C and I were just in California for the 100th year celebration for CCAC, now CCA.
CCAC used to stand for California College of Arts and Crafts. A few years ago the powers that were changed the name to the very generic and bland CCA, for California College of the Arts. Several people at the celebration had buttons created by the print-maker Jack Ford, that read, "Conceptual Crap and Art." Seemed fitting.
I really miss "Craft" in the name. Craft is so dang right and cool, not only the 70's macramé and scrap booking (all that is great too!) but the notion of craft, doing a skill so well it becomes art. The question remains, can graphic design, architecture, art education be a "craft?" Of course. All of it can be art as well. Dialog about a teapot or a blown glass vase can be just as valuable, deep and riveting, as that of a sky scrapper, or logo design or painting.
Them is fighting words ... to put that in writing makes artistes defensive and craft people repulsed. Don't compare my teapot with some lousy logo... Don't compare my use of clay with your use of steel or that %!™&#*¡?* computer! All the elements are the same though! Line, contrast, content, composition, materials, intent, use, location, climax, value, color, flow, the list goes on and on, happily. Embrace it all -- and GET TO WORK!
The place
(CCAC's Treadwell Hall, the ceramics building, especially) is still so inspiring to me. Someday (strike up the soaring violins and moving cellos) I'd love to work/teach there, simply be more involved. Or ideally, create that environment in my family life, it is serious and committed while also being progressive and light.
The above art that I discovered in a bathroom at CCAC is an example of that last statement. :)
Wouldn't you just love to see this artistic combo at a bathroom at BYU? Within a day it would be sanitized, treated as vandalism. What a shame.
The contrasts between BYU and CCAC were staggering to me. One school (CCAC) celebrates and encourages creativity through any outlet necessary and the other tries to teach creativity through obedience to all sorts of ideas, religion, leaders, famous dead artists' rules, to craft. How ironic that CCAC had craft in the name and now doesn't celebrate craft and BYU was supposed to be spiritually based and had no spirit.
Really K? I Don't think this is uncalled for, but if does give me a lot of grief. I hope the following is read as thoughtful and balanced:
I love you, KtG, but I feel that Palin, McCain & Co. are wrecking our country and causing big divisions, were there were none before, in Families -- more than anything Obama ever has done or could do. She is divisive and mean spirited. She is using her children in politics. (About Bristol: Obama's mother was unmarried, pregnant and 18. HE has made a point of this and is not casting stones.) As for that nasty liberal media? Hmmm. They don't seem very liberal to me... even the most liberal papers/sites are gushing over Palin. Blog comments (recklessly) put her at the head of the ticket. Talk about celebrity, she eclipses Obama's star... meanwhile her family could star in it's own reality TV show.
Can we talk about a title wave? How about a tsunami of hysteria and hate? I really do not understand this. Hate towards anyone against her/their point of view and also hatred of her. I wonder if all this hasn't been trumped up to divert attention from the news of the day, which is grim for America and the world. Record high unemployment, the mortgage crisis, the record rate of the glaciers melting in Europe, and where is that mean ol'Osama bin Laden anyway ... The republicans have been in charge for the last 8 years, only the last two have the dems have a marginal majority, which is meaningless with Bush/Cheney in the White House.
Many of the things quoted [in the oft quoted email] are fear-mongering falsehoods. They are originally from an email written by a man named William Brown, an unknown entity. I have received it a few times before too. For example, about Senator Obama willingness to meet with foes, he referenced the beloved Ronald Regan and JFK who constantly spoke to the Soviet Union. Other items I'm not clear on. Many things are taken out of context, by both sides of the media. Check out snopes.com or http://www.factcheck.org/ ("a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics").
I'm truly sorry that you feel that any one who supports anyone other than McCain/Palin lacks morals.
On a lighter note: S might be old enough to go to Homecoming, which is crazy... but not so crazy to go in a duct tape dress!