Your Art Begins Inside Of You

The above artwork is by Michael G. Magin.

(Click on the image if you wish to view it individually.)

© All rights reserved by Michael G. Magin.

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Your Art Begins Inside Of You

  ~ by OneMoreOption

Your art begins inside of you and tries to work its way outward.

It’s revealed in your decisions, expressions, and actions.

It’s revealed by your body, your clothes, and the things you surround yourself with.  You express it through your hygeine, clothing, and accoutrement.

You express it in the consistency and clarity that your external world reflects your internal world.

You reveal your artistry in how you respond to others. 

You reveal your art in the causes you promote and the activities your regularly participate in.

Your work creates your artworks.

Your demeanor defines the undefined spaces in between.

There is an old, mean-spirited saying that goes:  If you think you are important, stick your finger in a bucket of water, then remove it and see what kind of impression you leave.

Yes, it’s probably true that none of us, or our specific actions, will be remembered.

But if we do not act in our generation, it is likely the next generation will have less because of our inaction.

Each generation, knowing it will fade from memory and likely disappear, must still add new flames to the torches and pass them on.

We are not dust in the wind.  We take forms.  We transfer all the good we have to the next generation.  We decide.  We have intents.  Our actions matter.

You don’t have to create traditional artworks to be an artist.  To be an artist, you have to make a concerted effort to bring the art of your inner world into view and fruition in the visible world.

And even if those artworks are small and transitory, you will be an artist if you perform the role you define on a stage for your significant others, community, and world.

If we are temporary, like leaves on a tree, then in our passing, let’s become our most colorful and burn brightest in our last few remaining days - leaving beautiful visual memories in those who will remain after we are gone.

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Welcome

This site is a source for insightful artworks and educational materials discussing sexuality and love in the arts.  Communities should have exceptional access to diverse sexual and moral viewpoints.  This website has information on theatrical, musical, philosophical, poetic, political, and religious artworks from hundreds of artists over thousands of years.  If you are not yet mature enough to evaluate historical, literary, and artistic information on these important topics, then please be so kind as to consider returning when you are.

To search on any topic, you can use the search cell in the right column to search by keyword, artist, style, era, title, etc.  The tabs across the top of each page connect to word indicies and picture thumbnail indicies to enable searching by either word or image.

This is a non-revenue-generating site with no advertising support.  The posts promote artists, their ideas, and their work.  Wherever artists have online websites, those sites are included to encourage visitors to support those artists.  Thank you to the artists and visitors for continuing these vital dialogues.

No individual person can give artists the support they deserve.  But if we each regularly do something small to support the arts, I hope as a group we can make the world more colorful, memorable, and pleasant.

In the end, kindness matters.

Should You Write All Of Your Truthful Story?

The above artwork is by dirtyfeet.

© All rights reserved by dirtyfeet.

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Should You Write All Of Your Truthful Story?

  ~ by OneMoreOption

The only story you can accurately write is probably your own story, and even that story will often be as fictional as your perceptions, and as suspect as your limited access to information.

An ethical question arises when you want to be honest and tell your story, because your story will almost assuredly involve others who do not wish for their activities to be disclosed.

When should you limit what you tell about “your truth,” when telling “your truth” will also reveal things about others they don’t want to be known?

You should examine each instance carefully.  And when in doubt, seek the advice of 2 or 3 professional, uninvolved counselors.

No matter how justified or “right” you feel in telling your truth and no matter how much you think it would be good for the specific people involved and the greater good, there still almost always are additional, essential, or important considerations.

Ask yourself:  What good might it do?  What harm might it do?

And when you think you’ve exhaustively answered those hypothetical questions, keep investigating further.

Give weight to the expressed emotional wants of the people involved.  Don’t just consider the “ethical” and “moral” reasons for speaking out.  Consider the emotional wants you likely do not fully understand in the others involved.

When no great harm is being done, and when no great harm is being prevented, consider discretion.  Tell your truth to a degree that does not unnecessarily name others’ names.  Discuss the principles more than the people. 

Focusing on your actions is probably the most accurate thing you can recount.  Speaking to the actions of others and your perceived reasons for why they acted the way they acted is more suspect information, even if you were first-hand involved with their actions.

Tell your own truth more than you attempt to tell what was “true” for others.

Focus on your own accountability more than trying to make others accountable.

You get to write one life’s story.  It is your story. 

Writing others’ biographies is an honorable pursuit.  But you should do so with the greatest of care and sensibility for their preferences and emotional well being.

You may be an honest person who has nothing to hide.  And you may not understand why others hide so many things about themselves.  But most other people have things they wish to remain hidden for their own reasons. 

At points of disagreement, you should use caution and give weight to their preferences and discretion – even when you disagree with them and don’t understand them.  When in doubt, allow others to choose what parts of their life’s story they will tell.  Allow them to portray themselves - even when you believe their portrayals are “false” or “misleading”.  When no great harm is being done, allow them to create their own character on their life’s stage.  Support the good in them.  And be slow to share things about them they do not want others to know.

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Determining Who Loves You

The above artwork is by Karen Fedida.

© All rights reserved by the respective artists.

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Determining Who Loves You

  ~ by OneMoreOption

I had a nightmare last night.  My nightmares don’t usually consist of monsters or terrifying or fantastic circumstances.  My nightmares are usually very real, rather ordinary events.

In my dream, 4 of my extended family members and I were visiting a tennis clinic.  The day began with a skills competition – not playing ordinary games.  In the skills competition, the better you did, the longer you stayed in the competition.  I did better than anyone else in my family, so I stayed in the competition longer.  When I completed the skills competition, I discovered my 4 family members had started a doubles set between the four of them on the only remaining court available.  When I came to join them, in the dream they communicated they’d just began a set (which can last 12 games long with a tie-breaker), and I could not play.  In my dream, this made me very sad and rejected because their actions excluded me.

My dreams often tell me important things subconsciously that I don’t figure out as easily when I am awake.  I don’t belong to any particular school of dream interpretation, but I believe many of us know ourselves best, and we can capably interpret what’s behind our dream imagery – a process that often can inform us well.

I awoke from the dream and tried to figure out what it meant, and what principles my dream was trying to tell me.

What do you think my dream was telling me?

Here’s what I deciphered from it:

My dream was reminding me and suggesting to me that “family” are the people who are considerate of you, treat you fairly, and don’t exlcude you unfairly.

In real life, my family would not have exlcuded me in that tennis situation.  Instead, they would have started a rotation game, where the substitute sitting out rotated into the game and everyone rotated clockwise (like you do in a friendly game of volleyball where you have more players than the number of positions on the court).

Good friends and family don’t treat each other unfairly.

This may sound simple, but for many people it is a foreign, or at least unfollowed, principle.

When I was growing up, despite fractures and conflicts within my immediate family, my parents went to great lengths and made it clearly known that my sister and I were loved equally, treated equally, and given equal advantages.  I never felt she received more gifts, affection, or care from either of my parents.  Each of my parents would articulate they wished for each of their children to be loved equally.  Favoritism, and fears of favoritism, did not exist in our house.

And I liked that environment.  So, when I got older and watched other people use favoritism for their various purposes, it has never been appealing to me.

How do you determine who loves you?

Does someone love you when they show you favoritism?  No.

A person loves you when they treat you with consideration equal or comparative to the consideration they show the other people they love.

So, if you’re in love with someone who shows you less consideration than they show to the other people and things they love, then that’s a red flag.

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Violence And Cruelty In The Age Of YouTube

There is a saying:  “Live as if the whole world was watching.”  It’s probably not widely followed.  But it is a principle to consider.

If you’re not familiar with the story of Elizabeth Lambert, the Universtity of New Mexico soccer player whose recent violent actions were caught on film, here is the Associated Press and ESPN footage of her cruel actions toward her opponents:

Lambert’s status at this point is that she has been indefinitely suspended and she has issued a written public apology regretting her actions.

Elizabeth Lambert on Wikipedia

The footage is appalling. 

It is especially striking to watch highly-trained women athletes doing these activities.  We probably see equally violent actions between highly-trained male athletes much more often.

Many people still have an unsophisticated calculation that leads them to justify doing things “out of view,” things they would not do if the whole world knew what they were doing.

Take the balloon boy family for example.  For their scheme to work, it would have required the entire family, wife and children, to convincingly portray an improbable-to-believe lie for the rest of their lives.  Even if they could have pulled it off initially or for a long time, it would not have been a pleasant way to live.

Today I wrote on my 43Things account:

No one else makes you unkind to others.  If you are unkind, it is by your choice.

I’m not writing this post to sling mud at Elizabeth Lambert.  Her actions have become known, and she will choose the rest of her life to determine how else she will be defined.  There probably is not anyone who has played sports on a highly-competitive level who has not done something in a split-second decision they regret.  Most of us don’t have millions of people forever watching our momentary lapses of judgment.  I wish all the players involved the best going forward. 

We’re not simply defined by our mistakes.  We’re also defined by how we respond to them – by our accountability, our sincere apology, and where applicable, our realized restitution.

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Human Suffering

The above self-portrait is by Lauren Peralta.

(Click on the image if you wish to view it individually.)

© All rights reserved by Lauren Peralta.

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It’s not that suffering is necessary in order to create great art.  It’s that the further an artist is removed from understanding and speaking to common suffering, the less likely their art will be poignant to the common man.

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“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
     ~ a quote by a famous person.  Who the person was is not as important as the quality of the ideas in the quote.

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U2 and Reports of the Death of Rock n’ Roll

   ~ by OneMoreOption

I was a little frustrated with the group U2 and some of the comments they recently made about Rock n’ Roll, the album format, and their rationale for lackluster interest in their latest album (that still sold over one million units).

Here is the article.

In a nutshell, they suggest popular rock music and the album format are antiquated – the formats may not connect with the surfing, short attention span, and multi-tasking modern, younger consumer.  U2 may be correct that each generation’s patience to take in time-intensive artworks becomes shorter. 

It may be true that fewer people read books, listen to an entire play or opera, or do many other time-intensive activities.  We do seem to be a sound bite, quote, and short video/picture consumer culture – always asking how we can gather and ingest information and feelings faster.

But musically, I didn’t hear anything distinctive on U2’s new album.  At least a million people listened carefully to the album, and yet nothing caught fire in the popular media.  Some criticism maybe should be placed on the music rather than on the medium or changing cultural tastes.

The other thing I did not get from the latest U2 album was a sense of understanding and speaking to common human suffering.  Where were the political protest songs that U2 became popular on?  Where were the endless long suffering songs that were the cornerstone of “The Joshua Tree” and most of their other albums?

U2 is still incredibly popular for what they have done.  But there may be some current backlash against 4 men who may safely control over a billion dollars between them, trying to write relevant songs that speak to the common man’s reality.

Many of us U2 fans are not looking for bigger stage effects, brighter lights, more technologically produced songs, or larger stadium tours.  Some of us are still focused on evaluating the quality of the songs and their lyrical messages.  And if the songs falter on those smaller levels, then they will likely speak less to the current generation.

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Can You Determine The Quality Of A Culture By The Quality Of Their Art?

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Can You Determine The Quality Of A Culture By The Quality Of Their Art?

  ~ by OneMoreOption

Do you like the above artworks?

I do. 

I think they are excellent.

I admire their craftsmanship, professionalism, compositions, forms, and designs.

Do you think they come from a healthy culture?

Can you determine the health of a culture by their popular or condoned artworks?

The above artworks were approved of by The Third Reich’s artistic standards.

Here are the artists of the above artworks in their respective order:

Udo Wendel’s “The Art Magazine”

Fritz Mackensen’s ”The Baby”

Sepp Hilz’ “The Red Necklace” and  ”A Country Venus” “‘Bauerliche Venus”

Images from Wilhelm Prager’s film:  “Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit — Ein Film über moderne Körperkultur.”  In English:  “Ways to Strength and Beauty — A Film About Modern Physical Culture.”

Ernst Liebermann’s “By The Water”

Can you determine the quality of a culture by the quality of their art? 

No.

But interestingly, the Nazis thought you could judge an entire culture or race based on a few examples of their art.  The Nazis put on art shows officially termed Degenerate Art  (the English translation of entartete Kunst) that were intended to be persuasive exhibitions supporting racist philosophies.

The Art of The Third Reich on Wikipedia

Can you determine the healthiness of a culture by the art they exclude?

Probably not.  But their exclusions will inform you more about their social mores and policing forces.

Sepp Hilz posing with his model around 1939:

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Redefining You

The above artowrk titled “emmène moi” is by sonia de spa.

(Click on the image if you wish to view it individually.)

© All rights reserved by sonia de spa.

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Redefining You

  ~ by OneMoreOption

There are people more interested in making themselves beautiful.

There are people more interested in making everything around them more beautiful.

There are people interested in both.

There are fewer people who are effective at doing both.

Generally, the more sophisticated something is, the more work, focus, and consistency is required to maintain its beauty.

Beauty is not simple for sophisticated creatures.

Even “keeping things simple” is not simple for sophisticated creatures.

Being artful is less often about creating something from nothing.

Being artful is more about making the best out of what interacts with you.

Being artful is a conscious choice more than a happy accident.

In the long run, beauty is not a balanced set of genetic markers.

In the long run, beauty is more a balanced set of choices and actions.

It’s not that others will be unable to “love you just the way you are.”

It’s that you should not ask them to.

The effect of being someone who is unwilling to adapt themself for the benefit of others is that you end up being someone who is unwilling to adapt themself for the benefit of others.

Beauty may be natural, but it does not endure without adaptive design and actions.

Whoever you are is who you choose to be.

The definition of “you” is ultimately what you define it to be.

And you choose whether to write your life’s story along the paths you intended from your youth or along the newer paths you have seen since then.

Ultimately, the primary thing defining you is not your circumstances and surroundings.  Ultimately, you have the choices how to define you.

You should cling to the dreams of your adolescence only as much as those dreams continue to have merit.

“First” dreams or initial dreams have no more genuine value than their value in the light of what you know today.

A “calling” is only as strong of a predilection as the evaluative information you knew at the time of the “calling.”  It can be as fickle and subject to error as any human knowledge or prediction.

To be humane is to adapt considerately to the needs in others around you as you inherently learn more.

Do not delude yourself into thinking your insensitivity is simply independence.

To be artful is to place the needs of others in balance with your own needs.

To love is not “to care for” as much as it is “to do your best for.”

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As of today, there are automated post notifications on my Twitter page if you enjoy using that interface.

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“We love the things we love for what they are.” – Robert Frost

The above untitled artwork is by callaveron.

(Click on the image if you wish to view it individually.)

© All rights reserved by callaveron.

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What I Did For Love Were Things That Were Not Intuitive To Me

  ~ by onemoreoption

I was not naturally a well-educated person.  But I fell in love with people who were more educated than me.  So, that gave me a desire to become more educated.

I was not naturally a reader.  But I fell in love with people who loved to read.  So, that gave me a desire to become more well read.

I was not naturally meek.  But I fell in love with people who were meek.  So, that has led me to show more restraint.

I was not naturally tempered.  But I fell in love with people who chose to find middle grounds.  So, that has led me to become less zealous.

I was not naturally an open minded person.  But I fell in love with people who were more open minded than me and pointed out my prejudices.  So, that has led me to choose to continue to keep trying to keep my mind open.

It’s a cliche to say, “I did it all for love.”  But as best as I understand myself, most of the significant changes that have occurred in me are because I wanted to be appealing to someone I loved.

I’ve consistently fallen and stayed in love with people who I perceived to be either as intelligent and educated as me, or more so.

More than a  desire “to be educated,” “to have a degree,” or “to make more money”, I continue to try to educate myself because I want to be more like the people I love.

I’m not saying others should do things the ways I have done them or for the reasons I have done them.  I’m just being honest with you.

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Here is a poem by Robert Frost I came across last night while watching Bill Moyers’ PBS show:

“Hyla Brook” 

  ~ by Robert Frost

By June our brook’s run out of song and speed.

Sought for much after that, it will be found

Either to have gone groping underground

(And taken with it all the Hyla breed

That shouted in the mist a month ago,

Like ghost of sleigh bells in a ghost of snow)—

Or flourished and come up in jewelweed,

Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent,

Even against the way its waters went.

Its bed is left a faded paper sheet

Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat—

A brook to none but who remember long.

This as it will be seen is other far

Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.

We love the things we love for what they are.

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Commentary: 

It’s difficult to stay in love with people or things when we realize “what they are” is no longer what we perceived they might be.

Frost’s poem speaks of beauty of the past, beauty that has disappeared from view, and beauty that has left traces where it used to exist.

There is often a foreboding darkness in Frost’s poems . . . and only glimmers of hope.  He understood regret.

Implied in the poem above, but clearly and intentionally not mentioned, is the fact that next Spring the brook can be expected to return again – if only for a short time before it disappears.

It’s a poem about the temporariness and renewing of love.

And it’s a poem that speaks to how memories of pleasures and love do not easily fade, even when the evidence is hard to see because it has moved underground.

Through sharing words, we can describe.

Through writing words, we can try to remember.

Notice that Frost did not write – as one might expect in a “looking back” poem:  We love the things we love for what they were.

Rather, he wrote:  We love the things we love for what they are.  It may be a present tense recognition – either of a love that exists even after it is “gone” or it could be a love for the bleached out and hard to decipher remnants of a memory of love, the remains in this day.

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Alfred Kinsey And The Popularization Of The Concept That Degrees Of Sexual Orientation And Sexual Preference Are Normal

Alfred Kinsey on Wikipedia

Alfred Kinsey’s research has been called into question for many years, questioning his ethics, definitions, statistical and research methods.  The doubts into his “scientific” conclusions within sexology are warranted and worth continuing investigation.  The duty of science and scientists is to always continue questioning scientific principles.

Whether or not Kinsey’s specific conclusions continue to hold up over time will be interesting to observe.  Whether his tools for measuring sexual components – his degree scale for sexual orientation, his questionnaires, or his information interpretating methods – remain to be considered valid or widely followed is not the only measure of his contribution to popular culture’s perceptions of sexuality.

One of Kinsey’s contributions to the history of sexual perceptions was his audacity to suggest that human sexuality is naturally varied.  He promoted the concept that human sexuality is not naturally homogenous or identical within any commonly measured classification (age, gender, economic class, religion, race, etc.).  He publicized the belief that there is not “one” normal and “preferred” sexual orientation or preference. 

He propounded heretical ideas for his time, ideas that had never been broadly supported ever before in modern Western Culture.  He put forward research that strongly supported the premise that it was common, natural, and not morally deviant to not be exclusively heterosexual.

He placed reasonable doubt into the popular conscience. 

More important than indisputably proving his specific theories or measures, he broadly distibuted extensive data that called into question (or disarmed) the pre-existing “moral high ground” of “one ideal” sexual lifestyle.

And the world will never be the same after his life’s work.

A 1953 Time Magazine Cover:

An excellent 2004 film, “Kinsey”, that I give 5 out of 5 stars:

Laura Linney and Liam Neeson doing exceptional work as Mr. and Mrs. Kinsey:

(Click on the images if you wish to view them individually.)

© All rights reserved by the respective artists.

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Miep Gies And The Story Of Anne Frank

Miep Gies

But for Miep Gies, the world would not know the story of Anne Frank.  For all practical purposes, and for many reasons, the world would likely not know the complexity and inner thoughts of Anne Frank.

Tragically, Anne Frank, being a Jew, had to go into hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II.  Miep Gies did not have to become involved with hiding Jews during World War II, but she did.  Miep Gies was not a Jew and would have been safer by not involving herself with the persecuted Jews.  But for the years during WW II, she chose to be a primary caregiver to the 8 Jews living in hiding above Otto Frank’s retail spice and pectin shop at 263 Prinsengracht (later to become known as the Anne Frank House).  Every day she chose to put herself, her husband, and her other friends at risk by choosing to be associated with and to care for the Jews in hiding.

Almost every day she would scavenge for food.  She would sneak into their hiding place and give them companionship and encouragement.  She would run Otto Frank’s business, when he could not, to help continue to bring in income to buy them essentials to live.  Miep also hid another refugee in her home.  She regularly smuggled illegal food and supplies past Nazi checkpoints in order to find enough food to feed at least 11 people on a daily basis.

After the men running the business were imprisoned when the Anne Frank and her family were found and taken to the concentration camps, Miep stepped up and ran the business.  After Anne Frank’s family was taken away, Miep had the courage to go to the Nazi police headquarters in her area, and she offered an illegal bribe to buy the Frank family’s freedom – a bribe that could have led to her being killed or sent to a labor or concentration camp herself.  Her bribe was declined.

After Anne Frank’s family was taken away, Miep snuck up into the hiding place and gathered up as much of Anne’s diary as she could, then asked a colleague to gather more of it when she, being watched by the local German police, could no longer go up there.  Most of the Franks’ personal property was collected up quickly by the Nazi system (that collected all Jewish property) and shipped back to Germany.

Miep kept the diary safe (an illegal act) throughout the remainder of the war and gave it to Otto Frank (Anne’s father and the only family member to survive the concentration camps).

Miep Gies was an Austrian born orphan who, like many children, was moved to Holland into a foster home as a child.  She adopted Holland as her home country, marrying there, living there through WW II, raising her son there, and she still resides there at the age of 100.

Miep Gies on Wikipedia

Her husband, who she calls “Henk,” did as much for the Frank family and many others, working in the Holland underground resistance against the Germans and daily supporting all of Miep’s activities.

The State of Israel honored Miep and Jan (Henk) Gies by naming them on the list of “The Righteous Among The Nations” - a designation given by the State of Israel to non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. 

Righteous Among The Nations on Wikipedia

Official Website of The Righteous Among The Nations

Jan & Miep Gies entry on the list

Here is a book written by Miep Gies:

I give the book 5 out of 5 stars.

(Click on the images if you wish to view them individually.)

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Marina Rosso – What Is An Artwork?

These artworks are by Marina Rosso.

If you want to encourage this artist, please visit and comment on Flickr:

Marina Rosso on Flickr

http://www.marinarosso.com/

(Click on the images if you wish to view them individually.)

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What Is An Artwork?

~ by OneMoreOption

Is it a painting?  A drawing?  A melody?  What makes one thing an artwork and another . . . not so much?

Of course, there’s no singular answer or definition.

There’s probably no objective measure.  Yet there may be objective ways to measure what more people consider to be an artwork.

This thought crossed my mind today:

An artwork is a place where we want to return.

Whether it’s an image, a memory, a song, a movie, or an idea – an artwork is often a destination we wish to recall and to experience again.

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More by Marina Rosso:

© All rights reserved by Marina Rosso.

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