Eleven Floors of Art

Yesterday, I went to visit the Artomatic in Arlinginton, VA. This is an event where an old office building is filled with art before it is torn down. In this case, the 11 story building housed over 1,300 artists. Imagining that each artist presented 10 pieces, that is over 13,000 pieces of art. I confess; I didn’t see it all. We visited about 3.5 floors before I experienced art burnout. I wish I hadn’t waiting until the last day to go, but had planned several days so that I had a chance to experience and savor all the art.

Well, maybe not all the art. One of the wonderful things about artomatic is there is no gate keeper. There is no juror inflicting his particular taste on the show. There is no austere woman telling artists they are not good enough. On the other hand, one of the bad things about the Artomatic is that there is no gatekeeper saying that someone might need to practice a little more before they try to show some work. Everyone and anyone can exhibit. This lack of a gatekeeper creates quite the diverse experience.

What I came to realize while wandering through is that I don’t appreciate most art. I don’t get it. I don’t think it’s beautiful. I could do without it. That said, I don’t believe my opinion on should make a difference to anyone except me (and maybe my husband who might be inspired to buy me artwork). I’ve often wondered what other people saw in the art they decided to hang in their homes. I have no love of pastoral landscapes or elephants working in India. I don’t want to continually look at scenes from city streets or people at work or play. I don’t want to take the time to delve into the meaning of a piece of art. I want to see it and have everything it is conveyed to me in a blast of wonder. Then maybe I’ll be interested in what the artist was thinking. As I wandered through the Artomatic, I felt like I was just walking through rooms of noise with the occasional moment of silence when I found the art that spoke to me. These tended to be macro-photographs of nature, serene natural or abstract paintings, trees of any kind and anything with beautiful lines or bold colors. In other words, art that felt soothing. I hate to confess it, but I also walked out being amazed at how much bad art there was in the world. That is a secret, mean thought, so please don’t tell anyone. However, whenever I have mean thoughts, I am rarely content to let them stand unassailed. I must investigate and break them down to their primal elements. After ruminating over this thought for a day or so, I finally came to an epiphany. Art is about taste. I know, that ‘s boring and unoriginal, but here come the original part. My artistic taste reflects my preference for how I live my life. I love being in nature and often long for the childhood days where I could be out in the world and never hear the sound of mankind. I love the quiet wind in the trees. I love the small changes that happen every day from the bursting of a flower to the sprouting of a fungal castle on a rotting log. Art is supposed to inspire emotion and I hate being riled up, sad or riddled with angst. I want to be soothed or humored. So of course I am not going to appreciate art depicting riotous crowds on city streets or profound political messages. However, I realize as an introvert, I am in the minority preferring to be away from people and the riot of life. The type of life I enjoy is directly reflected in the type of art I enjoy. And for other people, I am absolutely positive this is true as well. So people who love mankind and civilization are going to love art based on it. I am sure many of those people walk into the rooms where I linger and walk right back out again because they are bored out of their mind. That’s OK. More solitude for me. So, I am so glad I went to Artomatic for the sole reason that it allowed me to reach this realization. Without seeing so much art in one place, I doubt I would have muddled it out. The new look on art will also have bearing on the perception of my own art. When I show my art to people, everyone seems to love it, but few people want to buy it. I won’t deny there was a little sting in that. For many years, I have tried to bend my subject matter to more mainstream subjects, with the hope that I would make some sales, but I could never really get there. I don’t think I could paint a bowl of fruit if my life depended on it. The few mainstream pieces I have painted, I got through solely on the challenge of the work, not inspiration from the subject matter. My recent epiphany has led me to the conclusion that I shouldn’t try to change. There are people out there for me. They are just a smaller set of the population than the fruit and barn lovers and it will take longer for us to find each other. Thanks Artomatic for giving all those artists a chance to reach their people and for leading me to a new way of looking at art.

 Also, just a quick promo of the artists I know who displayed art at the Artomatic.

Jennifer Stone – Definitely one of my people
Blair Jackson – Not for me, but I could easily knock off 75% of my Christmas list in her art store.
Lisa M. – Her art makes me smile.