Make Art, Not War

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Make Art, Not War

The ultimate creative activity is the uplifting of the human spirit. It is our responsibility to bring art back into the hands of the people and to do so in an accessible manner. continued >

SLUSH PILE READERVOTED MANIFESTO

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Mary Anne Davis

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The current differentiation between art, architecture, craft, and design is false, it is a false schism promoted by the art world. This unnatural taxonomy has crippled the artists and turned those who participate or attempt to participate into victims of fashion. Walter Gropius said in his manifesto of the Bauhaus, “There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsperson. The artist is an exalted craftsperson.” (sic) The conscious cooperation and collaboration of artists and craftspeople must be reintroduced to rise above the current constriction and strangulation extant in the art world. This artistic differentiation and intolerance, based on prejudice and fear of commerce, must stop. We must take matters back into our own hands and return to the idealism of our youth. Art schools filled us with impossible dreams and gave us no concrete way of supporting ourselves except through teaching, working at odd or related jobs or that most coveted and jealously desired possibility, hitting it big. It is time to take back the power inherent in our decision to become artists and to work at a grass roots level to create objects for use and contemplation that uplift the spirit. Participate in craft fairs. Make Xerox art. Sell art cheaply. Explore unexpected venues. Embrace commerce. The most important artists throughout history were adroit business people. When Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity, he wanted to explain it so that a school child could understand it. Let our work become that clear. Our ideas can be challenged and clarified by a direct experience with the public.

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Make useful, beautiful, interesting, and or challenging objects. Use your talent and intelligence to educate an inquisitive public. Make a living doing what you love to do. Be irreverent. Get up. Get going. There is a revolution going on in science, math, economics, sociology and psychology that is recognizing the parallel experiences of all the disciplines. Conciliance. Synthesis. Invite the public. Make art. Not war.

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info ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mary Anne Davis is an artist and self styled social sculptor.

davistudio fine porcelain is an

outcropping of the impulse to create a viable means of making a living as an artist.. Davis has a Bachelors degree in Fine Art from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and a Masters of Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. The work of

davistudio have been

sold at the Whitney Museum Store, The Guggenheim Museum Store, and currently in New York at the Museum of Art and Design Store. Clients nationwide have included Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf

Goodman, Gumpʼs in San Francisco, H. Groome in South Hampton and Palm Beach, Le Cherche Midi in Nantucket, Naples and New York City and Sea Cloth, Greenwich, CT. Exhibitions and projects include events at Gallery Idee in Tokyo, The Asia Society in New York, The London Biennial and

a participatory performance at Art Omi in Columbia County called the Mala Meal Project (2002).

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info WHAT YOU CAN DO You are given the unlimited right to print this manifesto and to distribute it electronically (via email, your website, or any other means). You can print out pages and put them in your favorite coffee

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BORN ON DATE This document was created on October 2004 and is based on the best information available at that time. To check for updates, please click here to visit http://changethis.com/sp-2.MakeArt

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