Long story short, this article here gives a nice summary about a play called “Pitmen Painters,” on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman theater. What’s cool about this play is that it depicts a true story that started in 1934. A group of North England miners join an art appreciation class for the obvious reason- to appreciate art. They walk in, and demand to be talk “the meaning behind the meaning,” or “the secrets behind what’s going on” in art. Their teacher (who happened to be a professional artist) tells them that the only way to find the answer to any of these questions or learn how to appreciate art would be to become artists themselves. So he has them become painters, and two decades into the future, several of the men form an exhibit together as “The Ashington Group” (named after their mining village). They get some good success with their paintings that stem from their village life. This group, like many others, faded away with time, but they were rediscoered by an art critic in 1971 who wrote a book on the group.
From "Pitmen Painters."
So yeah, there’s the general plot. What’s not cool about this is that the article hints that while it’s a story with potential the play itself is all dry art talk. But as I’m not going to see this play, it doesn’t affect me much at all.
But what did strike me about the story of this play was how it all started; miners who wanted to know what art was. I think that’s a great reason to be captivated. Afterall, we are an arts in the NYC class that at least TRIES to understand or critique art through the use of blog posts, no? In order to make these guys answer the questions about art, he turned them into artists. Because the best way to appreciate art (or anything for that matter) is to have some experience within the field. And that makes perfect sense. It made me think about how we’re always running to the city a couple times a month to see a performance of some sort. We’re experiencing art; but are we experiencing it to the fullest?
I remember the classical guitar playing by the Asad brothers recently. And while there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this pair was talented, all I could do was sit there and appreciate the sounds that I was hearing. Whereas for the music majors like Alyssa and Alexandra, they were having discussions about what was being played, and talking about certain scales and something about an A-flat (probably not an A-flat, I’m not sure if that even exists, but you get the point) and discussing the Asad brother’s playing. Because they have experience playing music, they were able to have a more fuller experience at the classical guitar playing. Whereas for me, I just sat there and enjoyed what I heard.
But yeah, what struck me about this article wasn’t the play itself, but the reason the original story behind it started. Maybe we should have all become amateur opera singers, and instrument players, and abstract expressionists before setting out on all of these trips, so that we could’ve had fuller experiences? 😀
