Bill Pirkle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I do hope my recent post about art vs.  craft does not start a fire storm
>of criticism.

I don't know if it will do this or not.  From me it elicits boredom.  It
elicits boredom because it is a badly phrased question arising from a badly
thought out common misconception.  The common misconception is that the
listener's experience is the measure of the composer's intent, or that the
composer's intent is somehow th most important factor in the creation ofa
work of art.

Both of these misconceptions arise out of a kind of self-centeredness of
the consumer of art, or out of the artists own misunderstanding of what
work is.  In the end works of art are produced out of a whole person, or
the interaction ofa group of people.  What we are aware of going into a
work of art, or going into its production is a small fraction of the
totality.  There are moments of intent which shine through in the final
work, a place here or there where the artist saw a particular end and met
it witha particular mechnaism - but the vast texture is simply weaving.

In the end what we artists think about what we are doing is of marginal
relevance, It might help produce insight to the devotee, it might provide
context for the person searching to understand a work, but in the end it
is te taking up of the work which is important, and this might be out of
intent or craft or both.

The truth is that we do not know what we have produced, often even after
we have produced it.  Beethoven did not understand why his C# minor sonata
caused such a stir, and yet it is of exceptional crat, and is clearly
ladden with emmotional intnet, if his thoughts on it mean anything.

The whole question as phrased is really a step removed - namely it speaks
to the frame of mind the composer hoped the listener would have when taking
up a work - whether they would see it at first as crat, or whether they
would see it at first as emmotionally heartfelt.

The catagorey produces no insight into great works - which are mixtures
of both to a degree of inseperability, and it does not produce any useful
means of dealing with lesser works which are oftne muddy.

The whole point of craft is to produce effect without requiring absolute
intent - to be able to acheive with out torturing every instant.  Hence
craft which cannot be indistinguisable from intnetn is no craft at all...

Stirling Newberry