I've been reading the Future of Vermont website "5 Questions" section, and here's my worry: the Busch Beer swillin' NASCAR watchin' Confederate Flag wavin' population is just _not_ being reached.
Being a good dirt-eating elitist myself (who actually kinda likes NASCAR so long as I don't think about that devouring non-renewable natural resources for the hell of it part), it just gives me a kind of foreboding that we're not really 100% consistent with reality when everybody who posts seems to agree that what we want is to "make sure VT doesn't become another generic place with big box chain stores" (to just grab one quote virtually at random).
Well, as vexing and pea-brained as I find it, there's a not-inconsiderable slice of the population that would very much like to see (oh, say) a lot more big box chain stores. And so us, Agents of Change that we are ('Agents of Chang' -which is what I initially typed- sounds like a Chinese spy movie) are we to make visual depictions of only what WE want to see be the future of Vermont?
I mean.... look at the picture above (from the "Future of Vermont" website). These people supposedly were at the Bennington CFV mereting. Do you think that guy just said, "What Vermont really needs is a whole lot more Wal-Marts"? It's _possible_, I guess, but I kinda doubt it (oooh! But if he did, do you think the woman next to him thinks he's just great or does she want to whack him upside the head? If you really stare at her you can get her motivation to seem to go either way).
Right now, being a literal sort, I'm working on the idea of depicting 'things as they are' with a person or symbol juxtaposed representing 'things as they might be' (being primarily a painter of drippy monochromatic depictions of rotting infrastructure, this is not so easy). My ongoing subtext, I realize, is that I'm thinking "'things as they are' = things I don't really approve of and 'things as they might be' = things I'D like to see. I don't WANT to do a painting of things other people might want to see that are not things I want to see. I mean, I'm working on a sketch painting (I'll show it next blog, perhaps) of a vast shopping-center parking lot with a person (ok, me, but I was the only one around I could get to pose) holding up an image of a lovely organic-type garden (ok, my mom's garden, but hey).
But there are plenty of Vermont residents out there whose 'things I'd like to see' would show someone standing in front of a cornfield with a nice big picture of a Walgreens. But they're not usually art majors, are they? So, yeah, looking over the GUIDELINES for FINALIST PRESENTATIONS, it doesn't say we have to be democratic (small 'd', the cap D is implied, ha ha), but merely that our work must "address one or more issue, challenge or vision specific to the state of Vermont identified by the work of the CFV."
Well, thank goodness for that. That's the kind of Chang we can believe in.
5 comments:
Beautiful comments C. One would have to be a real foo not to love your sense of humor. the point of painting what IS here equals "things I don't really approve of" is worthwhile too- i have also played with that for a while. now i like the idea of painting what's here cause its actually nice to look at, especially infrastructure like pylons down a mountain slope, or cell towers in downtown. Only some real traditionalists think that stuff is ugly. Also, the notion of painting the other side's pov is REAL interesting I think... I tried that once with some Take Back Vermont paintings... but they felt demeaning, not sympathetic.
curtis
So many say they are itching for change, but only a few I Ching for Chang. Just let's don't go the way of Beijing and Mumbai, and have to now start spelling it Mumpeelyur for cartography's sake.
yeah.... right about the time you were posting I was reading some of the responses on the cd.....specifically my "local" ones....struck by the marked contrast between group 1: VT STUDIO CENTER and group 2: HYDE PARK VFW.......
I think I actually saw that couple down at the DEVIL'S BOWL SPEEDWAY in ORWELL last summer, remember: you can judge a book, but.........
You touch on one of the (many) dillemas of the whole vision project: the "storybook" version of Vt and the gritty grit version which includes the NASCAR group who want lower walmart prices and don't care about what an artist might think. Curtis points out some overlaps, but I think he's right about wondering whether it is patronizing to address the "other side" and what they want, are feeling... The whole 'us and them' thing is pretty sticky.
Charlie --
You give me tears of howling laughter or abject misery. Think we need to increase the "a beer" to a case. I figured this whole project was to get another point of view on Vermont. After all, who ever asks artists what they think about anything besides art? I intend to live up to the question as best I possibly can. And, it sure ain't easy. Until just a few days ago, I've been so beset by conflicts that I was immobile. Massive brain cramp and no aspirin in sight. Time has kicked me in the ass and I'm moving on.
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