit strange around here these days, which explains the radio silence – or doesn’t explain it at all really, since I actually haven’t explained anything at all. Oh well. Anyway.

Action and reaction

This post began as a comment on another blog, but it quickly became clear that it had delusions of grandeur, so I moved it back here. In fact it was a comment on a post that I suspect may have started the same way… so, to continue a kind of slow-motion threaded conversation, I’d like to react here to Stacey Cornelius’ post on the Studio Source, which was itself a reaction to Clint Watson’s post on Fine Art Views, which was itself a reaction to some comments made by Seth Godin during promotion for his latest book, Linchpin:

“Artist doesn’t mean painter or cartoonist or playwright. Artist means someone willing to stand up, stand out and make change.”

“What do we call a customer service rep or an insurance adjuster or landscape architect that changes the game, that elevates each interaction and that takes enormous emotional and professional risk with their work? I think they need a name, so I stole one. I call them artists.”

“A great waitress or conductor or politician can make art. So can David, who cleans the tables at Dean and Deluca. Art isn’t the job, it’s the attitude you bring to the job and work you do when you’re there.”

I haven’t read Linchpin yet, so I am in no way directly reacting to it; I just had some thoughts on the subject and thought I’d throw myself into the fray… Read the rest of this entry »