When do you become an "artist"? Is it after you have mastered a craft? Do you need to be producing regularly? Does your work have to come from sweat and tears? Share your thoughts on this topic and check out the great features in this week'sCreateCulture.org newsletter.
Featured Culturalist@ Somnath Roy Howrah, West Bengal, India
Somnath is a master of the ghatam, the clay drum used in the Carnatic music of South India. Well versed in India's various percussion instruments, he attempts to merge the country's northern and southern musical traditions. He was a 2006 Asia Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX) fellow in Los Angeles, where he collaborated with international artists across genres and disciplines. His dream is to travel to Brazil, which he calls a "paradise for percussionists".
To learn more about Somnath, listen to his music and get in touch, click here
Featured Trip Craft and Mystery: Mask Making and Mask Performance for the Theatre – Bruce Marrs August 3 to 18, 2010 Blue Lake, CA, USA
Culturalist@ Joan Schirle, Founding Director of Dell'Arte International, invites you to study with mask-maker Bruce Marrs. Spend two week learning papier mache mask-making techniques and exploring how the vocabulary of the craft finds a life in the body. The workshop takes place on the Dell'Arte campus amidst the majestic redwoods of California's northern coast. Click here to learn more about this trip
From The Forum When Do You Become An "Artist"?
Matthieu Laurette, 2008
Do you need to master a craft before you call yourself an "artist" or is it enough to have a concept? Must you have a body of work? Do you need to be creating regularly? What are the standards in your discipline, genre and culture? Who decides?
During a video workshop in the Kuikuro village in the Upper Xingu (Amazon), a lunar eclipse brings mysterious consequences. Everything is turned upside-down as the male moon menstruates…
A video by indigenous video-makers Takumã Kuikuro and Maricá Kuikuro, from the Video in the Villages (Video nas Aldeais) collection. Click here to watch the trailer of this extraordinary video.
