art as a means of controlling
human behavior

Because emotion is evoked below the level of conscious thought - yet emotion can direct thought and action - art provides a means of manipulating people without their realizing that they are being manipulated. 

This quality of art allows leaders to control the group and focus the group while individuals within the group think that what they are doing is the right thing to do.

(Groups can be anything from traditional tribes to nations to armies to sports teams to labor unions. Art, in these instances, is generally not the art of museums, recital hall, or printed page, but is the visual display of ritual, pomp and circumstance, rhythm, stirring oratory, waving flags, parades.) 

Thus, art can be, but not always is, a powerful means of controlling human behavior with big payoffs in terms of survival and/or reproductive opportunities.

"I found I had this boundless energy because everything I was doing was what I was interested in. It was so liberating, and when I found that I began to live. I could do anything. I just had a big smile on my face the whole time. Working 15 hours a day was no effort.

I still love filmmaking, but it's not the same. Now I want that for my whole life, not just work. I've got a 9-year-old who I want to spend more time with. It's so consuming to direct, completely consuming, and I just don't want to only experience my life that way."

She promises, though, that she will be back. "Oh," Campion says, when asked if she's given up on movies. "I'm just getting to a level where I feel I'm really flying, you know?"

..
..

Dame Darcy : I keep thinking there's going to be a turning point, and that everything's going to be okay. And things are okay, things move forward, but very slowly. 

I've never made a lot of money, so I'm always really struggling and right when I think everything's going to get better, it doesn't get better. But I'm okay. ... 

I went into this racket a little naive. The thing is, I like doing comics, and I'll always do them, but I had no idea they'd never make me any money at all. ... 

They don't, really, but they do get me opportunities, things that do make me money....

And it's a step towards getting a TV show or a movie produced. Meanwhile, I've been working on more and more books. /// 

I teach art to inner-city school kids. ... I also design for my own fashion label based in Japan, called Offbeat Brands. 

Now a big corporation based in Tokyo is promoting my line, and hopefully that will create some more revenue for me. ///

Bookslut : Your work has such a defined aesthetic, a characteristic look and feel... do you ever feel trapped by the world you've created? Not in a Twilight Zone sense, but artistically. Do you sometimes feel like doing something radically different from your existent work?

..
..

I always tell my classes, whether it's my little girls that I'm teaching or whether it's college lectures: You can be hired to do art in general, where they tell you what to draw, and you draw in whatever style they want, and you can run a company that way, but you don't get your own name. 

Or you can have a specific style, and although you only get hired for specific things, your work is really yours, and because you have your own name, you have the possibility of getting something big that's just you, that's really about you and your style. 

You've got to make your choice, but neither one is bad.

..
..

"I noticed it because my name was at the top with an asterisk typed next to it and the words 'Approaching genius' added in brackets. 

"Cromie, the headmaster had underlined it in his blue-black ink and scrawled, 'Well that bloody explains *everything*...' "

///

Fry's life is full of school and jailhouse blues overcome by jaunty wit, a la Wilde. 

The title, from Psalm 108:9, refers to King David's triumph over the Philistines. 

Fry triumphs similarly, and with more style. 

  [from amazon.com summary by Tim Appelo]

..
..

I thought, that's interesting, because I believe a total unwillingness to cooperate is what is necessary to be an artist -- not for perverse reasons, but to protect your vision. 

The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music. That's why I spend my time now painting. ///

I don't want to get into merchandising [my paintings]. I want nothing to do with galleries, even in terms of exhibitions. 

When money meets up with art, there is a lot of pain, and it's the pain of ignorance, and I don't want to meet up with that ignorance again. My work is personal, too vulnerable. 

That's why I quit making records. ///

In painting, you're brain empties out and there's not a word in it; it's like a deep meditation, like a trance. 

..
..

You stir up chaotic thoughts, then you pluck from this overactive mind. It's part of my process as a writer, being emotionally disturbed by something exterior someone said or something that is happening in society. 

It's on your mind, and it won't go away until you deal with it.

from article An art born of pain, an artist in happy exile - Joni Mitchell wields a brush instead of a guitar today, but her singular vision and complex pride remain undimmed. By Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times, Sep 5 2004

photo at left by Genaro Molina ; at right from book Joni Mitchell : The Complete Poems and Lyrics

..
..

The book argues that instead of considering intelligence as a single trait (someone is either intelligent, not intelligent or somewhere in between), a person has seven intelligences, the combination of which forms the complete person.

It may seem an unimportant distinction, but when high schools focus primarily on only a few of Gardner's intelligences, it's a distinction worth considering once students leave high school and enter college.

"We do not address the full intelligences of the human being," said [UCLA] theater professor Michael Hackett. "The SAT route that most of us have to go through now narrows the use of the brain. Math ability and linguistic ability are only two (of the seven intelligences)."

But is the best way to study the arts simply to study the history of an art form? 

Not according to Gardner's multiple intelligences theory or to Hackett, who coordinated a year-long GE Cluster series on performing arts that includes performance itself as part of its curriculum. ///

"We're all consumers of art in one way or another," said [Theater Professor Patricia Harter]. "You need to understand the process of making decisions about art. 

"The whole process of learning to work in a community where artistic decisions are made is much more difficult than making a decision on your own. It takes a great deal of effort."

..
..
The Golden Age of Mediocrity

We live in an age peopled by more artistic geniuses than in any other moment in history, though the bar is set considerably lower than in the past.

As recently as the mid-20th century, qualifying as an artistic genius meant belonging to a rarified elite -- Picasso, Hemingway, Stravinsky, Pollock, Frank Lloyd Wright, Miles Davis, et al. -- who created masterpieces that changed the way people thought about the world, and in the process lived existences infused with drama. 

But that sort of résumé is no longer necessary, thanks to the evolution of pop culture and the explosive growth of media hype.

To borrow a phrase from a visionary thinker of another era, Sly Stone, today everybody is a star. Or quite nearly everybody. 

Write a book that cracks the bestseller lists, act in a successful film, record a hit song that gets played on MTV, garner an invitation to appear on the cover of a major magazine, and you're pretty much a shoo-in for genius-hood. ///

Humans have always argued about what constitutes artistic greatness, and the source of genius. 

The 18th century essayist Joseph Addison decided that there were two sorts of geniuses -- those who'd diligently worked to learn their art, such as English poet John Milton, and the natural, untutored, compulsive virtuosity of a William Shakespeare, the sort of savant who created great art as easily as other men breathed.

More recently, developmental psychologist William Therivel, author of the three-volume treatise "The GAM/DP Theory of Personality and Creativity," has argued that genius is a combination of genetics and assistance (i.e., educational opportunities, supportive families and intellectual mentors). 

There's also the unexpected dash of misfortune or trauma that forces the budding wunderkind to forsake conventional beliefs, taboos and methods of problem-solving that inhibit most of us but allows him or her to see the world in a startlingly different way. 

The final ingredient is a social milieu in which power is divided rather than absolute, so the artist can play the iconoclast without being crushed like a bug.

excerpt from article: The Golden Age of Mediocrity - With so Many Artistic Geniuses Among Us, Why Is Most of Their Work so Disposable? - By Patrick J. Kiger, LA Times March 7, 2004

..
..

Ability or performance is the result of complex interaction between various parts of the mind/body system. 

Some parts of ability are due to "nurture." The most important of these environmental factors is knowledge in one form or another. Nature is the basis of talent.

We all know, understand, and operate on more levels than just the conscious. Talents or aptitudes are unlearned abilities -- gut-level and non-conscious ways of operating.

They are a big part of the reason "One man's meat is another man's poison."

Most people know far more than they realize about knacks and talents. People usually know if they are mechanical, have a sense of direction, pick up languages, enjoy puzzles or are good with their hands.

Anyone who has managed or trained people has seen the clear impact of unlearned abilities. In any area, some folks take to it like ducks to water. 

Once trained, they stay ahead of the crowd. Others sweat to keep up, or fail miserably.

..
..

That's how UCLA's Judy Mitoma describes the situation facing today's artists working in traditional cultures. 

When the libraries of the ancient world perished in fire, so did the works of many writers and thinkers, lost forever. Today the modern world faces the same kind of threat, as cultural heritages are destroyed or debased, and regional diversity is suffocated.

Often government sponsorship is abandoned in a shift to a market economy; artists are marginalized, receiving little support or recognition. 

"In their search for work, regrettably, manyartists turn to the tourist industry. Viewed as symbols of culture, their work is often presented as decorative and entertaining diversions. 

"Most threatening of all," Mitoma says, "new generations see no viable future in working in the arts or preserving their cultural heritage." 

Commercial success brings its own problems. Mitoma uses the example of national dance companies whose program offerings are chosen to appeal to American tastes. 

"Local artists are eager to imitate these famous companies and, as a consequence, there is a codification of style, a rigidly set repertoire and a negative effect on creativity and artistic development in those countries," Mitoma explains.