The End of Art

As my classes begin this fall, I am most looking forward to the art classes - the last art classes that I need to complete the Visual Arts degree I started 30 years ago. This semester one of them is a Special Topics in Art History class labeled, "The End of Art and Beyond, 1960 Through Present Day."

The first day in class I was energized when the very young professor made columns with decade headings on the white board, starting with 1950 up through 2010. She asked the class to call out famous artists and/or movements and she would write them on the board one decade at a time. I knew I could come up with a good collection for the earlier decades (I am sure I am the oldest person in the classroom), but I also knew that I was not familiar at all with what has rocked the art world in the last 10 or even 20 years. I've been busy with life - working, getting marrried, having babies, raising kids, restoring an old Victorian house, getting divorced, getting remarried, having more kids, restoring another old house ... I did not have "time" to be an artist or keep up on the art world.

We were a pretty animated and lively class and had no problem filling up the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's - but then slowed down appreciatively when it came to the 90's. I thought for sure that the younger generation of students would certainly have names of artists that they were currently studying, or had gone to their shows - these were art students for crying out loud. They are twenty years old and are supposed to be living, breathing, eating, and pooping for the sake of art! But when it came to the decades of 2000 and then 2010, not a soul had a thing to say. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

"That is exactly what I'm talking about!" the pretty young instructor practically yelled from the front of the classroom as she swept her marker filled hand through the air. "That is what I mean - is this the end of art?"

I was still. My mouth was dry, but I swallowed.

I have noticed how much the digital world has consumed many, many things that make me want to stand on a tree-stump and shout at passersby. In particular, books. I am very nervous about Kindle and Nook and all of the other digital readers that are readily accessible now.

I am an avid reader. I will never get over my love of books. I don't just mean reading a story, I mean selecting a bound tome off of the shelf simply because the spine was a lovely shade of green and the font "spoke" to me. I simply love opening a new book and feeling the pleasure of turning virgin pages. I have just as much appreciation and desire for an older edition, one that has been on the shelf for years and been opened and loved by many. The aroma that wafts up out of the heavy, ivory pages is singular and unique. Nothing else smells like an old book. I know you can already have the electronic "sound" of an actual page turning in some of these. If I can only get one of these techno-giants to package that musty aroma and somehow make it an "app" or a feature to be used with their modern contraptions, I might make some money on that idea.

I have the unique experience of working in the sign industry for thirty years, which spans the days of painting with pigments into the computer age. I started back in the day when we were all "signwriters". We all used specialty lettering brushes that were sold to us by a traveling brush salesman. He literally came to the sign shops and had a sales kit filled with beautiful hand-tied red-sable brushes. Signwriter brushes are different than ordinary paint brushes. They have certain shapes and sizes that allowed you to be the most economical with your strokes when lettering certain fonts. Why take three or four strokes to make a single character when you could do it in one or two? This could only be done with specific brushes. Now all sign shops have computers and generate nearly everything with large-format printers. We used to say that a budding young artist was good with a pen and pencil, or had talent with a brush. Now we ask what programs they are familiar with.

Is it the end of art? Did the computer world quash all of our individual talents? I can say that is certainly not true for everybody. There are definitely pros and cons for the old painted sign versus the modern computer generated signs, but the bottom line is this: if you have no artistic talent, you are not going to do either one very well. I think the computer has removed an entire generation's capability of using their hands creatively, and I am sad to see that disappear.A person who calls himself an artist because he knows the right keyboard strokes to create a flawless fade from blue to white in the background is sadly mistaken. If he can do the same thing with real paints and a real paintbrush, he has earned the right to call himself an artist.

Is it the end of art? What are the reasons that my class cannot come up with important artists contemporary to their lifetime? Do we have the next generation of America's artists sitting in the classroom next to me? I hope so. I would dearly love to say I was in a classroom with (insert future famous artist name here) and remember clear as a bell when they talked about (insert controversial artistic stand here).

This makes me want to shout from tree-stumps. This cannot be the end of art. It just can't be. Civilization cannot survive without it.