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Please join us on Wednesday, Aug. 1 at 5:30 p.m. for the next conversation about the ArtPeers Artist Guild!

All are invited as we gather at Mexicains Sans Frontieres: (Hugo Claudin’s loft). Please see map, below.

We’ll gather for a 90-minute discussion that will be the first of many in 2012. The conversation Aug. 1 will revisit the basics (why, how) of the Guild, and how it came to be – and where we’re going with it. The primary focus of the Aug. 1 conversation will be compensation and invoicing, picking up where we left off.

In addition, we’ll talk for 15mins about the planned date for ArtPeers Fall Festival 2012.

Here are some of the links from the first year of open conversations about The ArtPeers Artist Guild:
http://www.artpeers.org/guild_framework/
http://www.artpeers.org/guild_compensation-issues/ ‎

Event summary

ArtPeers Artist Guild mtg
An ongoing conversation about sustainable | local arts
Next discussion date: Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012 at 5:30 p.m.
Mexicains Sans Frontieres, 120 S. Division #226

View Larger Map

3. TAXES AND DOCUMENTATION

3A. Artists need to claim compensation and pay/file taxes.

Artists should file taxes regularly and be exceedingly detailed in what they earned, and what their expenses were, in a given tax year. It may be advisable for artists to seek the advice of a tax professional. There are online options available with different means of assistance using online tax advice . There are also a number of CPAs and tax accountants based in Grand Rapids that offer personal tax services.  Tax returns must be filed for the at the federal, state, and city levels.

Tax services (3rd party links)
Turbo Tax Free Edition
H&R Block At Home™ Free

3B. Artists need to keep extensive records of expenditures

Artists should keep good records and maintain receipts and other paperwork in a safe and secure location. Credit card receipts and invoices should be maintained with high scrutiny, organized in easy to access folders. A simple receipt book can help keep things organized.  Backups should be digitized (scanned, etc.) and stored in remote locations in case of fire or other disasters.

3C. Work-related expenditures should be noted

Artists should write descriptive reminder notes pertaining to invoices and receipts incl. gasoline, food at restaurants where meetings take place, self-improvement seminars and literature, etc.  Expense reports can simplify this process.  Keeping accurate records will help with deductions at tax time.

May 12, 2012
Trip The Light (Wealthy Theatre)
Produced by DITA and ArtPeers

Late May / early June
Three-part series (video) celebrating local art collections

June
The next open meeting of the Guild (details TBA!)

May 12, 2012
Trip The Light (Wealthy Theatre)
Produced by DITA and ArtPeers

Late May / early June
Three-part series (video) celebrating local art collections

June
The next open meeting of the Guild (details TBA!)

The ArtPeers Guild is a collective effort to create better understanding – and establish resources – to give artists more options for sustainability. Previous “Build The Guild” meetings have involved discussions about donating artwork, taxes, what/whether to charge for work(s) and other issues.

This particular meeting will explore the healthcare issues and what can be done to help artists in this regard. “Sustainability” is meaningless if one is too sick to create art, and without options for staying well or getting better. Should we commit to creating direct solutions or means of assistance? How would that look? Should we simply dedicate ourselves to finding meaningful resources to help artists find other solutions? There are many options and we’re open to exploring all of them.

As self employed business owners, artists and creative professionals are often under insured or not insured at all. ArtPeers is exploring what needs exist in the creative community to alleviate access to health care as a barrier to living and working as an artist in Grand Rapids. We are looking for artists and performers passionate about finding solutions for providing access to affordable health care or health care insurance.

“Build The Guild Pt. III” attendees (this event is free and open to all) also will have the opportunity to review a potential survey. The survey will include questions about healthcare needs and strategizing how to gather information concerning the health care needs of our creative community.

The survey also will contain diverse sections to establish categories of art and – for one thing – explore rates of pay in West Michigan, to help establish some kind of data for pricing, at least for reference.

Surveys are important tools and this one – which we’ll review at the meeting – will be useful and important for years to come, in the region.

Please come be part of this!

1. COMPENSATION, TERMS & CONDITIONS

1A. Establish fees for work/service

Fees should have some relationship with going rates nationally. There are several free references for establishing pricing; in addition, artists may benefit from seeking out peer artists in their own medium for advice and insight on “what the market will bear.”  For a quick reference guide for local sales, see the Festival of the Arts 2011 Regional Arts Exhibition Selected Artists, which lists medium and price.

At present, the local market may generally expect artists to donate their service/work – this is obviously untenable, so artists must find some space between nationally established rates and nothing, going forward. Establish pricing, stick to it, and if you sell for less, document the discount in the receipt – this preserves the actual value of the work. We also encourage explaining why your art/work has intrinsic value in your own words, materials, time, etc. – it’s good practice and good for people to know.

Pricing references (3rd party links):
artprice.com
howdesign.com

1B. Quote and invoice entities that engage your services

Artists should quote and invoice entities and individuals seeking to use their works/services. There are several free or affordable options for artists to create invoices and track billings; in addition, many software suites available on pre-installed operating systems have spreadsheet and template plug-ins that may assist with recordkeeping and invoices. This will enforce value; documentation of time has implications on funding in planning, grants, taxes, etc. Quoting and invoicing demonstrate professionalism. There are implications relating to taxes and deductions.

Invoicing solutions (3rd party links):
siwapp.org
nchsoftware.com
bambooinvoice.org
curdbee.com
billingmanager.intuit.com

1C. Major funding and sponsorship – check into the expectations or restrictions a funder may hold for your work/service, as you would any agreement. Make sure the benefits outweigh the costs/restrictions.

I was recently asked the question …What is your Art? which is a campaign aimed at helping non-profit organizations and local artists. I was very excited to participate and I applaud the Grand Rapids Arts Council for their effort  to help. When I tried to to link the post to my Facebook page a picture appeared with the Logo of Artsite. It was a little disapointing but not that big of a deal, the article was well written, I thought. But I also wondered how many people thought it was an article about Artsite. People wanting to read the article could eventually find the article if they followed they link..More recently I also participated in the Avenue of the Arts Pop up shop, but out of eighteen different images I provided only two  were used for showing on display… and just this past weekend I also participated in a group show called Superheros. Of seven images I provided only three made it on the wall.. I was told that children came to that coffee shop and somebody would eventually complain.. the picture in question featured an exposed breast… last year I participated in an Artpeers art walk and displayed my work at Rowsters coffee shop. When I came to pick up the art I discovered that one of my paintings was removed from the wall because it featured some very cartoonish female figures on skates in the nude.  It is diffcult enough for artists in this town to have their art displayed publicly but when  things like this keep ocurring I am wondering wether it is even worth the effort to continue showing in Grand Rapids. I thought we were moving swimingly towards a new enviroment  of cool and progressive mentality but I keep finding myself going back in time and finding we are very much still in the fifties in so many ways. I suppose this has been a learning experience for myself as well. When you are about to engage in  programs like these , you  should ask what  the guidelines for showing and if censorship will rear its ugly and retro face. I spent a lot of money making those prints with the idea I would sell some work not have it hidden away in a corner.

Bitchingly  yours.. H R Claudin

“Allow me to say that when you are on the frontier of knowledge, between what is unkown and known, reaching out into that abyss, sometimes you do actually have to make stuff up that might be true, so you can organize a research plan… this is the creativity of discovery, that not everyone has. But those who do, all of society follows them, into those directions. Einstein’s best quote is that imagination is more important than knowledge.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ph.D.

ArtPeers is pleased to present for your consideration the ArtPeers Artist Guild. This is a living document, meaning it’ll be evolved openly, over time, by the community of artists, event organizers, purchasers, venue operators and patrons who call West Michigan home. ArtPeers will host multiple, open meetings, free to all, promoted in advance, at barrier-free locations in the city of Grand Rapids – these “Build The Guild” meetings will review sections of the document and engage participants to offer thoughts, revisions, discussion and additions. There exist other options for collecting input, including the comments at the bottom of this page. Simply scroll past the comments that focus on ArtPeers being fascists, capitalists, pointless, controlling, manipulative, money-grubbing losers – you’ll find a field for entering your comments below all that.

The purpose of the Guild

The ArtPeers Artist Guild is designed to provide benefits resources, guidance, general agreements and other tools. The “general agreements” are intended to become a framework for best practices between artists, event organizers, purchasers and venue operators. Right now the interactions between these parties are sort of “wild west” – we hope the Guild might serve to optimize the way we work together.

Parties The Guild is intended to benefit (in basic order) the following:

1. Artists (creatives)
2. Event Organizers, Purchasers & Venue Operators.
3. Patrons.

The “general agreements” will be the stickiest part. We’ll need a lot of Guild will provide a framework of agreed best-practices based on conversations at the open Build The Guild meeting. The first such meeting took place April 17 at Hugo Claudin’s Mexicains Sans Frontieres artist studio.

The Guild is being designed to give a meaningful and sustainable form to emerging economic opportunities for local artists. The Guild should include resources that artists and others can use to better understand how to work together productively, professional and ultimately, sustainably.

We use the word subjective words like “should” because we don’t know how this will all turn out – it’s an open conversation and the framework could change dramatically over the year of open meetings and input by all who wish to take part. We have used “outline” format in order to best organize thoughts here at the beginning of this discovery process.

Essentially we’re building a rope bridge to someplace we believe exists – as Dr. Tyson said (above) we’re “reaching out into that abyss” and sometimes making up stuff that we believe might be true, in order to “organize a research plan.” We hope you’d consider being part of that research team, especially if you’re a West Michigan artist, purchaser, patron, event organizer or venue operator.

Inception

The Guild’s inception owes to the spirit of our mission statement: we seek to advance a culture that values local artists. Click here to view ArtPeers’ mission statement.

Justification

The guild idea is premised on the following aguments which we believe to be true:

-A growing, strong local arts scene benefits a city’s economy.
-The prospect of fair compensation attracts live/work artists.
-Positive change in compensation relies on consistency by local artists.

The Guild (so far)

The following framework will evolve as we conduct ongoing, open discussions – during which, live revisions will take place among the artists that join us to help form the agreements. When we’re finished with the open conversations, we’ll also publish a Cliff’s notes version of the overall Guild, based on the entire document.

1. COMPENSATION, TERMS & CONDITIONS

1A. Establish fees for work/service

Fees should have some relationship with going rates nationally. There are several free references for establishing pricing; in addition, artists may benefit from seeking out peer artists in their own medium for advice and insight on “what the market will bear.” At present, the local market may generally expect artists to donate their service/work – this is obviously untenable, so artists must find some space between nationally established rates and nothing, going forward. Establish pricing, stick to it, and if you sell for less, document the discount in the receipt – this preserves the actual value of the work. We also encourage explaining why your art/work has intrinsic value in your own words, materials, time, etc. – it’s good practice and good for people to know.

Pricing references (3rd party links):
artprice.com
howdesign.com

1B. Quote and invoice entities that engage your services

Artists should quote and invoice entities and individuals seeking to use their works/services. There are several free or affordable options for artists to create invoices and track billings; in addition, many software suites available on pre-installed operating systems have spreadsheet and template plug-ins that may assist with recordkeeping and invoices. This will enforce value; documentation of time has implications on funding in planning, grants, taxes, etc. Quoting and invoicing demonstrate professionalism. There are implications relating to taxes and deductions. Visit artpeers.org for a starter template invoice you can download an use per billing, to get you started!

Invoicing solutions (3rd party links):
siwapp.org
nchsoftware.com
bambooinvoice.org
curdbee.com
billingmanager.intuit.com

1C. Major funding and sponsorship – check into the expectations or restrictions a funder may hold for your work/service, as you would any agreement. Make sure the benefits outweigh the costs/restrictions.

2. DONATING IN KIND

2A. Scrutinize requests for in-kind contributions of work/service

Compensation takes many forms – among these are cash, goods, services, publicity, branding and other items of value. In quoting fees for work/service, artists do more than ensure fair compensation for themselves: they establish, set and preserve precedent. Grand Rapids is an arts and culture destination in an embryonic state of development, especially regarding compensation. Every interaction between purchasers and artists should be treated as groundwork to advance sustainable existences for live/work artists. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link – e.g. consistently donated work/services perpetuate the myth that local art “is fun to do” and therefore has no real value.

2A-1. “Exposure” doesn’t pay the rent

Event organizers, bookers and promoters may propose that publicity (“exposure”) has value that offsets an artist’s expenses and loss of actual cash compensation. Artists should scrutinize any request for work/service that primarily consists of exposure. It may be valuable to consider whether other skilled trades (e.g. an electrician) were solicited for work/service based on the premise of exposure (rather than cash.) Entities and event organizers in West Michigan operate from a tradition of (locally produced) art having imprecisely established value.

2A-2. Request a breakdown of event expenditures/expenses

Artists choosing to participate in a production should be entitled to a transparent, good-faith copy of expenses for the event as a whole. The breakdown of expenses can help the artist better understand the budgeting priorities for that event, which can help the artist to determine if he/she wants to participate. It’s fair to ask “Why should I donate; why is it critical that I donate; why is there no budget for art?” The answers may not preclude donating!

2A-3. Ask the difficult question about events soliciting donations.

The difficult question is this: “If this event can only take place by eliminating artist compensation, should it happen in the first place?” If there is no mechanism/possibility for some compensation for those who provide value, is the idea sustainable?

2A-3i. In some cases, the answer is a resounding “yes!” For example, if a grassroots collective is trying something new, bending a paradigm… that might be a “bigger picture” involvement that establishes a relationship, or simply conveys the message that you support its intentions. Another example might be a bona fide charity event that has demonstrated net returns to the named charity.

2A-3ii. In other examples, the event may simply be seeking to eliminate an allocation (artist compensation) in order to benefit individuals’ or entities’ bottom line – or to preserve inexpensive admit fees for patrons. These examples might be events that are not sustainable and should not be supported, as they perpetuate untenable misperceptions about the value of art, and damage the cause of any artist seeking to establish and preserve fair compensation for work/service. The absence of forethought regarding artist compensation has become an “artificial component” of event planning that is relied on. If compensation became part of the expected routine, event planners and organizing entities would find a way to solve this. When it’s not required of them, it’s not always considered necessary, and it contributes to a sense of “normalcy” regarding low/no fees for local artwork. This leads to a false sense of reality, an unsustainable system, and a diminished ability for GR to be taken seriously in the regional and national art community. At the end of the day, it’s not how big the art is, it’s how you use it.

2A-3iii. Scrutinize “charitable” events for which you’re requested to donate in-kind work/services. Charities are sometimes named as an excuse to hold an event, without any meaningful prospect of making a meaningful contribution to said named charity. It is imperative for artists (who are solicited for in-kind contributions of work/services) to verify the reputation of the organizers as regards net proceeds to the named charity. Charitable events that make no meaningful return to named charity… damage reputations including but not limited to: the event; the events’ participants; any peer artists involved; and the charity named.

2A-4. If asked by an entity for in-kind contributions of work/service, discover the entity’s overall reputation for compensating artists. As referenced in section 2A-3i some organizations (e.g. Heartside Gallery) operate in good faith without extravagant budgets and rely on the good work of underpaid or volunteer participants. But some organizations and entities exist and thrive by underpaying or simply not paying local artists.

2B. Even if donating (partially or in full) – invoice!

Any in-kind contribution ought to be marked as a discount against the actual value of the work/service. The discount should be applied to a set fee(s) resulting in an amt-due that clearly states original fees minus discount(s). Recipients of work/service should agree in writing to the terms whether or not actual cash payment is remitted. Any entity, nonprofit or for-profit, should provide a letter of acknowledgment of the stated value of goods/services. The value stated should bear resemblance to going rates/fees for goods/services as provided. Listing set fees for goods/services helps establish and maintain the fact that value exists, whether or not an actual amt-due is listed as due.

2C. Artists’ expenses immediately related to an event should be reimbursed if possible.

At a minimum, venues, event-planners and organizations should consider basic reimbursements incurred in relation to acquisition of the work/service. Examples might include gas, lodging, bus fares, food, hanging/mounting or other essential and disposable expenses incurred, etc.

2D. Event organizers ought to share “unexpected” good returns.

If an event would potentially (or in reality does) yield a net return, expenses for artists should be considered a given and a priority for reimbursement.

2E. Non-gallery, for-profit locations should provide a mechanism for sale of work.

If your work is being displayed/presented in a non-gallery, for-profit location (i.e. a restaurant) there should be transparent mechanisms in place for the sale of your work. The venue should provide merchant services if possible for transactions. Your contact info (business card, etc.) ought to be readily available. And artists should never pay more than 1/3 in commission for such sales; if the venue contacted you, and you hung all your work, you’re entitled to bicker on commission – everything is fungible!

3. TAXES AND DOCUMENTATION

3A. Artists need to claim compensation and pay/file taxes.
Artists should file taxes regularly and be exceedingly detailed in what they earned, and what their expenses were, in a given tax year. It may be advisable for artists to seek the advice of a tax professional. There are online options available with different means of assistance using online tax advice, such as Turbo Tax (other examples? Free? Virtual? Free CPA-for-artist programs?)

3B. Artists need to keep extensive records of expenditures

Artists should keep good records and maintain receipts and other paperwork in a safe and secure location. Credit card receipts and invoices should be maintained with high scrutiny, organized in easy to access folders. Backups should be digitized (scanned, etc.) and stored in remote locations in case of fire or other disasters.

3C. Work-related expenditures should be noted

Artists should write descriptive reminder notes pertaining to invoices and receipts incl. gasoline, food at restaurants where meetings take place, self-improvement seminars and literature, etc.

4. FREE AND LEGAL EXPRESSION

4A. Artists rights to full legal expression should be accommodated by the venue displaying or presenting their work.

4B. Patrons right to fair disclosure regarding content should be accommodated by the venue displaying or presenting an artist’s work(s).

4C. When a particular’s event’s success hinges on a restrictive set of parameters relating to content, the artist should be provided good detail regarding these expectations.

4C-1. In scenarios where full expression may be limited by restrictions on adult-themed content, the artist should determine for him/herself whether those restrictions benefit the event in such a way (that he/she can justify the limitations created by restrictions on content.)

4D. When a peer artist’s expression is impinged upon without his/her advance consent – or when a work(s) of art causes a negative community response primarily because the content is considered to violate social mores – the collective community of artists should publicly and promptly defend the artist’s right to free and legal expression. At the very least, the community of artists should beckon for a wider conversation in lieu of snap judgment. Artists should remain in solidarity about the right to express, firstly.

5. PEER TO PEER SUPPORT

5A. Artists should make regular and ongoing efforts to support peer artists’ exhibitions, speaking engagements, performances and events.

5B. Artists by their presence have a gravitational effect on the wider community in terms of interest and attendance – this should be considered an asset which strengthens the collective and enhances the community.

6. Inclusive not exclusive

6A. Artists should support institutions and organizations that support and feature local products, producers, performers, creatives and service providers.

6A-1. Artists should choose whenever possible the services of *independent* organizations, entities, companies, venues, institutions, etc.

6B. Artists should decline or challenge participation in events or programs that exclude other participants due to race, gender, age, sexual orientation or other core qualities.

7. CRITICISM

7A. Artists might benefit from encouraging, participating in and expanding the culture of criticism in West Michigan. Artists should be open to opinions and accept them graciously, never taking them personally.

7B. “Criticism” should be thought as “an ability to discern” – the word and its practice mean much more than merely negative opinions. Criticism can be neutral, positive, even gushing. Or a mix of those things and unfavorable opinions as well.

8. WHAT’S NEXT?

8A. Please help us by proposing addt’l suggestions, revising what’s above, and taking part in this conversation! The first open/public conversation takes place Sunday, April 17 at 2pm – at 120 S. Division (Mexicains Sans Frontieres).

-A section for venue – expectations/for purchasers, etc.

-Accountability to the Guild / who’s accountable and how, if at all

-Clarify the agreement, terms and conditions, going in – before you agree. Basic details.

-Terms & Conditions of Compensation is a better title than Compensation.

-ArtPeers would write communications on behalf of artists directly to organizers/purchasers re. grievances, best practices.

-

I open bananas with a steak knife, I get two haircuts a year, I can barely dress myself, and my favorite band is the Replacements. Yet I’m the president of an arts advocacy organization. It makes you wonder: what are the standards for saying you’re an artist?

Apparently, somewhere between non-existent and Lord of the Flies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvmi3oZ_vH8

Art is a republic and you’re welcome to immigrate. No need for documentation or passport. You tell Customs you’re a citizen; they shrug, flash a smile and nod. They stamp your hands.

Other professions and trades may not have such a “big tent.” Can you impulsively claim you’re a mathematician? Sure, you can say it… at least until someone asks you about the cosine function of a square wave. At which point you either admit you’re not, or engage in disputing the intrinsic value of formal education.

“Oh, c’mon, man! I didn’t go to school to learn about TRIGONOMETRY! It’s who I am! It’s in my soul! It’s not in a book, man!”

Replace the word TRIGONOMETRY with ART and it’s sort of “okay.” An artist could get away it. What other skilled trade could claim such a thing? Even drug dealers would acknowledge the benefit of taking business class at junior college, in order to maximize profits. While selling chemicals to people who justify drug addictions by saying they’re artists.

In the end, maybe it doesn’t matter (that the standards are nebulous.) After all, I could declare I’m an automobile, but until I transport you somewhere, it’s all talk.

Sorting it out

I’ve personally never referred to myself as an artist. Not once. I’d leave that to others. And maybe posthumously, after all the facts are in. Some character observations are best in third-person, past-tense.

If you’re a self-declared artist, do you feel okay with the contemporary definition of art? Because I’m not so sure. Art feels set apart from almost every other function of society, as if someone has placed it in a bell jar. I’ll get back to that.

If you’re not a self-declared artist, do you reckon people could see the “art” in what you do, without the help of labels or official designations? Do you think we’re open to recognizing it, regardless?

And taking that one step further, is all art created by natural humans? What about spider webs? Coral reefs? Flight?

The questions appear ridiculous, but the implications are fairly radical: if we took it upon ourselves to recognize art without labels, we’d see the world differently. We’d notice functions of society where artistic influence is unforgivably absent – banished to a self-contained, sterile existence where it could do no harm. And by “harm” I mean make things better for a wide segment of the population, rather than a tiny minority. And by “tiny minority” I do not mean short black people.

It seems worthwhile first to establish what is art. That should resolve the question of “who’s an artist.” But by that point, it shouldn’t matter, anymore.

Sets and subsets

Split a piece of wood, and I am there.
Lift a stone, and you will find me there.
-The Gospel of St. Thomas

Today, art institutions are not unlike churches: they are entrusted to represent art to the masses, as churches symbolize “where God is.” We go to these places to experience such beauty. A curated collection may be like scripture: “official art.”

I do see the beauty, when I read scripture or experience official art. But I wonder if that’s all there is.

Is That All There Is?

And as I sat there watching
I had the feeling that something was missing
I don’t know what
But when it was all over
I said to myself
“Is that all there is to the circus?”
Is that all there is?

The song “Is That All There Is?” is 50 years old. It has been covered by dozens of singers. I first heard it featured in the movie “Basquiat.” It’s based on a Thomas Mann story (“Disillusionment”) written in 1896.

Both story and song feature a bleak, existential narrative: new, promising experiences ultimately disappoint.

The song ends with the narrator resolving to numb the disappointment by drinking. The story ends very differently, with the narrator seeing the ocean for the first time and discovering a profound sense of freedom – looking outward, seeing beyond familiar, defined boundaries, and experiencing a beautiful longing for a sea without a horizon.

The “wider perspective” allows the narrator to escape from the cycle of regular, disappointing expereiences. It’s almost like being lost in familiarity. By pulling back – or clicking “zoom out” in GPS terminology – we can gain a greater sense of things. See the bigger picture. Orientate.

So what the eff is art

I’d like to go back to the idea that art has been placed in a societal bell jar – quarantined. Effectively prohibited from interacting with society in meaningful ways. Sure, it’s supposed to enlighten, but only in a vacuum. If art begins to influence other facets of “real life,” this will be dealt with most directly.

In 2004, in Buenos Aires, the local Catholic archdiocese shut down a Leon Ferrari art exhibit as “blasphemy.” During a later interview, Mr. Ferrari was asked what he would “have done differently.” This was his response:

I would not change my course, I would only change its name: I would cross out ‘art’ and call it politics, corrosive criticism, whatever.

Art by another name, he argued, is still art.

Getting back to what is art

Several hundred years ago, the term “art” referred to almost any mastery. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as “a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science,” in the words of art historian and author, Ernst Gombrich.

These days we rarely reference art and science in the same breath. God is dead, art is rendered inert. That section of our faculty has atrophied.

The title of the newspaper section is revealing: “Arts & Entertainment.” The entire concept of art has been cast as a decoration, becoming non-essential to questions of structural innovation. Art is something a city features in a certain district, identified on maps, and branded clearly. It has been functionally redlined.

Let’s take the most inane example: street repair. We don’t expect any fundamental relationship to exist between art and street repair. We confront concerns about city infrastructure through systematic processes. We seek out models employed in other cities, pragmatically. I’m not saying I know what role art would play. I’m saying we should widen the net, amidst the process of seeking out models. Consider models where the government and the people viewed city engineering as art. Like the Roman Empire.

Loosening the rigid definitions of art and science can benefit civilization. Obvious case in point: Leonardo da Vinci. Artist embraces the tools of science. Scientist embraces the tools of art. The Italian Renaissance.

In his painting “The Last Supper,” Leonardo’s artistic brilliance merged with religion (Jesus Christ being the subject of the painting) merged with science (mathematical and astronomical themes within the painting) resulting in “official art” of the highest order.

Leonardo made innumerable contributions to civilization – many whose significance outweighs the most famous painting in the world (“Mona Lisa”). Yet it’s impossible to segregate the art from the science from the religion, with Leonardo. It’s impossible to choose a single title to describe him, and worthwhile to consider a time when these titles didn’t have such rigid distinctions from one another: artist, engineer, inventor, geologist, botanist, physicist, zoologist, mechanical engineer, cartographer, chemist and, fittingly, a mathematician.

Consider the words of historian and poet Piero Scaruffi:

Art educates people to be creative. A lack of creativity is a handicap for science. Science creates new paradigms of thought. Resistance to new paradigms of thought is a handicap for art. Every new generation is more similar to specialized robots than to sentient beings.

Examples of sentient beings

Fine artistic developments can come from science: think of what local chef Ryan Cappalletti can do with a sandwich, using precise measurements, a nascent understanding pH levels and the science of how these things affect the palette, and health. It’s either science artistically applied, or vice-versa. Either way, it’s brilliant and we’re better for it.

Pierre Lindhout was an architect by trade, but oh my, the art: Wealthy Theatre (1913) among others still-standing buildings throughout our fine city. Mayor George K. Heartwell’s letter to Newsweek, establishing Grand Rapids as a great city, was art, using data artistically to reveal a greater truth. Rwandans historically have created vases that fit into categories if you must have categories – art and functional household items.

The point is this: the people who created these works of art did not separate form and function. Should we? Or can we stop doing that?

Process of elimination

Even in referencing a few non-traditional examples of art (above) we start to see the challenge in building a list from scratch. That assumes “nothing is art” as a starting point. Maybe that’s backward.

Maybe we should start where Mann’s narrator (“Disillusionment”) ended, on an open sea, without a horizon. or as Scaruffi suggested in his essay, “The Separation of Art and Science” – declare every human activity to be art; and from there, we have to determine what is artistic.”

Perhaps we determine what is artistic reductively – by eliminating what is not art, we arrive at what is artistic.

Let’s start by eliminating the illusions and tricks. Surely we can agree art needn’t be represented by promo photos | overlaid with adjectives as nouns | in all-caps | Helvetica Neue | semi-transparent | overly-kerned | flush-to-edges | right-justified | + 1px stroke.

Next let’s categorically eliminate art used as marketing. Bill Hicks explained this very well, I won’t spend too much time on it.

Then we could eliminate certain mechanized processes, even the most ironic example: the village of Dafen, China, where resident workers recreate en masse masterpiece paintings, for export to American stores like Wal-Mart.

However we get there, art belongs out of the bell jar. It belongs interwoven with every function of society. We cannot continue to suffer its intentional isolation. Grand Rapids Public Schools refers to art curricula as “specials.” Cordoned off. Extraneous. But, as math scores continue to fail, maybe we ought to consider that math is less accessible to some students because art has been purged from algebra.

We could go on all day, deleting groups of things. But a pattern emerges. Artistry is not about the set that remains, or the set that is curated: it’s not a collection, at all.

It’s a threshold.

It is a standard.

Animus. The spark. Mastery. Belonging to a special faculty of the mind. A representation of divine creation. A window to something truer than ourselves.

The late Dirk Koning (Community Media Center founding Executive Director) – obviously pro-technology, pro-science, pro-engineering – had a saying about this. Amidst all the technology and training Community Media Center (CMC) has palced in the hands of Grand Rapids residents, Dirk always said you needed “at least 1% pixie dust in the equation.” The pixie dust is the human part. The actual artistry. Without it, the outcome was mechanical, meaningless.

If art is everything we do, then artistry is what separates what Scaruffi referred to as “specialized robots and sentient beings.” If we can smash the bell jar – eliminate the rigid barriers between science and art – it would be a revolutionary act. In the process, galleries and art institutes would become more important than ever, to a greater number of more receptive souls.

Eras in human history with less rigid barriers between art and science have produced significant periods of renaissance and growth. Where we’re at right now… this seems like a low. So this is a call. To remember what we have forgotten.

Erin’s essays are featured on ArtPeers’ website, Rapid Growth Media, Grand Rapids Social Diary, The Rapidian and archived on The Virtual Image website.