Artistic License
February 10, 2008
I met an artist who produces works from Bronze. Her sculptures sell for thousands, but she has a worry.
The artist is concerned about the environment, and bronze has a rather polluting production method. She would love to move to a beautiful, resinous, material which is much more climate-change friendly, but is concerned customers won’t pay the same price and will deem it an inferior material.
Then I went to Potato Day in Ryton in early February. In one of the tents, there was a large group surrounding a stall selling pure copper gardening tools. They were beautiful. But it made me think – copper is getting more and more scarce – should we be buying so much of it to use on our spuds?!
Perhaps beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps now it is time to value art or artisan products in a new way. Recycled, renewable and non-polluting materials may have had a crusty, left-over image in the past, but I think it is time they became chic and desirable. After all, doesn’t the true artistic beauty reside in the creativity of the artist, rather than the materials themselves?
