Panel text reads:
I have always had a problem with casual use of the word Art, with its use as a substitute for the word Work. At Black Mountain College, Albers told his students, "I can't teach you to be an artist; all I can do is help you learn to see." This was our pursuit—to learn to see and to give our visual study form in a medium. It was as simple as that. We didn't automatically become Artists when we began to use art materials, or even when we began to exhibit in galleries. We referred to what we produced as our Work, as our drawings or our weavings, our paintings or our pottery or our bookbinding. The question, "What do you do?" would be answered with, "I weave tapestries" or "I'm a painter" or "I'm a potter," assuming that the question meant "What kind of work do you do?" To answer "I'm an artist" would be not to answer the question at all, but to claim some kind of nebulous level of achievement. Art, or being an Artist, was not an identity, but a goal. It was a standard of integrity—a name, perhaps, for the direction in which we were heading, a sort of ultimate reference point with which to measure the steps we took in our work. So when someone says, "My art..." or "I'm an artist" I'm at a loss to know what is being said. I haven't learned what the person does, certainly not in any personal kind of way. All I have learned really is that they have a very casual relationship to the concept of art, but not what they are involved in.
A builder friend once said of a man on his construction job, "He's an artist with a bulldozer!" This statement has stayed in my mind because it seemed a totally acceptable use of the word artist in a surprising context. I usually don't refer to myself as an artist because rather than being a true comment on my accomplishment it would be a casualizing of my intent. In this remark, though, it really signified something. The man was skilled, probably loved his work and had a talent for it–and his involvement produced a glorious result. That, to me, is being an artist.
One of the most valuable parts of the experience of being at Black Mountain College for me was that of studying and working in an educational community where the emphasis was on working at something—anything—with devotion and curiosity. Those were the criteria of value, and in that atmosphere to differentiate between disciplines as to worth would have amounted to a kind of racism. We all, I suppose, hope to in some measure, at some point, achieve fineness in our work, but what is really exciting is the feeling that we are growing, that we are discovering things that we hadn't known before—and especially that there is so much ahead that has not been realized. And, for me, Art is the name of a direction, not a product.
Joan Potter (Sihvonen) Loveless
from Three Weavers (University of New Mexico Press, 1992)
I have always had a problem with casual use of the word Art, with its use as a substitute for the word Work. At Black Mountain College, Albers told his students, "I can't teach you to be an artist; all I can do is help you learn to see." This was our pursuit—to learn to see and to give our visual study form in a medium. It was as simple as that. We didn't automatically become Artists when we began to use art materials, or even when we began to exhibit in galleries. We referred to what we produced as our Work, as our drawings or our weavings, our paintings or our pottery or our bookbinding. The question, "What do you do?" would be answered with, "I weave tapestries" or "I'm a painter" or "I'm a potter," assuming that the question meant "What kind of work do you do?" To answer "I'm an artist" would be not to answer the question at all, but to claim some kind of nebulous level of achievement. Art, or being an Artist, was not an identity, but a goal. It was a standard of integrity—a name, perhaps, for the direction in which we were heading, a sort of ultimate reference point with which to measure the steps we took in our work. So when someone says, "My art..." or "I'm an artist" I'm at a loss to know what is being said. I haven't learned what the person does, certainly not in any personal kind of way. All I have learned really is that they have a very casual relationship to the concept of art, but not what they are involved in.
A builder friend once said of a man on his construction job, "He's an artist with a bulldozer!" This statement has stayed in my mind because it seemed a totally acceptable use of the word artist in a surprising context. I usually don't refer to myself as an artist because rather than being a true comment on my accomplishment it would be a casualizing of my intent. In this remark, though, it really signified something. The man was skilled, probably loved his work and had a talent for it–and his involvement produced a glorious result. That, to me, is being an artist.
One of the most valuable parts of the experience of being at Black Mountain College for me was that of studying and working in an educational community where the emphasis was on working at something—anything—with devotion and curiosity. Those were the criteria of value, and in that atmosphere to differentiate between disciplines as to worth would have amounted to a kind of racism. We all, I suppose, hope to in some measure, at some point, achieve fineness in our work, but what is really exciting is the feeling that we are growing, that we are discovering things that we hadn't known before—and especially that there is so much ahead that has not been realized. And, for me, Art is the name of a direction, not a product.
Joan Potter (Sihvonen) Loveless
from Three Weavers (University of New Mexico Press, 1992)
Artwork: 1995.94.1
Excerpt from Three Weavers
This work was included in the 1995 exhibition Remembering Black Mountain College curated by Mary Emma Harris in conjunction with Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the BMC alumni reunion organized by Mary Holden Thompson, founding director of BMCM+AC.
24 x 18 inches
In copyright
Gift of Joan Potter Loveless
Joan Potter Loveless, Excerpt from Three Weavers, 1995. Printed paper on foam board. Collection of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Gift of the artist.
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