karen cooper - Blog: art opinion

Always Low Prices, Really?

by Cooper on 5/11/2010 8:42:35 AM2 Comments

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio on a soggy Tuesday. It's a grand day for a rant, I think!

Now to be a true rant, the author often heads in the direction of policy, right? Does it count if it's MY policy? Let me explain.

Way back before it was cool, I began a personal boycott of the monstrosity of an enterprise, whose name begins with wal and ends with mart. October 2004, to be exact, was the last time I threw any dollars into their magna-massive coffers. I often brag about that. I am quite pleased with the longevity of my boycott. I have had people respond with, "wow, they must have really treated you bad". And actually, they appear to treat everyone pretty much the same, which causes me to wonder why people still go there.

"So why is this blog post surfacing now", you ask? A friend asked if I wanted to go over to the neighboring town with her yesterday. Ok. When we got there she mentioned, on her list, of stops was the object of my boycott. Have I mentioned that not only have I not spent any money in said store since October of 2004, I had not even walked into one? Yesterday I walked in. Not much has changed. Lots of cheap plastic stuff. Most of it stuff that people don't really need, but it's arranged to make them want it, and after all, it's "always low prices", so buy it.

Can anyone remember when their daddy Sam, used to advertise his products as "made in the USA"? A few months ago my husband brought home an interesting tidbit, the number of empty C containers Walmart ships back to China each month, to be refilled and brought back here to sell some more. Sorry---did not retain the number, just that it was overwhelming. Hey, and just a short while ago, they used to advertise "always the lowest prices". Now they get by with "always low prices".

Because I was in the store with nothing better to do, I decided to price compare, and looked for a few things that I purchase often enough to have the price memorized. Shampoo, for example. Turns out it's 3 cents a bottle less at my local grocery store. I walked over to the book rack. There was my friend Mary Connealy's new book release. It was the exact same price as what I had just paid ten minutes earlier downtown at the local bookstore. You know, the kind of bookstore where the owner lives in town, and his kids go to the local school, and they spend their money in town, and it all works together?

Robert Genn, at the Painters Keys had a letter a week or so ago about "The Next Big Thing", regarding promoting an artist or an art form as what EVERYBODY will be in awe of shortly. You should key on the word promoting there. "Ha", you say, "now she's finally getting to the point!" With a little bit of promotion, we will believe just about anything. With a little bit of promoting, a canvas that's painted a flat solid red can be called great art, loudly enough so that some fool will be convinced enough to shell out the big bucks. With a little bit of promotion, what we don't really need becomes something we want bad enough to pay for. With a little bit of promoting (advertising) the store that used to brag made in the USA, then always the lowest prices, now gets by with "always low prices". And we believe. Dios mio. Stop with the gullability, friend.

And you know what?---the guy who owns the local bookstore downtown---he was friendly, and he chatted with us, and told us about other new things that would be coming in soon, and he was happy to be at his job. His store was neat and clean, (no merchandise laying on the floor!) and shoppers were happy to be there. And because of people like him, life in a small midwestern town will continue to be good, despite the delusion at the pile of plastic and concrete out on the edge of town.

Rant complete. The paint brush should fly now, eh? Thanks for stopping by!

Later, Cooper

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"Choosy Mothers Chose Jif", And Who Makes Authority?

by Cooper on 4/29/2010 9:51:48 AMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, on a fine Thursday, April 29th.

Today we are going to talk about authority. More specifically, we'll talk about what makes it.

Yesterday's conversation started with toast, of the burnt variety, someone wasn't paying attention to the details. Peanut butter toast is the headliner today, possibly because I just consumed a piece. While my slice of bread was languishing between the heater coils of my counter top machinery I happened to read the label of the peanut butter jar. Immediately my mind brought forth their advertising slogan, "Choosy Mothers Choose Jif". (to give equal time, do I need to mention that "Skippy is the peanutiest"?) What makes either of them the peanut butter authority?

As you can clearly see

that brings us to our subject of the day! We've got several varieties:

1. authority by power: bigger, tougher, meaner, I can tell you what to do, and enforce that you believe me
2. authority by purchase: lots of money, can buy the opinion, and everybody believes it because there's lots of money involved (forgive me for typing this word on my blogspace, but think "lobbyist")
3. authority by talent/skill: you are so blooming good at what you do, that no one wants to even contest that you are not the authoratative expert
4. authority by volume: the majority rules, in bad form it could be the lynch mob, in positive form we call it the common good
5. authority be election: everybody loves you and they want you to have it
6. authority by knowledge: know it all, way more than you, I can belittle you about your lack of knowledge while I overwhelm you with the mass of mine
7. authority by experience: you've seen it all and done it all, and everyone else wants to take the short cut, so they ask you

When we look at 2 + 2 = 4, most of us will agree, the math teacher can be an authority. Is it one of the few places in the world where authority is based on fact rather than opinion? If you put two apples with two apples, you really do end up with four apples. In contrast, when we've got a painting hanging in a prestigous place, and the critic lauds it as the best ever, and calls the creator "the next big thing" don't you just want to ask "who made you the authority, Mr. Critic?" [Robert Genn's newsletter from yesterday was about "the next big thing" and you should go read it.] Is it really the best painting ever? Why doesn't anyone holler out "prove it!"?

A little time spent in blog-land can yield up quite a few misappointed authorities. Not so long ago, I read a fellow artist's post on the subject of "how to varnish a painting". I wondered where his authority came from. He obviously hadn't read the label on the back of a jar of Golden. (For you non-painters, Golden is a producer of quality art products, including varnish) Yet, if someone googled "how to varnish a painting", aforementioned fellow artist was going to be there, ready to tell you how to do it, and wrong. Whoa, am I calling myself the authority on truthful blog writing? This could really get sticky.

By now, I suppose a few of you are beginning to wonder if I grew up in the "challenge the authorities" 60's and 70's, and yes, yes I did. Let me quickly state that I firmly believe authority can be good, and we need the good kind. However! I think as artists, we need to constantly remind ourselves that authority is so often just an opinion. Be it the opinion bought with money, OR the opinion of someone with great talent and skills. So fellow artist, when the person in charge says "nope, we don't want your painting in our show", that means it's NOT time to heave that painting toward the nearest dumpster, rather it's time to go find a different authority. After all, it almost always is, just an opinion.

Later, Cooper

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