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Looper's Delight
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What Steve Lawson had to say about establishmentism is sadly all too evident in the academician's approach to Art in General: that the question isn't "Is it Art?", but "If it's difficult to categorize and a huge number of people don't all agree as to what it is, is it Art?" Such business creeps dangerously towards populism - which is, alas, also easy to teach as well as document. We're all basically composing, producing, arranging, compositing, and/or performing material which is in itself difficult for people who require such categorization to identify as "Music", much less "Jazz", "Rock", "BeBop", "Swing", etc. We know better than most that there is not a TRUE "in" or "out" to any of the work we do, except for the popular definitions of Those Who Get Heard (For A Variety Of Reasons). Besides playing guitar, some of you might know I do cartoons and illustrations. I've done that longer than I ever played instruments, unless you count the voice I sang with when sitting in a tree drawing at age 3. I put forth this little tidbit from my Art school days, brief as they were, in Syracuse in the late 70s: We were in a General Drawing class, taught by a somewhat self-important fellow of whom I only remember his white hair and matching highland dog, the latter which enjoyed tearing up plastic baby dolls in front of the class while we drew. One day at the completion of a sub-project involving cutting-and-pasting fragments from magazines (which is miraculously not drawing, folks!), this teacher asked the worst question one can ask freshman art students, "What kind of Artist do you want to be?" He asked student after student, allowing each to expand briefly on the topic, but didn't ask me. A girl next to me who liked my work asked him, "Why didn't you ask Steve? He wants to be a cartoonist." The teacher replied, "Why doesn't he want to be an Artist?" I had already been paid several times for producing cartoons for the student paper there, and was then known to not be a classical artist - as if this was some stain upon my artistic character! Such gall and attitudes are unfortunately more than ordinary in the so-called Art Community. Cartoonists I suppose are the stand-up comedians in the drawing world - at their height, the Marx Brothers at the Opera. I did however have the appreciation of the Art History teacher I got, who was a great lover of old comics like Little Nemo, the Toonerville Trolley and Buck Rogers. I guess I could have not chosen a worse role if I wanted respect for my work as a default - and so then looping and ambient-situational music would then become a foregone conclusion as a choice for playing/etc. It's what I DO. And I'm STILL an artist, no matter what the elitists of the community might think. This particular community, you loopers, you sowers of loop, this circle of many - have been perhaps greater inspiration than you might know to me. We continue, no matter what people call our work. It's what we DO. Stephen Goodman http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery.html - Online Cartoons & Illustrations http://www.earthlight.net/Studios * The free Loop of the Week! http://www.mp3.com/StephenGoodman * New MP3 Releases!