Mailbag

On this page, I'll share some of the comments I've received via e-mail. Where appropriate, I'll include a link to the original log entry or essay that inspired the comment. In some cases, I may also respond to the comments.

So... write me...

use pam-at-blehert-dot-com. If your name is not in my address book, make sure that the address line clearly specifies why you are writing. Your message will go to my "Suspect Spam" folder until I allow entry to mailbox. Complicated, I know, but...

Comment on "communication"

I couldn't agree more - communication is a continuum, and the high end of it

is being completely in communication to the point where you ARE the other

person for a time while you absorb what is being said. Then you're yourself

again while you respond. Or you ARE the other person while you are figuring

what to say, what to paint, what to write, so that your thought is received

exactly as intended.

The quality of the communication is a big part of that. In writing, such

things as grammar mistakes or failing to finish a thought might cut down

that quality of communication from the optimum that it could be. In

painting, sculpture, music - the quality alone can raise a piece from

mediocrity of concept up to a very high level indeed. Like the "Pieta" --

it's just a woman holding a man's body. But the quality with which it is

rendered puts it on a plane of expression rarely equalled.

At the top of things, you feel completely in tune, alive, and duplicated.

At the bottom, you feel utterly alone, dead, and unappreciated.

Jerй Matlock

A comment on your note of 18 Feb.:

That our communications affect the world seems clear. What's not so obvious,

though valid, I think, is that our ABILITY to communicate affects the world,

whether or not we communicate. (That's sort of like saying that the ability

to communicate communicates.) This is not an argument for dropping out of

the artist game, since the act of communicating helps us develop the ability

to communicate. It's just an observation: If I'm there, and I communicate, I

create an effect. But just my being there and being ABLE to communicate at a

high level has a positive effect. After all, communication involves the

ability to be there and confront what's there. What I can confront easily

ceases to be a problem for me, and if I can confront it fully enough (and

here's the part that's not so intuitive), it ceases to be a problem for

others.

Dean

Your comment that art teachers are not critics but are facilitators is incredibly important. I would love to see that viewpoint get out to more art teachers and schools. The ability of a teacher to quash a reach for art, is incredible. Yet that is not their intention, I'm sure.

Thanks for your continuing blog and educational tidbits.
Sylvia, 2/14/04

Response from jmblog.com, Feb 14, 2004

I think most of us are artists.

Or criminals. Or malcontents and dissidents. Or were simply in the wrong

place at the wrong time and got dumped here with everybody else.

One thing you can always do is organize artists and dissidents to be in the

wrong place at the wrong time...

We have been cut down and hammered about being artists or revolutionaries --

and continue to be by all the experts.

It's a wonder anyone was left who could speak up to answer your question, to

raise a hand.

But it's nigh-on to impossibly hard to kill a spirit, as many have found out

back on the track. And it can't be done at all without their agreement...


	True art always elicits a contribution from those who view or hear or experience it. L Ron Hubbard, Art Series 5