THEMES AND DREAMS

I have entered quite a few art exhibitions over the years with my glass. Most exhibitions are now themed so one must think if their submission connects in the way the organisers have requested. One of the recent exhibitions by the Scottish Glass Society has the theme of “National Icons”. I have exhibited with the SGS for years and my work has had to adapt to “Journeys”, Celebrations”, Cultural Exchange, On the Edge. The imagination of throwing a word or two together to test the artists creativity skills seems endless. The Contemporary Glass Society is organising a new exhibition with then theme “High and Mighty”. I don’t know what, but I immediately thought of a men’s clothes shop!

Some avoid themed exhibitions as they don’t like being told what to do. Neither do I but I acknowledge the power of a theme in that it focuses the imagination of an artists and takes them to an area they may have never of dreamt of visiting.

Then there are those sneaky people who seem to have such a huge stock of art they have made on the shelf they can just pull out anything they’ve made and twist it a bit to make it fit. To prove how simple this is I bought a bottle of whisky, drank it, and exhibited it. The theme of the exhibition was “Journey”. The whisky was Jura, and the expression was indeed “Journey”. To add insult to the whole spectacle I included the packaging in my exhibit. It didn’t sell and I wonder why?

Selecting a theme for an exhibition can be tricky if one is on a committee that are asked to come up with ideas. With the average number of members on a committee being ten then the result is like to be eleven different ideas. There is subtle thinking at work as one idea of a theme was going to be “Celebrations” but after a discussion the “S” was dropped. To this day I have no idea whether it made any difference to the artists that took part or the visitor. A current exhibition I am working on has the theme of “Change”, note not “Changes”! Originally it was going to be titled “Revolution”, but “Change” won the day. How artists interpret it is mind blowing and I suppose that the attraction of these kinds of exhibitions being wide ranging of individual ideas. No two people see the same thing in the same way.

Surely the ultimate theme for an art exhibition would be using the theme of “Art”. Imagine that an actual art exhibition that is all about art and explores artists work for being exactly what they are meant to be. None of this sound scaping, video confusing with smelly tellies, performance prancing up the high street naked except for a stick of rhubarb or monkeys holding laser engraving tools making graffiti on cow sheds! Nope just plain simple, straight forward art. Does such thing exist?