| By ann on Monday, October 11, 1999 - 06:24 pm: Edit |
craft-1. a special skill, art, or dexterity
2. an occupation requiring special skill; esp.,any of the manual arts
I like George's response about the lithographs and prints also. I will also concede on the following conditions.
1. all restaurants are theatre.
2. if there is art in the food of a restaurant it is a reproduction of the original work.
3. mothers and fathers who are good cooks are artists.
4. cheesemaking is an art.
I am not playing devils advocate!!!!!!!
| By Gord (Gord) on Monday, October 11, 1999 - 11:33 pm: Edit |
Ann,
Webster's New Ideal Dictionary (1978) includes the following definitions
ART: 2. "an occupation that requires a natural skill in addition to training and practice" and 6. "the works produced by artists".
CRAFT: 2. "an occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity or artistic skill"
ARTIST: 2. "a person showing unusual ability in an occupation requiring skill".
To be a craftsman you must have the dexterity and artistic ability. The be an artist you must have an unusual ability beyond your craft. The problem here is in recognizing that there are chefs out there who are truly gifted at what they do. They are artists by definition and perception. They must, therefore, produce art. Just because someone else can follow the recipe doesn't mean the original creation wasn't art, nor that the creator wasn't an artist. The difference here between cooking and the classic arts is the longevity of the work produced.
If Bateman produces 50 originals of that damned "lone wolf" is each one a work of art? Sure; he's an artist. If W.Debord creates a new pastry wonder and starts a whole new dessert genre, is she an artist? How could anyone say no?
| By W.DeBord on Tuesday, October 12, 1999 - 09:45 am: Edit |
Gord really well writen and explained, you have clarified what I've been trying to say with too many words.
Ann #3 no way! It may be magic for the child but it can't be classified as art unless the parents are artists.
Singleing out cheesemaking is just a way to debate over who we should give the tittle of artisian to. It's not the field a person works in that tittles their work to be art. It's the person who has an unusual abiltiy beyond craft that brings their work into an artistic level.
| By Gord (Gord) on Tuesday, October 12, 1999 - 10:32 am: Edit |
W.DeBord,
Thanks. Personally I feel there are artists out there in almost any field of endeavour. There are some "artists" who should just go get a day job. Hope you don't mind me using your name in vain in my example.
Gord
| By ann on Tuesday, October 12, 1999 - 01:13 pm: Edit |
...and for some cooking is a day job.
Gord- You have summed up what I feel. There are artists out there in almost any field of endeavour. But some how we are on opposite sides of the issue. I whole heartedly believe there is art in cooking! I don't believe I have stated otherwise. Teaching, waiting tables, engeneering, farming, computer programing-- it all can be art, has the potential for artistic expression. Art is in the soul of every human being. The best way I can describe it is that I don't think that cooks should ever be able to petition the NEA for grants. It is a different kind of art. All restaurants are businesses all chefs are paid employees (whether they own the joint or not).
| By Gord (Gord) on Tuesday, October 12, 1999 - 01:51 pm: Edit |
Ann,
Touche on the "day job" comment. It seems to me though that the classic arts (music, sculpture, painting) were sponsored by patrons. The artists supplemented their incomes by providing lessons, selling their work and public performances. They were, in effect, entreprenuers and in some cases paid employees. At some point government became involved and by providing funding for certain arts very narrowly defined what art, or an artist, is.
But, were those artists fundamentally different from the chef who cranks out meal after meal and in his/her spare time (or upon special request) creates a masterpiece?
| By Chefk (Chefk) on Wednesday, October 13, 1999 - 01:50 am: Edit |
I don't know about you guys, but I cook professionally because I love it. How much of your day, though, do you spent being an 'artist' and how much of it do you spend cleaning the cooler, putting out fires (metaphorically speaking, of course), doing inventory and doing very basic prep? The beauty of the job is that it is never the same thing and yes, there are truly transcendent moments every day that you create something that you are proud of, and it feels good. I enjoy that feeling much more than I would the official title of 'artist'.
| By W.DeBord on Thursday, October 14, 1999 - 09:07 am: Edit |
I will never understand how they make their choices for who they give grants to. I will say that I never met a classic artist who recieved it. Free money seems to only go to the most bizzare fringe artists. Ann are your telling us that chefs are receiving grants for the arts?
The phrase starving artist didn't appear out of the thin air. It's a hard, hard way to pay your bills. I gave it up for that reason. There's so much behind the scenes garbage and politics the art buying public doesn't have a clue about. Grants are lovely but I think they miss lead the young artist that they have talent and can make it. Sometimes the best help is to not lend a helping hand. Reality sets in quicker.
As for chefs recieving grants is it any different then the chef who takes food or equipment home from the job? Everyone is looking for free items, no one thinks they are paid enough for the work they do. Our society is based on the person with the most toys in the end wins the game of life.
| By Ann on Thursday, October 14, 1999 - 04:58 pm: Edit |
I am NOT saying that chefs are currently recieveing grants. I meant they should never (in the future) recieve grants. Apologies if that was unclear. Food is a business. I probably have a romantic view of what "art" is but it seems to be less of a business even though it is surrounded by business.
This is slightly off the point, but, those of you who have experienced food as art, how much was that meal? The higher up on the food to art scale I went, the higher in price it got. I would walk outside and see that Rolls Royce and Mercedees had come to dinner. Food as art does not seem easily shared. Does this bother anyone else?
| By Gord (Gord) on Thursday, October 14, 1999 - 05:44 pm: Edit |
Ann,
I suspect that that had less to do with food as art and more food as pretention. When art (classic) is pretentious, it too tends to come with a high price tag. Not necessarily because it was so great, but because of who did it or the crowd it was intended to impress (how much did Warhol's Campbell soup can go for?).
Gord
| By ann on Thursday, October 14, 1999 - 11:33 pm: Edit |
How much does it cost to go to an art museum?
The Art Institute in Chicago is free on tuesdays.
My question about the cost of an art meal was not retorical. I really want to know. My one and only "art meal" (before I became jaded and cynical) was $120 and that is not includeing all the stuff that was comped.
| By Gord (Gord) on Friday, October 15, 1999 - 12:51 am: Edit |
Ann,
I hope you didn't think I meant you were pretentious. I didn't. But there are people who are willing to pay a lot of money for the perception of exclusivity, even if what they get is junk..
With the museum, that art still had to be purchased, probably for a fabulous sum if it's considered "important", or the work is donated by a foundation who likewise had to pay for it. Fortunately, they choose to let us poor folks view select accessible pieces.
The problem here is still the longevity of the medium. Perhaps it would help to think of the chef as a "performance artist" - each piece of art they produce lasts only as long as the performance, all its grandeur and subtlety lost forever as that performance closes (pretty poetic, huh?). Again, though, I'm sure there are people who regularly pay a lot of money for "food art" who are actually getting the product of a skilled craftsman. They will pay the price and call it art because of the environment.
Gord
| By ann on Friday, October 15, 1999 - 02:48 am: Edit |
Gord-
You are killing me, W.DeBord is killing me too (figuratively of course). I feel as if we have the same emotions about cooking but we call it different things. I know that WCR (women chefs and restauranters {sp?}) do a lot of community work, which is cool, but it is never the sharing of art that museums acheive...I feel the same way about performance art...funny, I don't feel that way about theatre (maybe because theatre reaches out through community programs that are in the medium of theatre)...cooking is too temporary to share as art but easily shared as craft. Perhaps that is my hangup. Or it might be that cooking with love (my mother's all day tomato sauce, breakfast cooked by a lover) has the same impact as a meal by a chef that has magic in touching food. Sorry for stream of conciousness (a few beers).
| By Gord (Gord) on Friday, October 15, 1999 - 10:06 am: Edit |
Ann,
I have to mess with you just one more time. Ten or more years ago I was at Ganville Island, Vancouver's self-proclaimed "art central". A gallery there had studios for rent and clients could watch the artists at work. That particular day there was an artist making teapots. They were black, 14-cup pots with standard handles and spouts. There were a number of them, all identical. They were available in the gallery for something like $55-65.00 each. He even had the gall to sign each one. This identical teapot is available in Wal-Mart for about $10.00 and are signed "Made in Taiwan". I don't consider the "artist's" work art as it was not an original design or concept.
Several centuries ago, General Sun Tze published his work, The Art of War. When you read it you can tell he had an insight (a spirituality, or vision) AND the technical skills to produce a masterful execution (pardon the pun [or is that pardon the hun?]) of that vision. He even called it an art.
Perhaps that should be part of the definition of art. The masterful presentation or execution of one's unique vision into a particular thing.
Gord
| By ann on Friday, October 15, 1999 - 03:07 pm: Edit |
Now that we have conclusively declared that "artists" don't always create art and "non-artists" can sometimes create art. The Art of War reference is a good one, but I still am not going to call chefs or Hitler, or Washington or General Sun Tze artists. ;)
| By W.DeBord on Monday, October 18, 1999 - 10:29 am: Edit |
Gord is this then limiting the artist to one original?
I think I understand your closing statements but I can't relate them to your earlier remarks about the teapots.
Gord who designed that teapot first??? Many artists are forced to repeat the same concept in order to make a profit from it. If an artist was limited to never revisiting a design it would drive up the costs of art to prices only the extremely wealthly could touch. When a item is completely hand made by the artist even though you may not see differences in one piece to the next, each one is a original.
I've sold my work to large retailers, they are selling a reproduction I've sold them. I can revisited that item and made more originals of the same. I own the copy right to the image and can reproduce prints or make originals paintings of the same image.
Each one I (the artist)make is an original!!! The line is crossed everyday by artists stuggling to make a buck.
P.S. Many countries don't respect copy right law.
| By Gord (Gord) on Monday, October 18, 1999 - 02:44 pm: Edit |
Dang it W.!
I thought after Ann's last rebuttal to me I could quietly slide out of this one. Okay, here goes.
I don't consider something to be art if it is a "me too" IMITATION of the original, by someone other than the originator, with no unique artistic application to it. A while ago, someone came up with the idea of using busted clock pieces and small bits of plastic junk to make a sculpture thing (kind of). Not to my taste but original, I guess. Suddenly a whole bunch of "artists" copy-catted this. Without even any really distinguishing differences. The originator was the artist and every unique one they do subsequently is an offspring, extension or evolution of the original. If they make exact duplicates of the original, I guess I would call that craftsmanship. And they have the right to do so. Anyone who copies it and calls it "original art" is making imitations, not art.
If the retailers who bought your work (paint?) then hired a person to reproduce them or something very much like them, could you consider that person an artist or their work art? If you have created a genre and other artists are inspired to create their own original works within that genre, then I guess they would be artists. I guess I see it as inspiration, vision, originality and ability. Remove any of these ingredients from the recipe ( I cunningly bring it back to the culinary world) and it isn't quite art.
Backlash anyone?
Gord
| By Gord (Gord) on Monday, October 18, 1999 - 02:44 pm: Edit |
Dang it W.!
I thought after Ann's last rebuttal to me I could quietly slide out of this one. Okay, here goes.
I don't consider something to be art if it is a "me too" IMITATION of the original, by someone other than the originator, with no unique artistic application to it. A while ago, someone came up with the idea of using busted clock pieces and small bits of plastic junk to make a sculpture thing (kind of). Not to my taste but original, I guess. Suddenly a whole bunch of "artists" copy-catted this. Without even any really distinguishing differences. The originator was the artist and every unique one they do subsequently is an offspring, extension or evolution of the original. If they make exact duplicates of the original, I guess I would call that craftsmanship. And they have the right to do so. Anyone who copies it and calls it "original art" is making imitations, not art.
If the retailers who bought your work (paint?) then hired a person to reproduce them or something very much like them, could you consider that person an artist or their work art? If you have created a genre and other artists are inspired to create their own original works within that genre, then I guess they would be artists. I guess I see it as inspiration, vision, originality and ability. Remove any of these ingredients from the recipe ( I cunningly bring it back to the culinary world) and it isn't quite art.
Backlash anyone?
Gord
| By W.DeBord on Monday, October 18, 1999 - 05:35 pm: Edit |
Gord this doesn't end. Ann suckered us in and I keep getting traped too. I did realize I was out of control, everytime I tried to exit something crazy gets mentioned drawing me back.
I think we finally got Ann to agree to the major points. Can we call this THE END?
| By ann on Monday, October 18, 1999 - 11:24 pm: Edit |
That's fine, make me the bad guy! At this point I am convinced of the artistic stylings of Chef Boyardee! (joke) Yes I do agree to the major point...which I believe is... Food can be art....but 99% of it ain't. Gord--I could not help but notice the food as art: chef as artist topic you started. I wanted to respond to charmaine's chocolate cake statement so much. But I have said my piece. I appreciate the debate you and W.Debord got "suckered" into. The end.
| By W.DeBord on Tuesday, October 19, 1999 - 09:10 am: Edit |
Ann.....oops, not "suckered" enthralled (sp?) see I couldn't spell the word I wanted so I......
Have you read some of Charmaines' comments she's a worthy new comer, please please I'd love to read your response to her choc. cake statement.
| By ann on Tuesday, October 19, 1999 - 09:05 pm: Edit |
I hope Charmaine does not mind me posting this here.
By Charmaine on Friday, October 15, 1999 - 02:48 pm:
And even though the food may not have physical longevity, it has emotional
longevity. People always remember a good meal(or unfortunately a bad meal) and
these meals are often linked to a memory. This is where we come in as artists. We
have the ability to influence people's emotions and create memories. Just like a
person would look at a painting and remember their childhood, they may eat a
chocolate cake and remember where they were and how they felt the first time
they ate chocolate.
| By ann on Tuesday, October 19, 1999 - 09:45 pm: Edit |
W.DeBord-- I have only read the one comment by Charmaine. Yes, I like the way she thinks. Here is my reply.
Artists tap into our emotions, they trigger a thought process that is not sparked by the demands of the everyday world. In the medium of food artists take what is necessary for life and turn it into a transcendent journey through memory and into the unkown. However, artists are not the only ones who bring out the emotionality of food. I am always tranported somewhere else at the smell of onions sauteed in olive oil no matter who is sauteeing them. Anyone who cooks well shares this power of influencing emotion and creating memories. Perhaps even more so-- I know if I had to choose the last chocolate cake I would ever eat it would be my grandmother's plain old Texas sheet cake.
| By W.DeBord on Wednesday, October 20, 1999 - 08:45 am: Edit |
Charmaine I hope you'll check over here too.
This is what I think...We all (hopefully all of us) are born with 5 senses. Just as we are not all equally intellegent I think our senses perform unequally too.
My memories are triggered by sight. I process alot thru sight, I notice more visually and am impacted thru that sense more than any other.
I've seen interviews with famous singers on T.V. who have mentioned they have incredible hearing and are very sensitive to noise.
Perhaps the sense of smell is more developed in you Ann? Smell triggers your emotions and memories?
Do we as chefs influence peoples emotions and create memories???or could it be how the person reacts to what we created? After all we aren't all equally influenced by the same things.
| By Jesse Gainer on Monday, February 12, 2001 - 12:58 pm: Edit |
what is the difference between sous-chef and chef
| By chefgbs on Wednesday, February 14, 2001 - 05:34 pm: Edit |
Jesse-
The answer to your question is about $30,000 and a lot of meetings.