6463546354.6543.21.6584.3654.354. - 16:15:23

>>>>>[Taken out of context and created unabashedly. This is what I've nearly lost sifght of over the past year or so. And this is a crime I have comitted against myself, something I must make reparations about...]<<<<<

>>>>[...Aye, I think there were a number of us on the list that took the course.]<<<<<

>>>>>[I am speaking of Philosophy of Art, at Kenyon College]<<<<<

>>>>>[Our generation got the philosophical reaming from Juan DePascuale, a great professor. I remember every single day that the class met, going into it as I can only imagine a well trained solider goes into combat. We (we art majors) knew that we would be pushed, prodded, and kicked to the ground in our quest to define exactly what is art, and how then to determine good art. Our class numbered around 20, half of us art majors, half philosophy majors. Of the art majors, I think 2 weren't working on their comps that year. and we wrestled with this elusive and horribly cunning foe.]<<<<<

>>>>>[It seemed that after every class were we exhausted, but we didn't want to make it stop. We had a mission that was unfinishable. We would leave class ranting and screaming and kicking, and wait for Juan to come out of the building so we could badger him with questions and arguments, and try to get more out of him. We were convinced that he had the answer to the question hidden somewhere, but he was unrelenting with it. It was not until after the class had ended that we figured it out though.]<<<<<

>>>>>[About half way through the semester, I think we all were seriously considering dropping our majors and switching to Calc, or English. I remember coming to Bexley one evening after dinner to work on my comps, and finding my classmates huddled around one of our number. He was weeping, because he had realized the futility of what we were doing as artists; that in effect it was simply an masturbatory act of bootstrapping oneself above one's peers. Oh the young artists we once were. We all sort of hit bottom that day, we were forced to crawl through the wreckage of our self idealized and idolicized views.]<<<<<

>>>>>[We went into the next class like a band of mercenaries, ready for a fight. Maybe it was because we had nothing to lose anymore, but we were relentless. Pressure was on, and the end of the semester was fast approaching. But our art was taking leaps and bounds forward. ]<<<<<

>>>>>[I like to think that Juan was really proud of all of us, especially after seeing our shows that spring. I like to think that he was hard on us especially to force us to break through these conventions and barriers both self constructed and allowed up by everything else. We never got a straight answer to the questions out of him, and we weren't able to come up with them as a class. It wasn't till afterward that we all came to the revelation that art is oriented by the self, as it is made by the self. And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it. It's like love: you can't really put a finger on it but you know it when you're in it.]<<<<<

>>>>>[Art is only important to one person in the world: You.]<<<<<

>>>>>[So I would have to state, that instead of the artists desire and intent qualifying a piece, it is instead the viewer that is the sole determiner of excellence in art. Artists create, what they believe is a beautiful thing. And deep down inside, I would venture to say, all artists just want to be supported by the masses in their belief that they have created something beautiful. Nothing is as powerful as when you've created something, and someone who you don't know comes to you with tears in their eyes and tells you that the thing you have made moves them. As Lewis Hyde implied with his book _The_Gift_ -- we as humans have the innate ability to create things. When we pass these things on free of burden, we give gifts, and there is perhaps no greater thing of beauty and kindness than this action. To give a gift is to give something enduring and wonderful. I think that the truest artists are working towards this goal. To give freely into the world.]<<<<<

>>>>>[Yeah, I guess deep down inside I am a softie. But if you hadn't figured that out you don't really know me too well. But at least I'm trying to give something back, to make the world a little better a place, to share a little of the kindness that had been given to me.]<<<<<