20150726 (arts and taste)

Andy dyeing eggs at Tullamore

Hadley and Macy drawing on the way to Snoqualmie Falls

De gustibus non disputandum est

Maybe some folks really like Swiss chard

Kale and those other greens I never buy

We know genetics decides whether you 

Like cilantro or gags you tasting like soap

I don’t know much about art 

But I know what I like won’t 

Get me a column in ArtForum 

They speak a totally other patois 

Like physicists skilled in quantum mechanics 

Musicians discussing composition 

But it’s our eyes and ears which render

Final judgment of what’s art for us

Aristotle skirting the issue proposed

Art is what pleases our senses

The objective thing gives rise

To the subjective experience

We can throw all sorts of

Cultural historical personal reactions

Atop the experience then argue

Why can’t you see it my way

It takes a while for us to grow 

From the red barn white chickens 

Weathered wheelbarrow 

The house in winter candles glowing in each window

Or those children with big eyes

To grasp a Rothko’s tinted rectangles

Modigliani’s long necked ladies

Mondrian’s Boogie Woogie

Have patience we’re just starting out

You’ve been at it since childhood

Just be open to the new the more you see

The more you’ll see if it takes explanations

So be it don’t mark me a Philistine

Because it’s convenient give me time

It’s going to take a lot of time for me

To prefer Pollock over the pattern

On the laminate countertop

And that’s just the visual sculpture included

There’s no representational music

It’s all abstract yet some progression

Of sounds are sensed as melodies

Others cacophonic bound so much

By the instrument’s range look

What comes when people have no violins

They’ll build what they know

Or never hear quiet what do you expect

And last for the spoken word

A lot depends on what you heard as a babe

Rhymes lullabies speeches and such

Language with cadence inflection

Stories related of animal voices

They all build a platform from which

You listen a mother’s rocker as

She sings you to sleep a father’s lap

With you and your brother intently

Hearing a tale unfold it’s no wonder

Art is as different as each of us

c. J.S.Manista, 2015