04/07/2010: "The Amateur"

Roland Barthes (1915 - 1980) was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes's work extended over many fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism and post-structuralism.

I have a passing acquaintance with Barthes theories. But I love this quote, attributed to him, that I copied from the wall of the Museum of Contemporary Art is Barcelona. It describes what I have tried to express so often, the force that motivates me.

The Amateur

"The Amateur (someone who engages in painting, music, sport, science without the spirit of mastery or competition); the Amateur renews his pleasure (amato: one who loves and loves again); he is anything but a hero (of creation, of performance); he establishes himself graciously (for nothing) in the signifier; in the immediate definitive substance of music, of painting; his praxis, usually involves no rubato (that theft of the object for the sake of the attribute); he is - he will be perhaps - the counter bourgeois artist."

Three realizations in this post:

1. I am - I will be perhaps - a counter bourgeois artist.
2. I create for love, to give form to the thing I have imagined.
3. I get excited by theory.

Yours with creativity and imagination,
Darlene