"To really blossom, one must feel wanted, loved: must feel a place is open to one's especial capacity —not just any job. One's work must have social significance, be needed, —to be vital. Art for art's sake is a failure: the musician cannot play forever to an empty house. There must be balance—giving and receiving— of equal importance whether in sex or art. The creative mind demands an audience, must have one for fulfillment, to give reason for existence. I am not trying to turn the artist into a propagandist, a social reformer, but I say that art must have a living quality that relates it to present needs, or to future hopes, opens new roads for those ready to travel, those who were ripe but needed an awakening shock, —impregnation."
—Edward Weston, March 30, 1931 (from The Daybooks)
Even if you have the chops to create today's equivalent of peppers and naked ladies, you can't combat the problem with the modern audience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBvIweCIgwk
ReplyDeleteLike it so much!
ReplyDelete