"primitive" art? Folk art? And outsider art?

Aren't these three different ways of saying the same thing or are there subtle distinctions?

"primitive" art? Folk art? And outsider art?

Primitive = cave paintings.

Folk = Grandma Moses or Rev. Finster.

Outsider = crazy people and prisoners.

Hey, I saw an ad for a movie with Simon Pegg and the guy from Black Books.

I'm thinking: GENIUS!

Rev. Finster

love him!

a movie with Simon Pegg and the guy from Black Books

Run Fat Boy Run directed by David Schwimmer

It's basically a cheap emotional handjob.

This is how I feel about Crash.

This conversation sparked a talk with my therapist about my anti-depressants, and my inability to write or draw when I am medicated over my normal baseline depression.

I always thought it was a cause and effect, that the depression fueled my creativity. But I'm wondering if it's a side-effect, like low sex drive or dry mouth or any of the other physical side effects of medication. I know that less medication means better sex drive, and no more dry mouth.

The Listening to Prozac dude says: Throughout history, it has been known that melancholics, though they have little energy, use their energy well; they tend to work hard in a focused area, do great things, and derive little pleasure from their accomplishments.

But that's just a snippet from Slate, and I have no idea what his backup is.

I can speak for the part about little pleasure being derived from accomplishments, and having little energy.

Depression probably doesn't have anything to do with creativity, but I think anti-depressants can derail it.

It's cliched, sentimental. It panders to its audience instead of expressing the artist's vision. It's a trademarked company, not a particular artist's work. It's basically a cheap emotional handjob.

Interestingly enough, Samuel Butcher, original Precious Moments "artist" was treated for bipolarity. Does that gain him any artist cred for you?

and then there is that white square painted on a white canvas that was in my art history book that is worth millions. Ridiculous? Yes. And then there is the idea of of finding beauty in simple things (not that I think the white on white square is beautiful or art).

I think art is twofold: what the creator intended, and what the viewer gleans from it. Even if the creator intended something that was completely commercial and pop and mercenary, if someone finds it stirring or inspiring or moving or whatnot, It can be art, even if it's bad art. I won't begin to touch on photographs of genitalia or animals and humans with their tissue burned away to reveal their veins or cans of tomatoe soup or swirling plastic shopping bags because I absolutely hated hated hated American Beauty. But even the grotesque and disturbing and mundane can be art, even if I don't like it.

Art can be unintentional. Art can be Mother Nature/Dog (typo, but I'll leave it). Birds scattered along telephone wires, looking like so many notes of music, unphotographed, to me it is still art. I didn't create it, nobody captured it with their Pentax SLR and sold it as a postcard, but it is still art, to me.

And as shallow as I find Bay's movies, like many music videos, of which I think Bay is related to (I haven't checked his IMDB page), I find some of his imagery beautiful --as much as I find it overdone by his ownself.

Loved The Rock, (Ed Harris!) loved Armageddon for all it's popcorny fun (Bruce Willis!), cared not one jot for Transformers or Bad Boys.

Does that gain him any artist cred for you?

Nope. Not every crazy person is an artist. Not every artist is a crazy person.

I'm just saying that those that pursue art are self selected to being more sensitive (not in the weepy "sensitive" stereotype but simply more attuned to nuance) and that the pursuit itself is stressful and isolating which tends to exacerbate things.

Aside from that, Hec, I'm assuming you can tell that he didn't mean it when he started drawing those figures. Or you could tell when he stopped drawing it and was being farmed out?

Allyson, Bernard Sumner from New Order was part of an experiement where they tested the effect of Prozac on creativity. I read an interview once where he felt that it made his lyrics flatter and less deep.