artists tend to be liberal

© Paolo Nobile • Armonia (II) • Polaroid transfer 4" x 5"

Again Milton Glaser, from the essay “Since then (AIGA 2005)“:

I think artists tend to be liberal because their view of the world has to include doubt and ambiguity as well as generosity and optimism. In recent years, I’ve come to believe that the world is divided between those who make things and those who control things.

…

If we need a definition of Art, the Roman literary critic Horace provided an elegant one. “The role of art is to inform and delight”. Form and light are hidden in that definition. It’s an idea I enthusiastically embrace. Of course, informing is different than persuading. When one is informed, one is strengthened. Persuasion does not guarantee the same result.
Delight is the non-quantifiable part of the definition that speaks to the role of beauty. What artists make is a gift to humankind; a benign instrument that has the possibility of affecting our consciousness through empathy and shared symbolism.

…

The most important function of art through history has been to work magic, to change the very nature of those who experience the work—in these cases beauty transforms as well as informs. Searching for the miraculous strikes me as being a good way to spend my time.

you can only work for people that you like

© Paolo Nobile • Il Dono Oscuro (I) • Polaroid transfer 4" x 5"

Thanks to Rob Haggart I had the chance to visit Milton Glaser’s website and discovered “10 things I have learned”, part of the AIGA talk Milton Glaser delivered in London, November 2001. I particularly liked the first one. Here it is:

1. You can only work for people that you like.
This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realised that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

turned to bricklaying ?

No, I didn’t turn to bricklaying (yet). This is just black rice flour resembling cement.

 

Black rice flour - © Paolo Nobile, food stylist Sandra Longinotti