There has been some discussion recently on twitter about the term, “Emerging artist” and what that means. When I first heard of the term many years ago, images of a troll like creature emerging from under a rock always came to mind. I never liked the term then and I don’t like it now because it is often meaningless and almost always refers to “young” artists.
But the term did get traction in the art world and it quickly became one of those trendy cliche’s.
But what exactly does it mean?
There is a tendency in the art world to place things in boxes…which seems odd to me because I always thought that the art world should try to do exactly the opposite to that. I mean…. why can’t an artist be seen as “emerging” at some later point in his or her life?
For example: Let’s say someone spends the first half of their life thinking art is simply about making beautiful objects but then…in later life …. is influenced by something that changes their view of the world completely and comes to the realization that art can be much more than that…..then why can’t that person be seen as “emerging”. When you think about it, it seems perfectly reasonable to say that that artist is emerging.They are coming out of the dark and seeing the world in new light and that seems what art is all about.
I know for myself that my ideas of what art is has changed over the years. When I first thought about art, I didn’t have a broad view of what art could be. But as I was exposed to new ideas early on, my opinions shifted and I started to see art in much broader terms. On top of that…. I also experienced something so profound that it changed my view of my world completely. (It was the Ameriyha bomb shelter in Baghdad, Iraq)
Again, I discovered new paths and meaning for my art. I began to emerge once again and make new discoveries.
One of these is my entry into sculpture with my son Samuel. He is a skilled and careful welder and we worked on a stainless steel sculpture that will be installed at Maffeo Sutton Park in Nanaimo on May 10th at 9:00am.
The piece is called “Points of Origin” and that title was chosen because Nanaimo is known as a “Hub” city. We tried to create something that was visually interesting as well as having meaning to our art focus. I love to create things that have a positive celebration of life and the idea of the sculpture is to represent new growth. We see the three structures as spring shoots bursting out of the ground towards the light.
(Strangely enough….It was very much inspired by my experience in the Baghdad, destroyed bomb shelter).
Hope you can make the unveiling.
Leave a Reply