Can anyone tell me what art is?

This is a piece I made several years ago.

It's currently in a show at the Las Vegas City Hall Grand Gallery.

Sounds fancy no?

I had to name it for the show because ART has a name.

I call it "Pin-up Girl".

It's hung on a little nail on the wall in my house for years.

I whipped up the stand for the show because it had to sit on a pedestal.

Can it be classified as "fine art"?  

I have no idea.

     I feel like I'm a little off my game this month.  I guess it's because I'm annoyed which has distracted me.  I've been approached five (I'm going to be specific about this) times in the last week by people asking me to show my work.  I don't mind showing my work.  What annoys me is that all the people who approached me want to show "fine art".  It's not the people who have gotten under my skin. They are all lovely and generous people.  It's the idea.  I find the idea of ART a confusing trap.  What is art?  My evolving definition is, art is any work that makes a deliberate statement about the human condition. This isn't necessarily a universal definition. What is fine art?  I have no idea.  Why would what I do in any way qualify as fine art or not?  Again, I have no idea.  This is what comes of fuzzy definitions and marketing constructs.  

This is wall decor.  ???  Not mine

     Here's the thing.  For millennia people just made stuff.  They painted on cave walls, and made pots, and carved weapons from stone, and fashioned pelts into garments, and all the rest.  It was just part of what made us human.  Deep down, or for some of us right on the surface, we still have that drive to make stuff.  There are always needs to be met.  I wonder when we allowed ourselves to be separated from this basic human drive.  Also, why we value some forms of creativity more than others.


     A few years ago the musician Patti Smith wrote a book called "Just Kids".  In it she talks about her friendship  with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and being a young artist in New York.  My take from the book is that Patti is driven to create not by the need to create, or the desire to be an artist, but because she isn't capable of not creating.  She is fully in touch with the thing that makes her human.  She cannot live without creating.  This is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but it's a sentiment that I can fully relate to.  I feel adrift if I am not engaged in making things.  

     So?  Is it art?

     It's stuff and I am constantly working on my craft.  I am always challenging myself to do what I do better.  But just using the word craft reduces the value of my work.  Somehow in the 19th century, after the patronage system fell apart and ART was created as a marketing ploy, craft took a huge hit.  So now people who have not mastered a craft can be artists.  Yes, this is pissy of me.  I don't resent people who throw spit wads at plywood and call it art.  It may be art for all I know.  I just think that those of us who make functional things should get more respect.  Because I'm starting to think "fine art" means it can't have a function and it needs a way to have value.  And maybe that is why I am annoyed.  

Picasso.  I would hang it on my wall.

     Artists will often tell you that it's not about the money, but the whole idea of ART is designed to give financial value to work that has no intrinsic value.  This is fine with me.  I do think that many of those things that we see as art are important.  It is a way to communicate ideas, especially unpopular ideas.  However, much of what is called fine art is just pretty decor. It makes no statement,  deliberate or accidental,  about the human condition and often requires little skill. It's something that fills a space on the wall or in a niche.  It sells because most people don't want something in their home that never shuts up.  Something that constantly nags at them.  We want a peaceful environment.  I get that, but there seems to be an odd disconnect in these definitions.  And yes, this is about the money.  In a capitalist society, money equals respect.   Again back to why I'm annoyed.  I don't understand why someone who has little skill but makes colorful decor and calls it fine art gets more respect than someone who is highly skilled and makes useful objects that may or may not be called art.  Artisans need better marketers.  

Not Picasso.  I would not hang this on my wall, but ?????

     Anyway, now I either have to tell the nice people no or I have to decide which of the things I make constitute "fine art".  In any case, I need to let go of being annoyed.  I can't change the world.  Plus, it probably doesn't want to change and we all know how that usually works out.   My hunch is that I will just not show.  The fine art designation is too confusing for me.

Detail of one of my pieces.  It's a mirror.  Is it art  ?????

     Maybe if I whine long enough and loud enough someone will tell me that they want to show things made of metal where the metal has been moved by hammers and chisels.  I could do that show.  

Time to stop whining and get back to work.  
 j