THERE'S ART AND THEN THERE'S ART >>>

There's art, and there's A-R-T art with capital letters. Or maybe I should say there's art and there's an art. How many times have you heard someone says cooking is an art or fly tying is an art or there's an art to ... I don't know, tying your shoes?

So what's the difference? There's an art to anything that's done well, with style, panache or fine craftsmanship. So what sets the anything-done-well apart from big-letter art of the kind to be found in museums and concert halls? Surely there must be something that distinguishes the greatness of Michelangelo and Titian and Picasso from a guy who makes cool ceramic ashtrays - and there is. But that something can be amorphous and hard to define. Maybe the difference is that art of the kind we find in museums is transformative in some way. Viewing it can be like a religious experience. Or, like falling in love. It knocks you on your ass and makes you sit up and pay attention. It may make you marvel or make you weep, and it may change your life. Or it at least aspires to something like that. You can admire the skill of the fellow who ties flies or rebuilds old cars into something that at least looks a lot like art (OK, I admit that when it comes to auto restoration the distinction becomes blurry because some of those are real knockouts) but still, I think you get the difference; there is something greater about art.

When applied to visual art the distinguishing characteristics may have to do with color and composition and texture or with inventiveness or profundity of meaning - usually a combination of all of those things.

I started thinking about this before going to the opening of the Out of the Silence exhibition in the lobby of the old Olympian Hotel/Urban Onion in downtown Olympia (see my review in the Volcano Feb. 7). I confess to going to that show with preconceived expectations. It is a show of calligraphic art, and to my sometimes-elitist way of thinking calligraphy isn't a real art. It's more of a craft. It's pretty lettering. It takes amazing skill to do it beautifully, but calligraphy is not art.

I humbly state that this exhibition has made me re-evaluate my notions about what is and isn't art. The theme of the show is anti-gay bullying. It's in many ways the fine arts equivalent of Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project. Calligraphy artists from across the country have made works celebrating diversity and quoting everyone from Harvey Milk to Martin Luther King Jr. to a gay kid who left behind a poignant note when he committed suicide. This brings up what I said earlier about the profundity of art. In this case the profundity is not in the art but in the chosen quotes, so it's the greatness of MLK's words more so than the greatness of the artist displaying his words in the guise of visual art.

The quality of the art in this show - not every piece but certainly the overall look - is right up there with capital letter A-R-T art.

Interestingly, when I asked the show curator for photographs of particular works she said the works I chose were not, strictly speaking, calligraphy, and I responded that might be why I chose the particular ones I chose - which means that some of us may never agree about what is art and what isn't. I encourage readers to see this show and make up their own minds.

LINK: Alec Clayton's Visual Edge column