Ars Gratia Artis

Art process was the problem

I want to clarify that the reason I resigned from the Oak Harbor Arts Commission was not to protest the city council’s decisions on art selections for Pioneer Way (though I am very disappointed in that outcome), but because I have become impatient with the process and the pace of selections of public art.

The Arts Commission was formed in March of 2006 and during the past five years we have had the privilege of obtaining only one piece of art for Oak Harbor. When we were informed of our opportunity to select four sculptures for the Pioneer Way Improvement Project, we looked forward to finding the perfect pieces and were excited to be doing what the Arts Commission is intended to do.

Due to a series of setbacks and to the decisions made by the city council, the number of sculptures to be funded for Pioneer Way was cut by half. The two pieces selected were not even in the top three pieces recommended by the Arts Commission. That was bad enough, but now it appears that the mayor wants to “add historical perspective” to the Arts Commission because of the discovery of Native American bones under Pioneer Way.

In an ideal world art and politics do not and should not mix. Public art should not be held hostage by the need for the city to pay off a political debt. “Ars Gratia Artis” (art for arts sake) should be the guiding philosophy. Decisions about public art for Pioneer Way should be made based on creating an attractive and vibrant downtown, a place that will attract tourists and shoppers to view and interact with superior quality artwork.

We cannot and should not rely on government to fulfill our every need. If we want our community to reflect the artistic talent and sophistication that exists here, we as citizens have to step forward to make it happen. Because I have become somewhat disillusioned with the process of obtaining public art for Oak Harbor, I intend to find another avenue of promoting the arts here.

I have the utmost respect for my Arts Commission colleagues and the city staff who support them, and I wish them well in their next phase of projects. My advice for the city is to “use them or lose them.”

Fern Miller

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Ars Gratia Artis « Cuddletech

If you don’t know the story, the picture is of a famous art piece named The Fountain by Marcel Duchamp .  If you are an artist or great lover of art, it is an important work that has a bold place in arts history.  However, if you are outside that circle the piece simply reminds you of why you hate artists.  (You can have fun investigating the paradox of it all on your own.)

The point is this: anything done for the sake of itself is only of value to those within the inner sanctum.  If you look at most of the advice pumped out in various books, television shows, and story lines in movies you see this common thread, anything done for its own sake is ruin.

Like all good bloggers, I’m going to wow you by telling you something you already know and have heard a dozen times before, yet in a slightly new way, and then feel all clever about it.

So hear me now: Don’t “do” devops, purely for the sake of devops.  Don’t use configuration management (Puppet, Chef) just for the sake of using a configuration management tool. Don’t adopt the cloud just for the sake of adopting the cloud.

I know that sounds ridiculous now, but think of all the other fads that have become dirty words.  Agile.  Kanban.  TPS/LEAN.  SOA.  ITIL.  ISO/27001.  CISA.  SOX.  CMMI.  ITSM.  Six Sigma.  ISO-9000.  SAS-70.  On and on and on.  This comes to mind because I just got a piece of email about a conference in Washington (which is the first sign its full of itself) and after watching several videos from years past I wanted to chew my head off.  At some point, surely, you’ve been at a conference or read a whitepaper or seen a presentation on YouTube that made you whisper “This guy needs to get out a little more.”

Anyone engaging in this type of feedback loop will ultimate be confronted with the criticism: “I think your missing the point.”  A little cult is formed and you speak in a secret language causing you to attend annual conferences with the other people who know your mystic dialect of acronyms and start using software by CA.

Standards.  Standards are why I’m really passionate about this point.  Ever met someone who worked for a company that adopted ISO-9001?  Did they like it?  No, they probably bitched about it for as long as you’d let them.  Or SAS-70.  People bitch like mad about SAS-70.

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