I found Rich Stremme’s story to be quite fascinating and also very admirable. Some of the things that stood out to me were quotes that I read in the various books that were passed around to the class. These included “In cost we trust” and “If your art doesn’t reflect something of the oppression of your society, why bother?” Both of these reflected things that we have spoken about in class. The last quote was actually one of the first things Mr. Stremme spoke to us about. If I’m not mistaken, I believe he said that the quote was by one of his professors. The basic concept of this quote mirrors a topic we spoke about in class, the idea of art as rebellion. It also mirrors Professor French’s interpretation of art: something that is made to be seen by other people. This quote assumes that the responsibility of artists is to use their art to spur change in their society. It asserts that, since the general public will eventually see the art, it may as well express something that everyone already has on their minds (but have been too afraid to articulate), which could then inspire those people to speak up against the oppression. In this way art would serve as the igniter of change.  I admire the optimism of the speaker of this quote, but I don’t believe that art that doesn’t inspire change is pointless. If that were the case then art would be too much about other people and not about the artist. The artist would simply be creating things to please everyone else, in other words what Miley Cyrus is doing (had to throw that one in there!) I believe art is spontaneous; it’s not something you should have to think too much about, its something you do. If an artist is forced to believe that his or her art will be deemed pointless if it doesn’t convey a message then we would be taking away from the skill of the artist, a skill that could have otherwise meant something to someone, regardless of whether or not it inspired rebellion. In short, I believe that if an artist wanted to use their art to inspire others it could definitely be an option but it doesn’t have to be the focus of the artist, nor should it be.

The second quote: “In cost we trust” alludes to the statement on the back of a dollar bill “In God we trust” and represents the corporate takeover of America. In class we discussed how everything is so much more about the dollar value than it used to be, and how this state has taken away from passion for art and has ultimately degraded the value of some incredibly remarkable works of art because they weren’t made by a well known artist or because they are simply not worth as much as other similar works of art. This is especially unfortunate because a lot of times some artists with exceptional skill are forced to believe that what they have created falls into the “arts and craft” category or is just a hobby. For example: Richard Stremme had carved little totem poles out of boredom which should’ve ended up in some museum but he regarded as a craft rather than art. He also created street art which were also incredible but are probably just viewed as vandalism.