To all you who view ART!! Beware of your filters!

As I have tried to tackle this intense assignment to blog . .on a regular basis and the fact that if people have to read this and I am going to be taking up their time than out of respect for them I should at least post something that shows some cognitive depth I find myself drawn to conversations which includes passion, or at least supported opinions. almost like a tiny particle of iron is somehow some way sucked with such amazingly natural, and to the particle itself unexplained, power to a magnet through the sand I to have been drawn to these conversations based on, or around the creation of, the evaluation of, the concept of, and the appreciation or ART.


Jason Thompson, http://www.jasonthompsonsculpture.com// blew my mind the other day with his response to my inquiry of how his trip to "the NYC art scene" went with " I hate video art," and "90 percent of video art is S#*T!"  And yes, I immediately jumped to the defense of art ( to some surprise I know, but we're getting to that) by questioning the foundation of his attack. After a while of conversing and seeing some examples from him of the minimal video art that is acceptable, I came to the conclusion that as much video art as Jason has seen, it has been enough to taint him for who knows how long toward video art. which got me to thinking about the Filter, as shade that he will be viewing art through as a result of these brief experiences with video art. Isn't that nuts how he now has this filter that might actually start to spread into other medias in the art world. . .Thank you Jason for helping me realize what everyone else has already realized, that we all have so many filters that we bring to the viewing, excepting, enjoying, and the creating of art, and that these filters will be there until we make a conscious effort to find out what ours are, how they got there, if we except them and leave them in place or if we decide changes need to be made. I feel that I have really grown, or matured (arguably) in my approach to the viewing and excepting of art. My filter was brought to my attention by Linda Cordell,(insert website here!) when during our first class maybe 2 years ago I explained that I hated art. And she broke it to me that I needed to take the filter out, change my perspective by saying that I should find one good thing in each piece, or something I liked in each work of art. I can now say that I like more art then I did before, and even though the filter may not be gone, it has a lot less of an effect.

Jason wasn't the only person who was disappointed with the work seen in what they called the "best" galleries, or the work was was supposed to be the best of the best, in these galleries. My thoughts went to why these sculpture students were so disappointed. What were they judging this "best" work against, or what filters were they viewing this work through. I started putting together a list of possible filters, and here are some of the possible ones we use. .
Jealous filter .                    does jelousy come into play when viewing art .. .
Envious Filters. .
Prideful, or sort of a pecking order Filter...
then I started thinking about others, including myself and some other filters that might be in place . .
religious filters . .
cultural filters .  .  are you more willing to like or dislike certain art works based on your, or the creators culture
arrogant filters.
academic filters . .
fearful filters. .
and then I  thought, why do all these sound negative. . .in the sense that they are resulting in our lack of acceptance of the work. . so what about people that have filters that work the other way, brighteners, you know when you were a kid, trying to be all "cool" and stuff, so you wore some yellow or orange sunglasses that actually brightened everything (not that I ever did .. .OK you got me!) . . you know an enhancer filter . .or
acceptance. . .
or naivety . .
lack or self esteem ( so everything better than yours)
or a poor self image .. .
any kind of emotional or personal baggage becomes a filter . . .
some of these filters go both ways. . good and bad, excepting and shunning of art work ..  .
if we can somehow remove ourselves from these filters . . like the spirit leaving the body at death( for those believers) or like Jason removes his hair with a razor every morning (for the non-believers) we would have an unadulterated view of the work before us. .
   I know this counteracts what this whole blog has been about, but the opinions we form are filters as well. . . and if we didn't have opinions would we react to, or engage with any art at all ? so . .are the filters nessasary ?