End of the beginning.

Thomas and I, Walker, have started this collaborative blog so that we may communicate with each other via writing. It is a place to have our ideas put down, and to have these ideas responded to: a constant on-going conversation. The current topic we want to explore is artists and art corporations (artists that are a small hair away from just being a corporation, or ones that actually may be just that). I will organize my argument in the next week and post it here. Hopefully the conversation generated will eventually roll into a book covering a range of subjects. It is primarily an art historical and art criticism piece, focusing on the studio art market, general art theory, current studio art-making practices, and plagiarism of studio art works (at least as how I see it now. This being a collaboration means there's lots of room for change!). Just to make my terms clear... Art is used generally meaning specifically VISUAL ART and also THE ARTS (as in writing, music, film etc). I refuse to confuse these two as I think it shows a certain bias. Studio art is also different than visual art. Visual art is art that serves a visual purpose. Studio art is the practice of making work in a studio, which means the piece can be about sound or sight or taste, whatever. For example, Julianne Swartz makes some pieces using PVC pipes. They travel through the museum and there are small holes in the pipes or some such thing. From the holes we hear voices. Though this piece has a visual element, placing it in the category of "visual arts" would be misleading. I think to categorize it in "studio arts" makes more sense, seeing as how it depends on various senses. -Walker