Brian recently posted a blog posting discussing the lack of appreciation for the arts. He talked about “the lack of interest in the funding of those who create” which is something I particularly notice in school settings. Through middle school and high school, my experience of seeing the way most students view art has been the “easy A” perception. The various art classes were equivalent to gym class where it was seen as fun, stress relieving, and easy to pass as long as you attended. Some schools would not even have art as a class but as an afterschool activity. These examples display how the arts are often overlooked, especially in the light of a challenging subject. Moving forward to college, some students decide that they want to attend a college that is specifically designated for the arts. In most cases, the students are seen as taking the easier path because studying something such as painting is not seen as challenging compared to studying biology. The reason that most people tend to overlook the arts is because they do not understand the process and dedication it takes to become successful in that field.
The Art of Steve Prince has taught me things about art that I have been oblivious to. Before this class, I rarely gave thought to the process that people who draw or paint go through. Part of this may be because I do not know how to draw well, therefore, when I see people who are able to create beautiful pieces of work I automatically see them as someone who possess talent. While this is true, there is more to art than just knowing how to draw and this is exactly what this class taught me. There is a process of deciding what story you want to tell, who are you telling it to, and how you want to tell it. These three questions will determine how people look at your work and what they will get from it. For example, in my opinion Steve Prince does not draw with a specific audience in mind. I believe that he creates purely from his thoughts without letting judgement impact his work. This is what makes his work so complex because there is so much to interpret from one picture and as a class we have never been able to agree on what the piece could be about. I know that the point of art is to develop your own interpretation of what the artist was trying to say and what the piece as a whole means to you. The difference with Prince’s work is that he will not even tell you what his piece means even if you ask him, which is something I haven’t experience with an artist before. He leaves the interpretation solely up to the viewer and does not sway their view in any way which is frustrating for someone like myself because the process of analyzing art is new to me. This class has made me able to appreciate art in a deeper aspect now that I have more insight into the artist’s process and I have been viewing various pieces of art.