Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 08, 2024

Canadian Maple Leaf?

I was w/ Mrs. Olsen right up until I happened upon a whole gallery of fine art where I was visiting in the 60s. A Calder. A Dali. A Rothko. A Pollack. A Monet. Even a small Picasso. Several others I’m not able to name. Originals. My gf was friends with the daughter of a gallery owner in Philadelphia, where my gf and I were invited to spend the weekend so we could attend a rock concert. This was the father’s personal gallery, not the stuff downstairs that was for sale. Except the Calder. I’m pretty sure some of these pieces were owned and some were on loan… or he might really have been that rich and that good to own them all? I broke up w/ gf a month or two later so never had the opportunity to return.

That room blew my mental socks off. I ended up sitting on the floor under the Picasso just staring at the Rothko (two big blocks not quite touching) because it was the SIMPLEST thing in the room.

I’ve never denigrated abstract art per se again, though there’s plenty of art, abstract or otherwise, that’s not worth the cost of the materials, imo.

Abstract art does look like things, just not material things

Abstract art is what it is. You see it, and whether you understand the underlying motive or not, you accept it for what it is. The memory is what stays with you.

Just like the Northern Lights. You can’t possibly imagine the intricacies of their design, but you will remember the experience.

If you can paint the Northern Lights, it’s realism.

Does it move you? If it doesn’t, it’s not good art, at least not for you.

Some of it is great, but I think some of it is “Emperor’s New Clothes.”

On the other hand, Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can was realism, and as “Emperor’s New Clothes” as it gets.

I went to the local potter’s guild sale, and purchased a beautiful utensil holder with three wide, wavering swaths of tan, brown, and dark blue at the top. I met the artist a few days later, and told her how much I loved it, because it reminded me of New Mexico (I lived there for several years). She gasped, and said that’s what her inspiration was; she did field work in New Mexico, and still misses it!

Should art have meaning? An escape of whimsy? Insights from a time and place?

Canucks salute you!

The aurora look like aurora. They are not an artistic representation of an object. Jef/Caufield has once again outwitted himself.

Just because you’ve never seen something before does not mean it doesn’t look like something. Frazz missed a chance here.

I once drew a perfect tree, but it just didn’t look like a real tree.

Go Edmonton!

I remember my mother saying she hated Disney’s “Fantasia,” because “It didn’t even have a story.” But she loved firework shows.

2 thots:

“Art is whatever I’m pointing at when I say ‘art’.”

“The value of anything is whatever somebody’s willing to pay for it.”

Not all abstract art looks like an aurora Caufield.

I finally got to see the Northern Lights a few weeks ago here in Western PA. My camera picked them up better that my eye could but not as impressive here as you see in pictures.

OT GoComics strikes again

I’m running Mozilla/Yahoo through Windows 10 on a PC, and every other tab is working correctly. I’ve done all the standard tricks — turned the PC power completely off, deleted every open tab using GC, etc. Also tried the app on Android. No matter what, I can’t get past Saturday the 8th.

Someone following another strip suggested using DuckDuckGo, but I can’t figure out how to do that either. If you have some suggestions, please send them to msjonessat @ yahoo dot com. Thank you.

This one reminds me of the Foster’s commercial that defines “abstract” art. The ad’s on YouTube … fun.

The Northern Lights do look like something. They look like magnetic fields, which are normally invisible, but are there all the time.