art by bryan james

Aesthetics of Art

John Berger, Wrote the seminal book "The Ways Of Seeing" he states, " When an image is presented as a work of Art. The way people look at art is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions Civilization. Form. Status. Taste. It sounds benign, but in reality these precepts also told us in no uncertain terms what is NOT.
The question is, How do we express ourselves within the acceptable, which I mean, taught aesthetic.
Think of this in terms of speech, how we judge people, proper (I mean formal use of language) indicates a range of things. including our thoughts on class, intelligence. The same set assumptions occur with writing. We all need some order, all languages have rules,otherwise we would have a hard time communicating. but who sets the rules? who are the keepers of the keys. and who gets to break the rules? because these assumptions not only tell us about how to perceive art and the world, it also informs us about our ability to make art. Can we write, or talk about our experiences If we speak, paint, draw outside of the acceptable forms.
locating our experience
I know, I write in a haphazard way. I don't care for editing, I like to throw things into the mix that are problematic,grammatically. It looks bad, my spelling is incorrect, but does it interfere with your understanding of my meaning? please comment and I will change I swear I'll succumb to the will of the three or so people that read this blog.
I will pick up the strunk and white, use the spell check.

I am struck by the willingness to listen to others describe my world. I remember being all pumped to work on this blog. now its work. heres something to do. check out the web for African Canadian Artists. How many sites are dead? Are we out there?