Oh, but this is interesting stuff . . . some much to dig in to and digest! The four bite-sized paragraphs that follow were excerpted from the Getty Museum website: https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/bauhaus/new_artist/#content
They in some fashion resonated with me, my history, my philosophy. Read on and find out how.
“Architects, sculptors, painters, we all must return to the crafts! For there is no such thing as ‘art by profession.’ There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. Merciful heaven, in rare moments of illumination beyond man’s will, may allow art to unconsciously blossom from the work of his hand, but the foundations of craft are indispensable to every artist. This is the original source of creative design.”
From a previous post of mine: “Be genuine and show your passion! Boots don’t make the cowboy. The genuine article always stands apart from the knock-offs. (And, from a business perspective, commands a higher price.) Why? Head and hands together produce a product. Add the heart, the passion, and art that product becomes. It doesn’t matter whether you’re framing houses, framing pictures, or framing thoughts, the art shows through.”
“The first students who arrived at the Bauhaus were confronted by a peculiar provision outlined in the school’s program. One of its key principles dictated that students participate in extracurricular activities such as “theater, lectures, poetry, music, [and] costume parties,” at which they were expected to contribute to a “light-hearted” or “cheerful” atmosphere.”
A long time ago, during orientation before I began my first term of college, my advisor, whom I’d just met, sat down and outlined the next two years of my academic life. In that plan, one of his goals was to “get that H&SS (Humanities & Social Science) crap out of the way early.” And, regrettably, I did – but for a Photography course my junior year, the balance of my undergraduate and graduate experience was all math and science, basically STEM. Nor did I take advantage of all the opportunities I had all over campus to experience to broad spectrum of possibilities that is art – for free! I didn’t realize until much, much later what an incredible loss of opportunity for that was, and thus when my kids – every one a science or engineering major – started university, I strongly encouraged them to enroll in one class in the arts, literature, or history. For the most part they did; I’ve learned a lot from them since.
“The singularity of the circle suggests the holistic nature of a Bauhaus education, in which individual students representing diverse disciplinary backgrounds were to come together in pursuit of a shared mission to reform art, design, and society.”
This time short and sweet: In my experience, teams comprised of individuals of diverse talents and disciplinary backgrounds in general had better ideas, built better stuff, and got it done sooner . . . and had a helluva lot more fun doing so. Try putting four lawyers and a wannabe (me) in a room to write a simple four-sentence paragraph. Thank stars they had an engineer (me) along.
“The founding faculty at the Bauhaus were united in their conviction that the project of building the new artist should be driven by artistic experimentation and spiritual striving. Only a holistic education that considered mind, body, and spirit could prepare students to create the total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk).”
Arguably, not an original thought (but a good one nonetheless. Consider:
“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”
Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, although there is no hard evidence to support that claim. Nonetheless, I do wholeheartedly agree.