Monday, October 06, 2008

Frome (rhymes with broom)


Here's an older and larger Reuben, and also here are his two brothers interactively enjoying some art, with the artist, at a gallery in Frome, a town in beautiful and wet Somerset.


I think there's too much art these days, and I cant work out whether the credit crunch will cause there to be less (because people have less money for fripperies) or more (because people will lose their jobs and have more time for fripperies). Time will tell.

11 comments:

gretta at lothlorien said...

Yes. We would once have called that "art" a big mobile. But the boys seem to love it. Love

Megs said...

but fripperies are so much FUN!
'her' is very pleased to see her 3 lovely nephews, and wishes them all LOTS of love!!
(and Tom, it's your turn in chess. you are very good - i enjoy playing!!)

Kathryn said...

lovely lovely boys :)

I can't believe the change in Seb since I left! he's so big and stocky - a real little boy now, and no longer a baby :)

Reuben is absolutely gorgeous, dear little boy :)

xx

Anonymous said...

megan, do u recognise the top seb is wearing?

David said...

Reuben looks a very healthy little chap! (This is my first comment in my own right. I'm winning on this blogging thing)

Jenny said...

Thanks for your help Tom!!

Rachel J-L said...

Oh, Reuben is beautiful! I so wish I could give him a cuddle!

I didn't like your "too much art" comment, but then I looked at the picture and I can see your point. It all gets a bit silly, doesn't it? Certainly Chiang Mai is full of 'art galleries' but I've seen very little that I'd happily call art.

love to you all,
Rachel

baker st jones said...

The problem, I think, is one of inflation. "Art and Crafts" is a useful distinction, and for most of this stuff such as what is pictured here, "Craft" would be a more honest title. But a bit of self importance and we're all non-representational artists, making big mobiles to symbolise the oppression of the working classes or the third world or whatever.

Rachel J-L said...

Yes, I think you're right. Although I think crafts are generally more useful than this mobile looks to be. That was one of the guiding principles of the Arts and Crafts movement, I think. Things should be both beautiful and useful.
I've been thinking some more about the effects of the credit crunch on art and hoping they are good. Truly good art surely becomes a sensible long-term investment in such times. But 'art' that people buy just because they've got money to spend becomes less sellable. I hope.

baker st jones said...

Yesterday's Independent had an article by Christian Patterson on the hubris of modern art, she says "If our art bubble, like our banking bubble, gives way to something else, then I hope it's to this: to artists who have the humility to acknowledge that they're working in a tradition in which everything has been said before, and probably better, but that it's always worth trying because you are a particular person in a particular culture at a particular point in history. I hope, in other words, that our artists will have something to say and the talent to say it."

Article is at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/christina-patterson/christina-patterson-art-for-arts-sake-when-the-bubble-bursts-957901.html

Rachel J-L said...

I listened to a talk by Eugene Peterson yesterday and he says about art that true art is always local. It always belongs in a specific context and for a specific audience. Every now and then comes an artist who is able to speak to us all, and these are the greats - the Rembrandts and Mozarts. But these are rare.
His point is that we should all feel we can be artists, but not that we should expect our art to be viewed beyond the context it was created for.

Interesting how it keeps cropping up once you're thinking about it!