Something from a last-month New York mag article caught my imagination whilst waiting for some image files to load, an article entitled Has Money Ruined Art? by Jerry Saltz.
It's about how market, prices, sizes, egos are becoming mega-dollar-signed grand.
It's well-known that collectors and curators descend upon thesis show openings (perhaps not with checkbooks but with mental checklists of what might be a possible viable art career via a few works that are the culmination of 2 or so years - one hopes - of sweat, fret, and tears) to seek out the Next Big Art Stars.
In this article Saltz writes that the M.F.A. has become the new M.B.A. - one's possible ticket to big earnings; and the spendiest collectors vie for a spot in the tomes of art history.
Thoughts naturally meander towards the past Parsons situ, beginning in '02 (after the fateful Mardi Gras notification via email from famed and favoured JR) and trailed along its scheduled path to August of '05 - a complicated decision to go and a complicated decision to stay.
Ultimately, the decision for acquiring the M.F.A. was (and perhaps should always be) a gift to self, to have time to mull in the whys of the practice, to read theory and history and just basically line the photo basket with Ideas. And to push the art/aesthetic comfort zone into something different - new people, places, tools.
Change, teaching, connections, contacts are the goals.
Committed to giving a piece to CEPA for their upcoming Biennial Auction, which YT always considers an honor to be asked and participate.
Always make something new for this event.
Speaking of new, art, event have yet to fetch the small framed drawing from the Hallwalls Members' Show.
Months ago.
Several Middling City people have said that tomorrow the first flakes may fly here.
There are still leaves on trees, not all yet yellowed, reddened, and fallen.
Kennedy and I wrapped a few gardenly items with burlap and I could not help but think of Marion Faller's (a toppermost undergrad hero/mentor/influence) documentation of wrapped flora. As I said to Kennedy, This is not an exact science. At least not in the hearsay-strewn, inexact Book of Science of Yours Truly.

Inexact, wind-strewn Love.