Art is subjective.  I have heard that my whole life.  It seems simple enough, but it is a difficult concept to understand.  I have trouble with it mostly because if I think art is crap I don’t understand why everyone else doesn’t think it’s crap also.  When I taught elementary art, I gave my students basic criteria to follow: using three colors create a piece of art that uses only geometric shapes but gives one the image of your family.  Then I graded according to how well they followed instruction, not how much I liked the finished piece.  It was very difficult for the little monsters.  They all wanted my approval.  I couldn’t give it though, because art is subjective.

I’m telling you this because I want you to understand, if you ever have need to go inside my mother’s home, yes I did decorate it, no the Jesus art was not my idea.  If I had known we were going to decorate in mini-cathedral theme, I probably would have left the Italian pottery out, but I wasn’t informed until after the fact.  “You know what would look good in here?  The Last Supper!” I tried, I really, really tried to get her to go for the Dali version but nothing would do but Da Vinci’s.  Mother really has no taste.  What taste she has is largely my sister’s and mine.  We buy her things and she puts them up.  When she said she wanted The Last Supper, I knew I had to buy it.  If she bought it, it was going to have a huge gold frame with thingy mabobs and God knows what else.  So I reluctantly bought a copy and framed it in a simple black frame.  It now hangs above her table in the kitchen.  When she moved in to her current abode I tried to hide it.  I placed it under the bed in the guest room.  Well it wasn’t long before she started looking for it.  That kitchen wasn’t going to be complete until The Last Supper was hanging in it.  She searched and searched and couldn’t find it anywhere, and honestly I was feeling a tiny bit guilty.  Not guilty enough to go pull it out from under the bed, but a tiny bit guilty all the same.  I shouldn’t have worried, my older sister was on the hunt as well and soon I heard her call from the bedroom “I found the Lord!”  Super.  So the “artwork” now hangs in the kitchen. 

It is not just this painting that I’m not fond of.  I’m not crazy about most renaissance art, and I dislike mass produced pieces (like Thomas Kinkade), which I refer to as airport art.  When I was in college our art teacher asked us who our favorite artist was.  Most people were reasonable in their answer, but one doofus responded that they absolutely adored Precious Moments.  I almost died!  But to make matters worse, this was after they had said they hated Van Gogh because his work made them nervous.  Holy Shit!  Talk about being seriously deranged!!  You don’t like Van Gogh, but Precious Moments is your fav?  You don’t need to be in an art class.  You need to be in an asylum.  I love Van Gogh, he is hands down my favorite artist.  The Starry Night is my all time favorite painting.  I love all the impressionists.  Precious Moments is not even art.  It is sculpted sugar.  It elevates my blood sugar to even think about it.  Every time I see it out somewhere I have to resist the urge to take a hammer and break it all into itty bitty bits.  This is an opinion I have voiced loudly and on many occasions.  On this particular day I kinda wanted to take a hammer to this nimrod.  After class I asked the instructor to fail her for being retarded.  He looked at me very kindly and said, “while I agree with you, we have to remember that art is subjective.”  I looked at him and very seriously said, “art is subjective.  Precious Moments is shit.”  I don’t know what grade she got.  I got an A+.

One year my husband decided tortured me.  On each gift giving occasion I received a single line of a poem.   The first line was received at Christmas and it said simply “a promise”.  This went on for a full year and by Christmas of the next year I received the full poem framed.  It was beautiful and with it came a golden hammer.  I was a little confused.  I was told to re-read the poem and to pay extra attention to the last few lines.  Well they contained a few words about trees and our precious moments together.  Eureka!  Somewhere on our tree there was a stinking Precious Moments ornament and I was going to get to break that little m’er f’er.  I had never been so excited to do damage to something in my life!  I searched the tree high and low…well low, I’m short and I knew he wouldn’t hide it high…and there it was!  I pulled the nastiness from the tree and whalloped the hell out of it.  Inside there was a beautiful pink diamond necklace!  Leave it to my hubby.  He knew the way to my heart…I got to break a Precious Moments precious face.  I was elated!

Art is subjective.  Yeah, I get it.  You like what you like.  Dark and dismal light and airy, something that matches the couch,  whatever butters your bread is art to you.  But I beg of you to consider this…all of the greatest artists only made one of each masterpiece.  Only one.  Each of them was a true artist.  So isn’t it possible that true art isn’t manufactured?  I’m not saying that is a fact.  I’m just asking if it isn’t possible.  It is equally possible that crap is produced in single numbers.  I know, I paint too.