Hi Warren, Thanks. She is 18'' long and 10'' tall. The horse was a labor of love, but the driver was miserable. Trying to get the head detail with a MIG on something that small was not fun!!!!Lin

Hey Lin I think you got a lot of detail using a MIG. I still have problems even getting the dang wire to poke where I want it. For better control I use an O/A torch. Surprising what you can do with one of those by moving the molten puddle around.

www Metalrecipes -- heat and beat to the desired shape, repeat as necessary.
warren

Hi Jamie, Thanks. It makes sense. I started by making an outline with 1/8'' rod and making what amounts to a skeleton. I covered that with 20 ga. mild steel and started building up texture with the MIG. If you go to my web site, I have some pictures of the sequence while I made Blue Heron. It is a wall piece, but the depth was built up the same way. Lin

Thanks, Chuck. Yes, the base is made from 3 horseshoes. It was just dumb luck that the size worked out perfectly. Lin

Hi, Paula, I didn't keep track of time but is was alot. I think I finished the piece in a couple of weeks but I wasn't working on it full time. I wasn't happy with the driver so I ended up decapitating her 3 times until I got her where I was happy with the dimensions. My driving instructor also pointed out that the driver's apron was to short and the arms were too straight so I had to change those things. Not that I am anal or anything! Lin

It's great that you wanted to make sure that you were happy with the piece. Keep it coming!
Paula
Guthrie, MN

Thanks, Wild Bill, she was a labor of love. I did her from a photo of my driving mare. Lin

I'm not sure I see that there needs t be any distinction between the two labels, Chuck. Picasso welds a set of handlebars to a tricycle seat and it's art. Andy Warhol paints a soup can and it's art. Jackson Pollock horks up paint on a canvas and it's art. Michelangelo Buonarotti spends a long time on his back doing a commissioned mural on a ceiling and it's art. Toulouse Lautrec does posters for strippers and they're art. The list goes on...

This question crops up periodically and never gets resolved, primarily, I think, because people get too caught up in labels and definitions and lose sight of the motivation and the the results. Art, like beauty, seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

Which do you think it is?

Rich

Rich,

I spent the past 40 years in the computer industry. I have degrees in engineering, not art. Now that I am nearing retirement I am devoting time to studying art -- something I set aside 40 years ago. I'm trying to learn what art is.

A high school classmate of mine owns a gallery and she has been an artist for 45 years. She tells me that much of what I make would be considered craft, and that some of my work might be considered high craft.

Both my daughters and a son-in-law have art degrees. They critique my work with phrases about line, shape, texture, color, and composition -- concepts I'm learning about. They think that some of my work is art and some is not.

My friend who owns the gallery says pretty much what you say about debating what might be considered art in that it is a long-standing debate. But with her art education and decades of experience she can look at something and render a quick opinion as to whether it is art.

It seems to me that the opinion of "the eyes of the beholder" as to what is art definitely depends upon the beholder's knowledge of principles of art. That's what I'm trying to understand.

I think that there might be a thin line between high craft and art, but that high craft isn't lesser that art.

I think that Driving Miss JJ might be in that fine line between high craft and art.

Chuck

It always seems that the educated in art express themselves as knowing what art is. While the general public or the rest of the folks in the world know what they like as art. The two never agree but who buys the art and why do they buy? Because they know nothing about art, but they know what they like. Categorizing is only done by those who think they know. To me it does not matter.

All of the stuff about lines etc, etc, etc, is what they teach (why and how did someone come up with all of the crap and why they still teach out dated thoughts) but the heart is where art is created.

www Metalrecipes -- heat and beat to the desired shape, repeat as necessary.
warren

Chuck,

I understand your situation, I think. You're treading in an area where there is more opinion than fact and more feeling than reason. As I noted previously, this question comes up periodically and is never resolved. Hasn't been in centuries, as far as I know. To really resolve the question would pretty much require the existence of a clearly defined "universal aesthetic." We're human beings though, so absolutes just don't apply well, do they? Leaves us muddling along, I guess.

I have a Bachelor's of Fine Art but, while it may have brought me some knowledge of art, it didn't bring me to a state of grace where I'd feel comfortable pontificating on the subject or pronouncing a piece as "not art." Simply because have a bit of education doesn't make my opinion more valid than yours, I don't think.

I like Lin's piece. I can see in it areas where he really excelled and other spots where seems to have struggled. Does the presence of struggle indicate the pursuit of Art? I think maybe it does, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Keep on asking yourself the question. Keep on working to derive an answer through your work. That seems to be what most of those I consider to be "artists" do. They seek. It may be more about the process of getting there than the destination itself. If you ever discover the secret, let me know - I'm still asking and seeking. :-)

Rich

I don't think that is a question that can be answered absoutely. When I think of craft, I think of things that can be duplicated. Driving Miss JJ could not be. Do things have to be abstract to be art? I did this from a photo for reference, like many landscape artists do with paintings. Does that make the landscapes less art? Is it a question that really needs answering? Lin

Lin, I always liked this piece, but what do I know. I do not have an art degree, but through the years I have taken enough classes that I would be pretty close. Shame, all of those classes because most were doing the craft of making art, yeah I had the theory ones too and way too many books to read. Craft is the process to make the art. If you can not execute your craft you can not make art. (IE - Craftsman type = potters, painters, welders, hammers, metalshapers, blowers or what ever.)
It like engineering they call janitors Custodial Engineers, titles mean nothing.

www Metalrecipes -- heat and beat to the desired shape, repeat as necessary.
warren

"Craft is the process to make the art."

I like that, Warren. That may be as good a distinction as ever needs to be made.

Rich