Understanding Art and the Artist and ON Being Kind

You know, I saw this photo and I thought of how some people don't "get" story quilts and whimsy and it made me laugh.

When I was at Market, we were holding up a cow quilt in front of a group of gals and showing a pile of the different ones and everyone was smiling and commenting and a woman walked up and caught my eye and had a huge frown on her face and she looked sternly at the cow quilt and then back at me and she shook her head from side to side.
And then walked away.

Someone there asked me (later) if that hurt my feelings.

I said "first of all she doesn't "get it" and second of all I would not want to go to lunch with her." Here is the thing.

If you see a quilt or a piece of art, would you stand there and there and be rude and try to get that person to look at you so you could be hurtful or mean? If you would, then there is something deeply wrong.


Art is subjective and that is why some people love Rembrant and some people love Andy Wathol and some people love Grandma Moses. There is room for everything and honestly here is the other thing.


Story quilts have a point and you have to be willing to "think" about the piece just like they teach you in art school.

Your painting should have some kind of point (like the beauty) which could be something the person is doing, a person's gaze across the surface and you are carried across to see what THEY are looking at, a theme (did they carry it?), color etc.

I understand that if a person is deep into traditional quilts which I happen to LOVE and always have, then maybe they don't "get" the point of something that has the theme that one tries to carry across but honestly, why give someone a dirty look, shake your head or call me a "Mary Loonie?"

I got alot of mileage off of that even though it was meant to cut like a knife.

Eleanor Peace Bailey recited a poem once in Switzerland when I was there. I thought it would be boring (I am dumb sometimes I know) and it was fabulous.

The idea of the poem is that people judge you because you use bright crazy colors or do something that they deem weird when in effect God loves what you do because you are continuing His creativity.

And to that point

I remember a guy in church that used to beg to do solos and he was a terrible singer.

I commented on it to someone who was far wiser than I and they said "you hear a person who cannot sing but God hears the most beautiful volice ever because Paul sings it to please God and others.

She was right, he was the sweetest man and he was totally sincere.

As long as you are happy with your work and you work hard then it is the least others can do to be polite because maybe they don't know what you know.
Comments??