A View From The Top

gregbuscemeOne of the things The Studio is known for is cooperation with other institutions. Partnerships between organizations benefit all parties with a show of mutual support, as well as expanding the outreach and capabilities of both groups.

We’ve coordinated with various arts and non-arts organizations in the past and are open to those activities in the future.

The mostly recent act of cooperation is through a collaboration with Lamar State College-Port Arthur through instructor John Freyermuth who heads a vast department for sound technology and a variety of other sound engineering and technology classes. Students from the sound technology classes come to The Studio and handle the sound for Band Nites. This alliance was forged by Olivia Busceme, a new board member, who heads up Band Nite events and has for the past 10 years.

As part of their curriculum, each month they will come out and set up speakers and microphones, and regulate the sound during the events. The benefits are extensive for the students who get hands-on experience in a real-world setting. For The Studio, we get sound for free and the benefit of working with a respected institution that is LSCPA.

I want to thank all the parties who came up with this great idea and hope this is the tip of the iceberg as far as good cooperation’s go.

The majority of people in the world don’t have an opinion about art one way or another until it offends them. Then we have controversy and political upheaval as everyone jumps on the “attack the arts” bandwagon. I don’t want to see that, and as long as we stay out of the fray the art world is better off. We tend to lose those battles. We don’t see the same reaction when people confront some art they like! No headlines of, “Good art found in museum,” or politicians trying to get a photo op with the piece of art. No chance, no way.

So why do we do this inane thing we call Art that the public is clueless about unless, of course, it pisses them off?

It is something I’ll call the “Archaic Act of Human Endeavor.” Early human beings, with all their strife and hardships, still created objects of both beauty and functionality. Aesthetics is an innate sense that the ancients understood early on in their development, as evidenced in the delicate work of paleolithic and neolithic humans witnessed in museums around the world.

This act is one of our purposes: To preserve the act of creation through human hands, human thought. Every time an artists marks on paper or a convenient wall, any time a potter throws a form or fires vessels,  every sculptor, every printmaker who creates another work of art, is practicing the trade that has been going on for tens of thousands of years in a continuous line of heritage for the arts.

We preserve the sheer act of making art.

We, as artists, are part of the cumulative effect of all art ever made. We hold this honor, this legacy as part of us and in so doing, follow the fine tradition of passing on the knowledge that we have accumulated to the next generation to expound on and improve, and to continue the unbroken chain of knowledge that grows with each stroke of the brush or hand in the clay.

That’s why we’re here.

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