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Pretentious furry art bullshit
15 years ago
I don't want to ask any leading questions, so maybe I'll start with a preamble to get my thoughts out and then ask some questions of you guys.
For a long time I was pretty vehement that furry art, furry porn, fursuiting, whatever, was separate and distinct from the institution of "high art". The implication of that is that the former just sort of existed, and that any analysis of it would have to be somewhat anthropological in nature. Certainly not artistic! The latter was the true realm of honest, curatorial critique, where overthinking things and ascribing meaning and value is the norm. Implicit further still is a desire, maybe from both sides, to see high art as a necessary distinction. It keeps the pretentious dreck out of the fun furry porn, and it keeps high art from having to invest itself in an understanding of art beyond its own paradigm. It's pretty neat and tidy.
The thing is, I hate things that are neat and tidy.
And besides, I believe that understanding furry art as a unique, subcultural phenomenon with its own values and qualities within a larger art field can help us all to erase these artificial and somewhat arbitrary divisions between high art and low art, which is pretty peachy, if you ask me!
There are two reasons why this is a good idea:
1- It allows us furry artists to use the tools of academic curatorial critique to understand and justify what we do to a socially sanctioned and privileged art world, and reap some of the benefits. This is not good for simply furry art, but other distinct subcultural artforms as well, be it urban graffiti (especially tagging), cosplay and fanfic, guerilla gardening, or any other sort of artform where a community of people is an intellectually fundamental component of artmaking.
2- It argues to the rarefied art world that there are cool things happening outside their ivory tower, and that they should come out and join the party and stop thinking they're more special than everyone else.
So that's sort of where I'm coming from on this. I do want to focus on furry art though, and understand its values and the paradigm it exists in. So here's where I ask opinions! Some of you may have experiences that give you insight. I'd love to hear from you. You don't need to answer all or even any of these, they're just here to get your gears grinding. :)
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
EDIT: More questions, based on some of the responses!
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
If you have any other nuggest, give 'em a drop here. I don't think furry art needs to change in order to be accepted by the institution, but I feel like it aught to be (even though I think the institution is pretty dumb), and I want some arguments to bring to bear on the subject so that I can do research and have drunken conversations with PhD'd art critics. :D
For a long time I was pretty vehement that furry art, furry porn, fursuiting, whatever, was separate and distinct from the institution of "high art". The implication of that is that the former just sort of existed, and that any analysis of it would have to be somewhat anthropological in nature. Certainly not artistic! The latter was the true realm of honest, curatorial critique, where overthinking things and ascribing meaning and value is the norm. Implicit further still is a desire, maybe from both sides, to see high art as a necessary distinction. It keeps the pretentious dreck out of the fun furry porn, and it keeps high art from having to invest itself in an understanding of art beyond its own paradigm. It's pretty neat and tidy.
The thing is, I hate things that are neat and tidy.
And besides, I believe that understanding furry art as a unique, subcultural phenomenon with its own values and qualities within a larger art field can help us all to erase these artificial and somewhat arbitrary divisions between high art and low art, which is pretty peachy, if you ask me!
There are two reasons why this is a good idea:
1- It allows us furry artists to use the tools of academic curatorial critique to understand and justify what we do to a socially sanctioned and privileged art world, and reap some of the benefits. This is not good for simply furry art, but other distinct subcultural artforms as well, be it urban graffiti (especially tagging), cosplay and fanfic, guerilla gardening, or any other sort of artform where a community of people is an intellectually fundamental component of artmaking.
2- It argues to the rarefied art world that there are cool things happening outside their ivory tower, and that they should come out and join the party and stop thinking they're more special than everyone else.
So that's sort of where I'm coming from on this. I do want to focus on furry art though, and understand its values and the paradigm it exists in. So here's where I ask opinions! Some of you may have experiences that give you insight. I'd love to hear from you. You don't need to answer all or even any of these, they're just here to get your gears grinding. :)
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
EDIT: More questions, based on some of the responses!
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
If you have any other nuggest, give 'em a drop here. I don't think furry art needs to change in order to be accepted by the institution, but I feel like it aught to be (even though I think the institution is pretty dumb), and I want some arguments to bring to bear on the subject so that I can do research and have drunken conversations with PhD'd art critics. :D
High art being of a specific quality, one that infers a mastery of the medium.
That being said though, the term high art is really loaded; it more or less means things you'd hang in a gallery, which comes with its own set of presuppositions.
It's two different cultures though in the end, but if you really want you can draw similarities. Galleries these days are playing pretty fast and loose with definitions, and it seems like there's more space for a new idea.
Furry's an idea right?
Off the top of my head, I'd say things like this would apply.
Blotch would be a good example of things that wouldn't.
even though I personally have a very, VERY loose definition of what "art" is anyhow/
Like, any creative ex[ression not immediately neccessary to your survival? Art.
My least favorite artist outside of the fandom is . . . I don't know. I want to point at many musicians who aren't involved in the post-processing work done on their voices.
What makes fursuiting different from mascotting is that often, the cosplay involves the person, even mascotting specifically... involves them picking a pop culture icon. Fursuiting often involves picking a more personal, unique character to costume as.
Furry art would be worse if there were no conventions. Conventions exist as a mild realm for competition and the exchange of ideas person to person would make it less unique overall. Also, there'd be a lot less gift/fan art.
I think it would depend on the gallery. If the gallery were for drawings, I think they'd judge it as being rudimentary and toonish. AS FOR THE PORN. WOAH GET OUT HAHA.
Porn would exist period. BUT OK. UH. IF SOMEHOW IT HAPPENED. IT WOULDNT BTW. THEN. WE CAN LOOK AT JAPAN AS AN EXAMPLE since they seem not to, or maybe there's just not a site where it can all be stored all at once, just make them into stereotypes of personality. Like. Obviously an owl is studious and wise, not stalking and vicious. Obviously that is the role of the snake-man!
If I got ZERO COMMENTS? I would probably not post it online. If it was absolutely zero. It isn't and seems impossible for it to be on this site. Zero comments includes getting IMs or just getting a 'thanks' while using FA to host the image to show the off-site person.
Still giving it a try though - but while we're on the subject. I certainly don't throw people like Beyoncé and Carrie Underwood in my definition of musicians - I'm of the personal opinion that musicians actually need to write their music. I don't even want to call solo singer "artists" the word "artists". But when it comes to post-processing and mixing, there is a very specific role involved in that process - namely, the "mixer". Do you feel musicians should be their own mixers, or do you think having a mixer as a component of your musical entity is enough as long as a band is recognizing of their essential role in the production of the work?
(also, the fact that it lights up with El wire, that helps *_*)
Probably but probably also less frequent. If you get a response while shouting into the forest, you tent to shout again instead of remaining silent.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
I don't think there is any form of art or way of creative expression free from sex. All living beings are hardwired to reproduce...with very rare exceptions so keeping that out would be like keeping food out of the theaters.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
If i showed my FA gallery in a real life gallery...i would probably be arrested for public offense. furry pron and nonfurry guro alike, someone would always be offended...multiple someones, JUST THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
no idea there, i've never been to one so, so far it would have no impact on me...but there are conventions to about any hobby, not always called convention, depending on how big and old the market for the hobby is and how serious it is taken.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Mascotts normally don't live out a second part of their personality with their job, for most it is a fun job...i guess.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
why would i recall the name of an artist i don'T like..maybe Luis Royo because all his pictures feel the same, but that is ultrahighly subjective and has nothing to do with his skills that he has.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Is it worth reading though the huge line of responses?
As far as porn goes, I think it would stand to reason that furries on the average, are either much hornier or much more open about sex than your standard person. That being said, those people with artistic talents in the fandom are likely to have drawn porn of a non-furry nature even before they had found the fandom.
On to the fursuiting vs. mascotting debate. Usually a fursuiter is not only wearing a different identity as with a mascot, but they are also attempting to live as that character in some small way. We create an artificial environment where it is acceptable and even expected that we take on a different form or identity. A mascots purpose is to entertain, which I think we all want to do when we suit, but its purpose is also to achieve a goal. Specifically, a mascot is charged with creating a feeling of team pride and to get people cheering. A fursuiter usually has no goal, other than to have fun by the sheer act of performing as something else.
Other bullet points:
Least favorite non-fur artist: Thomas KinKade. Simply because he is someone to developed a niche art form and exploited it to the extreme for profit only. Thrtowing aside all other concerns.
Worth asking: Yes.
- I don't get comments on my work; again, fun not profit
- To me, that's like asking how life would be with no porn. Rule 34. Which is a cheap way out, I know, but there's porn and pornographic images in every venue of anything everywhere. If it wasn't so fixated on porn (because furry really, really is fixated on it) I think we'd see a lot more high-quality and a lot less people who decided that fucking around with a tablet was a good idea. Or you'd just get a lot of people like me, who slap some lines and color on a canvas and go 'LOOKIT THE PRETTY.'
- I refuse to answer this.
- I think the only thing that a lack of conventions would provide would be less interaction between people. Cons, to me, create friendships and allow people to cross paths.
- Fursuiting is different from mascotting because mascotting implies doing it for someone. Fursuiting is a completely personal experience, and you do it for yourself.
- lol artists, I know nothing about that.
- Do you think it's worth anything getting answers for these questions?
However, it's worth noting that some 'high art' really is quite literally things painted/done with intentionally bad perspective/anatomy, or is just paint flung at a canvas. While the terminology implies someone who has obtained a mastery of the medium, it doesn't necessarily mean that they've acquired it.
As far as furry art that could be qualified as high art, I see that quite a bit. I'd consider much of your stuff very high-quality, because it's always very original and very well done - it's always interesting and different (which is why you've got a +watch from me). There's others out there, too -
Since I often didn't get comments or favs on my work and I still post it, I think the answer is self-evident.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It's hard to know. There's erotica in 'high' art (see the Birth of Venuss or similar images) so there would probably still be erotica in furry too. I suppose if there was no possibility of either porn or erotica then furry art would likely resemble cartoons or real animals than they currently do.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
Laughter, very likely, or much shaking of heads. My art isn't very good usually.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
I'm not sure it would very much. There'd probably be more 'clean' art and art for the masses (t-shirts, coffee mugs, and so on), but since artists can sell their wares on-line as easily as in the physical world I don't know that there's be too much of a difference.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
For mascots I think putting on the suit is more of a job than it is fun. For fursuiters I think the reverse is true.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Jackson Pollock or other artists who do paintings that look like a tarp previously used for catching the paint that falls off walls. I honestly don't get how it's art.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Sure, it's natural to be curious about what other people think on a subject you hold an interest in.
Probably not. If I didn't get any comments or critique, I'd have no way of improving, and I see writing as a way to improve other skills - it kind of helps for acting, for example, in that it makes me think about the characters involved, their pasts, etc. Even if quite a bit of it is smut. :p
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It might be a bit less stagnant, I dunno. There would certainly be a lot less of it, but perhaps a lot more variety too.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
They wouldn't. Stories don't get put in an art gallery.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
There wouldn't be as much of a social aspect to it, I think.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Mascotting is more of a performanced based thing, I think. it's done explicitly for entertainment, while Fursuiting could be used, and has been used, for other things.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Andy Warhol. The damage he and his ilk did to all artforms (music, cinema, theatre, as well as traditional art), will not be repaired for a long time yet. And I'm pretty sure it also helped widen this stupid gap between so-called 'high and low' art.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
of course! Nothing wrong with a bit of navel-gazing. I mean, how else are we going to forge out our identities and opinions on our hobbies? Besides, we could very well be asked these questions by tomorrow's critics. It's good to give them some thought.
Perhaps this all seems kind of nonsensical and rambly, but I needed to respond.
I am not stating you're wrong, but that I was under the impression that the point of Warhol's use of both masses of silk screened images and of commercial imagery was to close the gap by putting what are generally considered very low art mediums and subjects into a gallery space.
Please don't think I'm attacking your view
Well, maybe he was trying to close the gap, but the stuff he did seemed to widen it to me. It was a snowballing effect. He made a simple drawing of a can of soup into something that was considered a work of art, and nowadays there are people who smear shit on a canvas and make thousands of dollars off of it.
Also, the fact that he refused to explain his work allowed people to overanalyse it for the sake of seeming cultured. And nowadays 'abstract' works of 'art' (and I mean 'abstract' as in shit on a canvas, not actual abstract art like the works of Escher or Dali.) sell so well because people with more money than sense think it'll make them seem more cultured and intelligent if they have it hanging up in their house as a conversation piece.
I don't hate the man himself, and he did do some good stuff. But rather than bridge the gap, he inadvertently helped widen it. In my opinion anyway.
Many of them seem to do it in a pretty funny or poignant way while they're at it!
I probably am sounding like an idiot who has no clue what he's talking about. :x
Also if I may, there is an enormously huge field of important and culturally relevant artwork between Dali or Escher's more abstract pieces, and "shit on a canvas". Try not to push the entire concept of non-representational art toward that very small, specific, and rather sensationalist end of the spectrum.
The "good" art is anything that is, for its aesthetic and cultural merits, considered good: The Mona Lisa, Mutt's "Fountain", Citizen Kane, Les Damoiselles De Avignon, Shadow of the Colossus, A Tale of Two Cities, etc.
The "bad" art is anything that is just downright kitschy and lacking of quality or thought and is agreed on - by people who know what they're talking about - to be "bad": things like High School Musical, Matthew Barney's entire collection and every book that Orson Scott Card wrote other than Ender's Game.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
Yes. Though I would be discouraged, because part of why I upload art is because, as an artist, I am primarily interested in interactivity, and if I'm not getting some kind of yay or nay from the audience or not inspiring debate, ideas, tumult, I feel like I'm not living up to what I want out of my work.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It might be a bit more boring, but that wouldn't stop me - the reason I've been so fascinated with sexuality in furry has been from an interest in emphasizing the humanity of sexuality by portraying animals engaging in behavior that is particularly human, or reaffirming the excitements humans observe in behaving like animals.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
People would probably be shocked and uncomfortable, but then again, most of my work - even my writing, my games and my music - is charged with sexual tension and explorations into sexuality.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Because furry is propagated through the culture of the people that exist in the fandom, I think having no conventions may work in the favor of furry becoming a very art-centric and individually driven phenomenon, but it may result also in a lot of artists feeling somewhat lonely and not having an audience who understands or appreciates their work. The fandom exists in a very social environment - despite so many furries being extremely introverted - and that environment encourages artists who are of mediocre skill to improve, invites those who have never had - or had known they had - natural talent to give art a try, and reassures the exemplary in the fandom that their work has an audience of people that "get" it. The removal of that 'sharing culture' may diminish the fandom to a very small phenomenon, practiced only by the very confident or very quirky "professionals" in the field that have the leeway to do so. My concern would be that the furry fetish - because it is a fetish, though not in the sexual sense, necessarily - would cease to be expressed on the scale it is now, because it is something most people are open to or understand. As we have seen in the past, generally people react negatively to it.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
They're... not really that different, actually. I suppose fursuiting has the added benefit of someone being able to express themselves on a very individual level by coming up with a mascot of their own mind that represents them, their likes, their interests. Mascotting is like donning the skin of another entity to bring life to it - many furries argue that fursuiting is like showing your true skin instead.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Probably whoever wrote High School Musical. But known artists, who actually have names to their creations? I hate a lot of things - Bil and Jeff Keane, because The Family Circus is unfunny, irksome and is not sequential art and it drives me crazy; Matthew Barney, because his work is so pretentious and long-winded and he charges bajillions of dollars to see it and casts his family members and friends for the roles - as an artist who thrives on having an audience and working on diverse individual projects with many people, I suppose that very much loses my respect; Glen Murakami, because his art style is repetitive and bland and he does not understand the appropriateness of anime humor at all but he is so goddamn popular he drives me up the wall; Butch Hartman, because while he's a talented writer and cartoonist his art style has never changed and all his characters are identical; Tetsuya Nomura for ALL OF THE REASONS STATED ABOVE.
I also think Miyasaki's new films are overrated and people need to stop worshipping every goddamn step he takes, because not all of them are magnificent.
Those are just some of many.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
There are no stupid questions or stupid answers. Only ideas, and which ones you choose to follow and adopt and explore, and which ones are discarded for someone else to pick up in some undetermined point in time.
If you want hot bull on tiger action, this is the place to be. If you want to be engaged with the debate regarding representation and creation while enjoying large scale abstract paintings, you might want to go to a gallery.
The problem is when institutions like the gallery, or even the art college, position themselves as arbiters of all taste.
In the same way many furries don't appreciate "human art" in their submissions, but wouldn't necessarily consider human art "inferior" by any means - just not what they're looking for.
Plenty of things are categorized into "high art" that are just as "questionable" in nature as furry artwork - I mean, have you seen Odd Nerdrum's work? It might as well be on a porn gallery, it's so unsettling.
I tend to agree with your position, however with a caveat. And yes, galleries and art colleges often thumb their noses at other groups of people who do art. This is often the case because artists who are formally trained are equipped with a skill set with which to judge. This isn't necessarily subjective either, there are actually ways to look at a piece of work and judge its quality that most people don't fathom; the handling of the medium, the colour, the composition, the subject matter, the support, the context, etc.
Again, I think furry art often could make it in a gallery, or rather it would if it didn't have furry culture attached to it. The problem is twofold; firstly, furry culture is replete with social retards, and secondly furry doesn't even take itself serious. How can we expect other people to?
Contextually, putting furry art in the gallery would be a statement upon furry culture itself, and that is my point in the end. Galleries are places, more often than not, for an in depth reading of a piece. How deep do you really think furry art is, as a whole? Aesthetically, there are many pieces that are beyond beautiful, but contextually they mean nothing. Just another picture of a dragon.
Honestly, it seems like any bigot with a pen can write a book and get published nowadays, to the point where I'm just apprehensive to read anything out of fear that it'll be terrible. The same goes for television shows (of which there are innumerable bad ones), movies (do not get me started) and comics (oh, how far we have fallen). You can find lousy quality, shallow work anywhere - it just so happens that the furry community is so concentrated with so many - your word - "retarded" people surrounding an art scene that the vast majority will have a hard time not trying their hand in it, and the results are... well. Unfavorable.
The furry work I have seen that has true depth and meaning in the fandom (probably mostly Chris Goodwin and then a smattering here and there of other artists who I will never be as good as) is often of the highest caliber quality, but interestingly not as popular as... well, as the porn. But that phenomenon isn't so different from popular culture in terms of games, movies and TV shows, is it? People will like what's engineered to make them like it. Porn serves that purpose exactly, hence its popularity - but I don't want to go ahead and declare all pornography shallow. That would be discrediting a theme, which I don't like to do. And I don't think the furry theme should be discredited, in that same light but, as you've pointed out, short of developing a special furry fandom for elitist assholes who make 'high furry art' and making ourselves just as petty and hateful as the artists who look down their noses at us, what can you do?
And I'm not really sure what I'm going on about anymore, so I think I'll just end this feeling very satisfied that you made my brain-gears turn a little. Thank you!
There is such a thing as fine art, but it exists everywhere, and all it takes, in my book, is for someone to take themselves and their work completely seriously.
The issue here really is the insularity of our culture; we like porno. Other people don't like our porno. End of story.
You also seem to have a bit of a hate-on for fine artists which smacks of pathos. Seriously, get over it. They do good work, and you don't understand it.
My bad.
The same institutional way of thinking about art is the same one that privileges both Duchamp and Barney, and relegates Shadow of the Colossus and High School Musical alike to the shallow waters of popular culture artifacts. High art invites a deeper reading, whereas low art does not. At least, that seems to be the institution of art's distinction. Anyway. The infrastructure of high art in the forms of grants, galleries, artist-run centres and intellectual criticism have created such a distinction by privileging some sorts of art over others, and so some art gets canonized and a lot of money goes to artists who can talk the talk or walk the walk of high art, despite there not being a heck of a lot of difference, formally speaking, between high art and low art. Plenty of art on both sides looks amazing. But some art gets lauded and the rest goes ignored. It's not just pretentiousness, seeing as plenty of perfectly sincere and skilled artists "make it" in the art world. Kiki Smith, for instance. It's something else, but what that thing is is kind of effervescent.
I was in an art gallery once with my parents, and my father was raging about a particularly brutish abstract painting to the effect that if that was Art then the wall might as well be Art as well. I didn't argue with him because arguing with my dad about that sort of thing is like trying to argue the weather into changing, but my response in my head was that the wall wasn't art as such because no-one had decided, in seriousness, to declare it was art. I think what I believe is that "high Art" is really a lot like televised wrestling in that it is a work of fiction, though the reason we ignore that is different. Wrestling we know is fake but the fans turn a blind eye because they enjoy the action and drama. Art we think is real, most people would say that art unquestionably is real, and it's only smart-arses like me who go around declaring its falsehood. But I stand by it. I can't think of a single good argument that separates Leonardo Da Vinci from Matthew Barney from NarutoGrlX from Adolph Wolfli: they have different levels of skill and they have wildly different aims and motivations, but at the heart of it all, all of them are creating something as an expression of themselves, drawing on the things they know and believe. I think even the most deliberately dry and analytical artist is ultimately doing the same thing
All the above being said, I in no way want to see the end of the Art institution. I still call it fake, but the beauty of it is that it's a reference-point. If you hold stringently that everything is subjective then discussion becomes all but impossible, and I think that lets us stagnate. I suspect no better point of reference could be found, that however you tried to reform and reinvent the notion of "art", you would either have to accept an artificial hierarchy of worth or end up so vague that it was useless. So it's a lie, but it's a useful lie, because even in violently rejecting it we have a dialogue that spurs things on. In a funny way this is a lot like how I use porn: prior to waking up to seriously writing erotica I was basically splitting my output between the purely smut (which would get me off but which was inevitably absurd and unreadable when I looked at it cold) and equally unreadable "great artistic statements" that heaved together surrealism, numerology, dream-logic and my ongoing internal dialogue with the Christian God. Once I accepted sex as a reference point for writing something "serious" it became so much easier to make sense of my own creative thoughts. Double Trouble after all is an exploration of self-image and my ability to accept flaws in others that I'd beat myself up over and an absurd study in cause-and-effect AND a porno story in which my fursona uses time travel to buttfuck himself
I kind of want to ramble more on this topic, especially 'cause I'm not sure how useful these musings are to a brother, but I have to dash out of the house. I'll post this now and maybe have a prod at those questions you posted when I get home
i still do anyway.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
it would be innocent and more easily accepted.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
"I'm sorry dear, but thats not art."
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
we'd still be underground.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
suiting is an extension of inner self. mascoting is representing an idea or figure-head
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
the guy who passes of the red square on white background as art. thats just embarassing.
(my fave is da'vinci.)
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
they needed to be asked anyway.
Yes, did so and will so for some time
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
... I can't even imagine. Maybe it would evolve to something higher? People might become more concerned with things like anatomy and background and composition
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
I think they'd wonder why I bothered having a show, but not because everything was anthro. Instead because of ... well ... the anatomy and the lack of any noticable backgrounds or composition.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
I don't think it would much
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
mascotting is representing a team or company, fursuiting means you're all on your lonesome
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Probably Monet or Manet or dull impressionists ... or Duchamp(sp?) that pretentious guy who signed his name to a urinal and called it art (so boundary defying!)
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
all questions are worth asking if you don't already know the definitive answers
I get little to no comments on most my "work" anyway. I'm fine with that.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
I think this is a rather moot question, since erotica (and no I will not make a distinction between porn or erotica) has been and will be a healthy part of art forever. I could not even imagine any artistic or literary community without at least someone "dirtying" it up.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
I suppose some people would be interested, and the rest would be "Meh."
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
I think there would be a bit less furry artists who just rely on being a furry artist for their flow of money, but I don't really know since I've never been to a convention.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Fursuiting is more personal to the fursuiter, while mascotting is usually advertisement for a company or a way to help bolster the spirits of a team. If any emotion is felt while mascotting, I assume it's more on the scale of having passion towards what the mascot represents rather than the actual suit.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
I dunno, I don't really place artists in tiers like that.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
nah.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Outside of the eye of the beholder, these things don't exist.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Sure. I guess it makes me vain, but I sort of like to know what people think of me sometimes.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
I don't remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000 because I was very far from even thinking about that kind of stuff then, but in 10 years? I don't really know what to expect from the world itself in that span aside from little things. I can only imagine that the furry populace will expand as it becomes more and more out in the open and known. We will be old and the majority of the fandom will be saturated with 13-15 year olds.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
--- I like to think I would. It feels good to tell myself I'm so all about the art that ego-validation just doesn't matter; that knowing it's there for someone to find someday is enough. But really I already stopped posting to Furocity because I never got any responses and I'm losing interest in Inkbunny for the same thing. On the internet you can't see your audience, you don't know unless people comment and watch and favourite whether you're talking to a crowded auditorium or an empty janitor's closet. That's a pretty lonely thought, pushing all those stories out there that mean so much to me to absolutely no effect. So I think, yeah, if nobody was responding I'd stop posting to save my pride
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
--- anthropomorphic animals, it seems, tend to lend themselves to either cartoons or dense and fantastical genre fiction. Rescue Rangers, Redwall, all those sci-fi stories with the obligatory planet full of cat people. None of these things are necessarily bad, though speaking personally I hate grandiose fantasy worldbuilding. Still I believe - and I have no rational argument for this - that the more earthy, "functional" theme of sex and pornography has allowed furriness to expand beyond merely repeating the tropes of those books, films and tv shows mostly experienced when we were kids and let them combine with the things that matter to us more now that we're fully grown. So, yeah, no porn would perhaps mean those things I described at the beginning would proliferate far more fiercely. Or maybe I'm just irrational and snobbish
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
--- the problem's always the same: "why are they animal people?" A critic and a member of the general public might ask the question differently, but by and large that's the first thing that would be asked about my stories, long before any of the specific sexual explorations are questioned. Am I trying to subvert the ingrained notion of animal anthropomorphism as a kids' thing? Do the different species correlate to personality types or racial groups or what? And the only answer I can give is: "well I just like anthropomorphic animals." The general audience is going to look askance at that and step away and the critic's going to tear me a new arse
I suppose I could bluff my way through a claim that the use of a fantastical element allows a break from everyday reality that makes it easier, much easier, to explore these fetish scenarios and other strange details. But I don't know to what degree I actually believe any of that
This is all mainly true if I was to publish a book or in a mainstream literary journal. An underground or alternative journal might be more receptive, seeing my stuff more in the light of someone strange and transgressive like Burroughs
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
--- this I cannot answer
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
--- mascotting is inherently functional whereas fursuiting is more living out a personal fantasy or an expression of yourself. Fursuiters tend to have a deeper investment in the role they're playing whereas a mascot is clocking in and out on a role that probably dozens of people have filled before they did
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
--- Jack Vettriano never fails to fuck me off, basically. Your entire lifetime's supply of pleasantly warm and rose-tinted chocolate-box art
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
I can only think, in both cases, that it is art which fails to capture my sense of intrigue (this is of course very subjective and even solipsistic). I mean I make no secret of how much I hate Blotch, who I consider to be Thomas Kinkade drawing doggie dongs, where other far less technically-skilled artists grab me by the balls and drag me in. They have something about them that spikes my interest. Same is true in the "serious" art world. Can't stand the abstract paintings of Frank Stella, yet Duchamp's Readymades spark my sense of wonder even though Marcel himself would probably think that a little at variance with the work he himself was making
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
--- Despite being around the fandom for fifteen years I can't really imagine furry in 2000 any more. It seemed, at least according to memory, to be less noticeable in popular culture and less forthright in exploring particularly leftfield fetishes. Sure you had Doug Winger since the dawn of time, but there was a time when he seemed more like the enfant terrible than someone par for a course. So uh, in 2020? Hard to say. Probably more ambitious as presently active artists grow older and want to try new things. I couldn't begin to say what form that might take
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
--- oh hell yes. Like I said elsewhere, it's the dialogue, the asking of questions, that opens routes to exciting new places and ideas. Also I just find it a lot of fun
Oh alright, if they're going to compare me to anyone it's going to be Fritz The Cat, which kind of sucks as I'd much rather be compared to The Naked Lunch
I wish I could edit posts, haha!
I wouldn't go so far as to say "hate" myself, but I agree with this otherwise.
Yes, for the purposes of keeping it stored and organized somewhere (digital portfolios are handy!). DA is this for me since I scarcely get comments, it is simply an organized digital portfolio. I use other sites, like Artspots, to organize my work neatly online.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
Not particularly, I figure the only thing to change would be the public's view of it. In the fandom itself, there is a clean sect and a dirty sect-- I operate as a clean artist, watch mostly clean artists and they watch me. It functions just as actively and pleasantly as the dirty side, haha! So I figure there is no real difference other than what is imagined.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
My work has been put forward against a college board before, and I recieved a 5/5. People not in the furry fandom tend to love my work and compliment it, without considering the 'furry' aspects. I draw a lot of not-especially-furry things in addition to the anthro stuff, so this isn't the most relevant to me. I display my work and share it IRL often!
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Conventions are not the be-all-end-all of furry get-togethers. Meets are very common and more frequently occurring, so I don't think anything would change at all without the cons. People would merely place more importance on the parties, picnics and meets.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Mascotting tends to be done for a company or as a job, fursuiting is purely a pleasure/hobby.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Difficult to name an artist that I truly don't like. My old art teacher, haha, or John K. I dislike John K.'s asinine opinions about what is 'good art' and what is 'bad art', especially his opinion that his own work is phenomenal. Seeing as his work is fairly generic and gross, I can't respect what he does. As a rule, generic styles that are pandering to a specific art trend or made to be marketable (such as a lot of the 'american manga' that plays into the anime-loving youth) make me rather upset, as well.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
I'm not sure what you're hoping to get at, but hey, if you're interested in asking then of course it would be worth it.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Bad furry art is, in my opinion, just art that is made in an attempt to mimic what is popular or appeal to others immediately, with no real 'inspiration' or idea behind it. Just, you know, drawing a sexy wolf man because furries like that and they will comment. It is easy to pick out the people with some real inspiration and talent, and the people just scrounging for attention who see art in the furry fandom as an easy way to get it!
"High Art", same story, exactly. Art made in an attempt to appeal to a group or setting, as opposed to art coming from the artist themselves for themselves. Art that is made to market. Etc. That isn't to say pop art or commercial art is this; two different things, completely. Art made for money is different from art made to appease others (in my opinion). Making that distinction!
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Of course, absolutely. I'm curious as to what people see my art as, from an objective perspective (which furries can't give me).
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
Hopefully, we will just learn to have more open fun with it. I'm seeing more and more people come on here, with art that only thinly qualifies as 'furry'. I'd love to broaden the spectrum even more and just see it as a blanket term for 'uh, animal-y people-y thingies kinda sometimes and stuff'.
- It would probably be less hated by the uhh... haters. It sounds silly to say but I've met people in person that have this horrid view on what furries are and god forbid you step anywhere near them because it will kill you. I just feel like they'd think less like that if there porn, at least the really fetishy stuff, wasn't around. Obviously fetishy. Transformation flies with a lot of people, I've noticed.
- If I were showing work in a gallery I'd have some point to it, probably some general theme or statement. I can figure out how to use animal people intelligently, so the reaction would most likely be one of amusement.
- Do not know, I have never gone to a convention.
- Also not into fursuiting. I think it's just a level of pretend though. Everyone likes dressing up in costume. Halloween is a prime example. So some people want to dress up more, I don't see a problem.
- Hmm... Warhol. Never liked the guy.
- Surely you have your reasons.
- That depends on the context and situation. Bad to me is not the art but the people who insist on never moving from their spot. Even if they are completely happy with their work (something I will frankly never understand), movement is something that should not be avoided.
- Of course. It is my field of study.
- No.
People who are considered with purely traditional methods and thinking of art are never the ones that started any art revolution. They sit and do what they do, become boring, hold onto... whatever the hell their ideals are. They're silly.
Then someone comes by and ROCKS THE ART WORLD, and although they're never really recognized in their time we can look back and say, "damn, these guys broke the rules, brought us something fantastic, and now we're better for it."
I am not trying to make some sort of furry revolution in the art world, but I've noticed the better artists are the ones that are not so quick to write off a different subject matter or media. My favorite artist/teacher buddy (WHO NEEDS TO COME BACK FROM AUSTRALIA DAMNIT) showed me the positive sides of being open minded toward art. Never going back.
FUCK YEAH -
ART.
Now, three artists come to mind (off the top of my head) that ARE pushing the fandom forward: yourself, Kenket (who I realize is a part of Blotch) and the artists of Dreamkeepers. Now, none of you are doing anything that hasn't already been seen and done outside of the fandom, which is the core of the problem: even at its best, the furry fandom is about twenty years behind the curve. Kenket is deeply steeped in the style of Classical Realism: "Missing Piece", "Seabird", and "Barren" come to mind, not to mention the more recent "And We Stay". While Blotch's work is geared towards the mainstream, almost definitely because of the influence of Teagan Gavet on the project, Tess Garman's influence in the fandom has geared it towards moving forward from the somewhat dumbed down pop art and pornography that constantly tries to copy itself forward into the much broader spectrum of high art, of art that can be appreciated by a wider audience than just the furry fandom. Alas, her art may be behind the general curve, but it certainly is a wonderful example of the post-modern response to the abstract impressionism of the post-WWII period, and even the pop art that we see in the fandom today. She refuses to bow to industry standards... and thus, pushes it forward into a new era. Within the fandom, I believe her work could be considered avant garde, high art, and even outside of this bubble her art is a grand example of a style that, for many people, is still culturally relevant. In the next few years, I predict art movements will turn back towards her more realistic style... and thus, will her art be capable of gaining popularity in the ivory towers, if only someone would be brave enough to start to spread and recommend it. For the moment, though...
Dreamkeepers is an amazing example of artists that, although borrowing from anime and from the classical realism of Kenket, refuse to adapt their style to match what the fandom is used to. In fact, their entire company, Vivid Publishing, is based on this idea... They refused to work for the big companies that would no doubt force them to change their product to meet industry standards, and thus did they form their own company with their own ideals of what art should and should not be. The problem is that, although the basis of their artwork, and their style, are completely independent, their art doesn't say anything; it's just an example of well-made art, but nothing that a critic could look at and say, "Yes, this says something." Their comic books, for sure, are worthy of a more critical approach... but the artwork we see from the day to day, posted on their FA page, is rather boring, in that we rarely get a sense of the Kantian sublime; I can't look at their pieces and feel anything or think anything that I haven't felt or thought before. While their art is incredible, and I can appreciate what they're doing, I feel like they're falling into the trap of simply producing more of the same. They're not pushing themselves, which is rather sad; I must reiterate, though, that their comic DOES have this effect, and IS culturally relevant. And in the same vein of Kenket, they ARE pushing the fandom forward; their normal art, though, isn't exactly inspiring, except from a technical standpoint.
And thus we come to you, and the trend continues; although we can draw parallels between your themes and the type of work Kanada produces, when we look at the two of you, I think, from an objective standpoint, Kanada is producing more of the same, cartoony, nostalgic artwork that we see all over the fandom (thinking of Blueballs, here), while your art almost definitely falls into the surrealist movement. We also get a sense, from your choose your own adventures covers, of a reach into the art deco movement, or perhaps the futurist movement. I can't quite describe it... I haven't studied the history of art as well as I should have. The idea, though, is that you're exploring themes and a style of artwork that most of the fandom is not, and thus, you too are helping to drive it forward. You're also one of the artists that seems to infuse their artwork with a message, either purposefully or not: "Home Economics", "Life Imitates Art", and "Mirror Mirror" come to mind. You're one of the few artists that is clearly TRYING to be something more than just another porn generator, someone who is focusing on developing their style independently while staying true to the basic rules, of mixing the inherent humanism within the furry fandom with your own art style that calls back to a previous time, long before the fandom had substantially developed. Can your art be considered high art? In the same way as Kenket's, yes; it's not currently relevant, but in a few years, as the post-modernist movements die down (and they shall, I predict), then these sorts of nostalgic pieces will become far more relevant to the field of art as a whole.
And here's the main problem: at its core, furry artwork is humanist, and humanism is simply not in style. The avant garde of today is pushing art towards critiques of itself, of post-humanism, with the focus on how art functions rather than the subject material. This is due to the influence of people such as Latour and Lyotard, and perhaps even Derrida and Jameson... but, eventually, the cycle of artwork will return to the styles featured by yourself, Kenket, and Dreamkeepers, and that day will be a happy one for the fandom indeed. Also for academia... I find that the ivory tower has no purpose outside of the advancement of knowledge and of society. Art, too, should follow this; it just currently doesn't, because of popular philosophy at this level. And places such as Oxford are Cambridge, which ARE still humanist, are trapped in the Enlightenment ideals, in the Industrial Revolution, the Renaissance, Victorian Culture, you name it, and thus don't appreciate the movements of the 20th century which some furry artists capture very well. Romanticism and hyperrealism will never return... but classical realism and surrealism are still very relevant, and will become more so as the postmodernist/modernist debate heats back up, as it surely will as people realize, "What's the point of art and science if it doesn't benefit people? Knowledge for knowledge's sake and art for art's sake is pointless: art should be focused on the human condition." And, thankfully, furry artwork provides a method of approaching humanism from an entirely new perspective... and thus there is hope for the fandom of becoming something more than a porn machine, and perhaps we'll see more artists who push the boundaries of their craft rather than falling to the boring, typical norms of the fandom's standards.
So we'll just have to wait and see. Perhaps if the fandom kicks up its game a few notches, than it can make progress, but for now, much like anime, artists who push the boundaries are far and few between.
I have often said that Swatcher is one of the few actual artists in a fandom of illustrators. There's not always but often something splintery and challenging in his more narrative stuff, a lot of themes of the fluidity of identity, body horror (much more body delight?) which are sometimes more transgressive than not in their execution, but still interesting to me as it's a theme i have a personal interest in.
You're also right about furry being a pastiche but i think it's eaten its own product for long enough to have speciated into its own (for the most part worthless to the outside world) genre with its own conventions and norms, and these reinforce the whole sociology of furry as much as the sociology of furry reinforces the art.
I don't think furry art can never ultimately escape its own social and economic realities - if i'm being cynical, with very few exceptions furries produce their works for kudos, money, self-expression or to be part of something bigger. There's no environment of critique that sharpens their skills, "good enough" will do although "amazing" is certainly not unwelcome. As you've said, there's no expectation of furry art to even have a deeper message or opinion than your average swimsuit pin-up. Furry art is preoccupied with eye candy and fuzzy feelings, not a wider context.
It's not at all for lack of a good motif either: anthropomorphisation is a great metaphor which has been used to abstract, explore, re-interpret and map the world around us in striking ways since before recorded history in addition to providing good old fashioned character appeal. It's because of this that "furry", "funny animal" and "anthropomorphism" turn out as very different things.
I don't see furry changing without the motivation to do so - you can wait and see all you like, but i feel it'll take a properly charismatic, clever artist who doesn't have a problem with repeatedly casting pearls before swine.
Okay, so you've just named a bunch of artists that you say are "pushing the fandom forward". That kind of implies some sort of progress toward a goal, but I'm not sure what that goal is.
As for the avant-garde of today... it's hard to say. Furries aren't really breaking new ground in terms of subject matter. Anthropomorphic animals aren't really a new concept. I don't think that the content or style of the artwork is as important to the avant-garde as the production and dissemination of it. High art is ultimately a subculture; it's a very well-funded and socially sanctioned subculture, but it has its own gatekeepers and language and people arguing over what's good and bad just like furry has. This relational dimension is key to understanding furry art: the artwork will leave you nonplussed unless you are actively participating in the creation and exchange of artwork, stories, and other social creative experiences. It's important to note the privileged position that artists (and to a lesser extent writers) have within the subculture of furry—they have the noble task of visualizing the furry fantasy universe for the rest of us. The tangental aspects of furry art (specifically the whole animal thing) are a bit of a red herring. It's not the content, it's the culture that's avant-garde. It's overlooked, but it aught not to be dismissed.
No. It's about expression of ideas, and if there's no back-and-forth then there's no point. Like the tree that falls when no one's around.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
This is a difficult question to answer. My initial reaction- or my hope, would be that it would be more conceptual.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
Taking what I consider my best piece, I'd hope they would recognize some redeeming level of skill or potential as far as anatomy, perspective, etc, but I would not expect it to be a "respectable" work.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Conventions add a certain social aspect to the community. Without it the artists would seem less human.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
What makes skiing different from slaloming? Without getting into very specific, non-representative examples, I couldn't give an answer. As near as I can tell, the difference lies in whether the activity is recreational or commercial.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
I'm having a hard time with this one. Rob Leifeild is an over-worked commercial artist who can't be bothered with anatomy, there's the guy who takes photos of other people's photos, there's the guy who accidentally copied MAD magazine's mascot, but I really couldn't place a least favorite artist, my accursed empathy gets the best of me whenever I focus on an artist I should consider bad.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Certainly kept me from being bored for a good ten minutes.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Uninspired, derivative, repetitive, personally meaningless to all parties.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Yes. I'm not ashamed of my lacking skills, and if it were a good enough critic, I might learn something.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
No. I predict a sudden and unstoppable obsession with kapibara and rodent genitalia.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
Yeah, I don't post it for the comments. I post it because I want to show my progress and close friends like to see it.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
Maybe it would be full of gothic/skater/cool guys. Practically, FA with the mature filter on.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
Probably meh. I can't draw very well. I'm trying to learn. But I need some help. And people rarely draw furry around where I live.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Absolutely no, FA for example, is full of furry art that is shared online. I don't think cons are important for art.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Fursuiting is the bond a furry has with their character and the way it likes to represent it. Mascotting is showing your pride for a certain cause with a familiar character that can resume the spirit of the idea you're trying to transfer.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
I don't have "unfavorite" artists.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Yeah, I think it is. Furry opinion is the way of knowing we aren't a bunch of retards.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Bad furry is art is what I call, horrible anatomy and bad dialogue if there is any. Bad high art are pieces of art that seem to be held with high respects, even if they have big flaws that are obvious for anyone with little knowledge of art.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Oh, hell no. I'm not a good artist. Anyone that writes anything about my work is brainwashed or downright stupid.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
Eh, no. I wasn't a furry on 2000. Furries were unknown for me. Maybe the fandom will continue to be just like now. I think we have reached full cycle and everything will be monotonous now.
There's no way to know the answer to that until I start uploading. A big self-hating part of me wants to say, "how is that any different from how things are now," but the only way to overcome this is by being prolific.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
I think it would furry art would exist mainly for the purpose of illustrating stories.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
Here's the thing, I don't see any of the art I'm doing now as being fit for display – it's more of a personal exploration at this point in time. I guess it would fit nicely in a gallery of "cartoon primitives," and in that context might be seen as humorous.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Without furry conventions I don't think commissions and portfolios would have the same cache. Simply put, who would buy a fursuit if they had no place to wear it?
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
I'm probably missing the distinction between the two, but I think there's less historical baggage in wearing a fursuit, or another way of putting it is a fursuiter has a blank slate with which to form an identity alongside their peers.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
I'd have to pick Thomas Kinkade since he's so prevalent within the Disney fandom. He represents the point where technical skill gets confused with artistic integrity. Now I understand there is little room for capital "A" ART in the commercial world, but there's nothing daring about his pseudo-religious impressionistic claptrap.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Now that's a loaded question. I'm gonna have to say nooooooo. This is purely intellectual, and I'm enjoying hearing myself talk.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Another toughie (but allow me a moment to go over my basic understanding of art: art has no inherent value, context is important but an artist doesn't get to prescribe the ultimate meaning or "function" to their work). I don't really have a single opinion on what "bad furry art" means since I judge artists on their own merits, but I don't like furry art that breaks the rules without the artist first showing they have an understanding of them. I also hate to see someone who only excels at one thing and never tries to break out of that mold. That applies to "high art" as well, but I feel that the more accurate term would be "popular art."
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
As long as it helped me to improve and didn't make me want to end my own life, sure?
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
We're going to see more artists get popular within the fandom, and as the definition of furry culture continues to be redefined there's going to be a more public face to it all.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
Yes. I feel proud of my art. If it didn't get comments, I would be a bit disappointed, but simply showing it shows I am proud of it, therefore I will post it.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It would be MUCH less perverted, more respectable, and wouldn't contain all that RENAMONSHITTINGDICKNIPPLESSCREWINGALITTLEKIDLIKEACATHOLICPRIESTWHILESTABBINGIT fetish bullshit. I won't deny I like porn sometimes, but the SEXSEXSEX and fetish obsession is annoying and a little sickening.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
According to my fine arts teacher, rather well. *laughs* Even if it contained furries (unless they're discriminatory of it). I don't draw porn or anything, so..
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
They'd probably commit suicide out of boredom.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Like so many others say, it's more of a personal thing, and for fun, rather than just a role.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Liefeld, to begin with, due to his atrocious anatomy and tendency to be lazy with details all the time, and still think he's Marvel's greatest comic artist. Dog's ass Spiderman, Liefeld. Dog's ass Spiderman.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
I LIKE QUESTIONS. They inspire ideas!
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Bad furry art in my opinion is the art that's done entirely for the fetish bullshit I mentioned above. I can understand wanting to draw something or having someone draw something for your kink, but to smear it in peoples' faces and act like it's the best art ever... Hell no. In fact, many of those fetish art are actually disgusting and ugly. And even many of those that are actually good are just fetish glorification with little or no appeal besides that it doesn't look bad and that it provides schlong-jerking material for fringe furs. They turn some people on, but beyond that, they usually shouldn't even be called art. But they are, in a way, art. Just not very good ones. There was this ad I saw of an artist offering sex games for commissions, and even blantantly advertises them as games, but I've seen them... THOSE ARE NOT GAMES. THEY'RE JUST PORTRAITS OF NAKED MUSCULAR MALES TWITCHING. STOP CALLING THINGS SOMETHING THEY'RE NOT.
As for bad high art, or by its official name, "fine art", I would definitely say anyone who does that type of art which name I forgot, where you splash paint randomly on paper or draw random shapes then call it "art" and think it compensates their tootsie roll. That's not real art. You did NO effort at all in that, that's just flailing a paintbrush randomly on paper then sticking it at snooty people who like to pretend they know art but the most they actually know related to art is how to eat fancy and fart in a dignified manner. If that's all you need to do for fine art, why don't I splash paint on my naked fat body and have a seizure on a piece of canvas? Bonus points for creative execution, like painting via trained elephant! Fuck that, that's not real art.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Hell yes. That is, if it's actually a professional critic who looks from all angles, not "this is original and creative rather than classic and I, being a dry old fart, prefer classics! Hate at thee!" or "this picture has sexual parts and/or concepts that offend my high-class sensibilities so I will blindly hate at it!" I've encountered a couple of those types when I was looking for critique on my poetry, and it was like listening to Stephanie Meyer rant about her sexual dreams. Their "critique" was mostly complaining out of personal preference and offering nearly no viable points.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
If the Kokoro or Itsukae project succeeds, finally recognized as an actual genre and revealed to be a creative new idea.
*WARNING, RANT AHEAD*
...Rather than a fetish, which people currently think furry art as thanks to hundreds of sexually deprived social rejects with bizarre fetishes who flock to furry art out of desperation to be accepted for wanting to be screwed by an undead unicorn while being shat on the head by a multi-dicked herm then raising drama that they're SOOOO PROUD to be part of the group and bawwing at other people over it and basically convincing people that everyone in the furry fandom is just like them. It's sickening and VERY annoying. ...sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. Seriously, people, shut up about "FURRY DISCRIMINATION" and stop bawwing about not being accepted for jerking your tiny dick off to cub porn and imagining that you're secretly a green seven-dicked obese dragon. That makes people think furries are all sexual deviants or just sexually deprived retards. Or move to japan and be weeaboos instead. They like weirder shit than most "furfags".
I don't hate those kind of people, I have a few friends who like things that make me want to wither in a corner in disgust, but I respect their tastes. They're fun people and good friends. What I hate is when they show it off, rubbing it all over, and be unbearably blatant about it to people even though they most likely do NOT want to know... much less see it or care. I also hate it when they baww and complain about "discrimination" and baww everywhere they can and even try to attack "normal" people about it. I know it's annoying when people hate on you for relatively stupid reasons, but news flash... BY ACTING LIKE BLITHERING IDIOTS AND RUBBING YOUR WEIRDNESS IN EVERYONE'S FACES, YOU'RE GIVING THEM A REASON TO HATE YOU.
*RANT END*
On behalf of all kink-positive furry fetishist xenophiles, go fuck a freight train. There's really nothing more that really needs to be said on the matter.
I have a few kinks myself, but I don't baww over my kinks being hated every other week or throw them at people. And I'd like all of those kinda people just stop, because it's fucking annoying.
Sorry for exploding it here, though. Annoyances build up, and I may have been over the top about it.
I didn't mean ALL of you, geeze. I was shouting out against those who DID act that way. I mentioned I had some friends "of the creative stripe", as you call it, as well. Only, they're polite about it rather than trying to grind it in my face as quite a few others did. And I didn't mean any of that stereotyping, it got across that way. XD
Sorry for not being clear.
From what I can tell, the furry fandom is in the right direction on this, and you can already see a wide range of styles on FA, from cute to muscly and realist to artsy. As such, Furry's pornographic orientation isn't that much of a bad thing, because it mostly prevents the ivory tower effect: you can become more abstract, but you can't become so abstract that you can't masturbate to it. Plus, it's in a sort of healthy friendly competition, which usually leads to improvement of skills in the general community.
What I do wish is that furries really should make more comics and better ones. I'm not familiar with American comics but from what I understand, the whole industry is in a nasty state of being non-relevant and repeating each other (at least that seems to be what Scott McCloud suggests in Reinventing comics). If Furries started producing more high quality (and not too fetishy) comics, I think that could really help there.
Furries making comics could be a good thing as long as the people making the comics get used to having something interesting to say.
On reflection, and to be contrary, I'd have to say no. Everything I post online is porn specifically written to be attractive to other people; if no one is actually reading it (I am interpreting "comments" loosely here) then there's not much point in posting it. Or even writing it. If I have kinky sexual fetishes or whatever, those work just as well for me (if not better) as inchoate fantasies than as studiously researched and grammar-checked fanfics.
How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
I have no clue. The fandom seems to be cohered around porn, in that everyone has some kind of stance on it, either for or against. It's not so much that porn itself is in the furry zeitgeist so much as caring about porn. Remove that and the fandom looks completely different!
If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
Writing as a medium isn't really that good a fit for presentation in galleries so I'm just going to skip this.
How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
I have never in my life been to a convention, so this is not something on which my opinion should be trusted. Presumably there would be fewer professional artists tangentally involved with the fandom via the con circuit (e.g., Ursula Vernon), and there would be fewer professional furry artists, and fewer furry zines, and the modes of distribution for zines and the like would be different.
What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
A mascot is a brand identity whereas a fursuit... well, a fursuit can be a lot of things, but to the best of my understanding it's often used as a different persona, something affected but nevertheless appealing to the person donning it. Fursuiting is a lot more intimate, in a way, because it is about personality construction, and the personalities being constructed are usually a good reflection of what the person doing the fursuiting thinks are interesting or valuable personality traits.
Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
I have no clue. I try to just ignore art I don't like, so I'm not really that familiar with any artists who produce works I don't like... and because despite the long list of things that make "bad art" below, in actual practice I tend to like most works for some reason, on one level or another.
Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
I guess...? I mean it's not like you have to justify asking questions to get a sample of what people think. It is axiomatic that more information is better than less!
Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
There are several dimensions of badness. One of them is a failure of skill or technique: all your bodies are lopsided and stretched out, your lighting is awful, your colors don't work together. This kind of badness is fine-- it's not the most enjoyable to look at, but everyone passes through stages where they try and fail, and without all those ugly failures they will never get to the attractive successes. So that kind of aesthetic badness isn't really a, um, bad badness unless the artist grasps hold of their particular failures as their "style", but that's kind of a strawman since I don't actually know how common that is, even inside the fandom.
Badness that I will actually judge people for producing is like... works that advance fucked-up morality as norms or moral behavior (e.g., Twilight, That Hideous Strength, most commercial het porn), or works that have an ideological bent that have little justification as a work aside from pushing an ideology (what comes to mind is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but only because it's the example that's most recent in my memory). Works that try very hard to be "shocking" and "unacceptable" are judged based on how aware the author is of how annoying being edgy for edginess' sake is. So "Piss Christ" is better regarded than, say, Evelyn Evelyn. Uh. Works that are demagogic, insofar as they also attempt to look profound and deep despite just pandering to people's uninformed intuitions.
It's reasonable to judge works differently depending on the context of the work, but I am really bad at that, so those are pretty much my general rules across the entire artistic space. Obviously within the context of furry fandom the norms at work change what is socially acceptable art in the same way the context of "high art" has its own norms that etc etc etc. Furry fandom has a lot less boundary-pushing art than "high art" has, though.
This probably wasn't what you were really asking.
If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Yes, but with the caveat that that hypothetical is happening a year or so in the future after I've pushed my writing style from "mass-produced fetish porn" to "fetish porn that deconstructs of porn tropes and attitudes about sexuality". Right now there is really not much to critique.
Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
I have no clue, but it'll probably be interesting!
Sometimes it feels that the """"""good"""""" art in furry focuses too much on the form instead of the function, you know?
Whilst it's true we can't really exhibit in a gallery, or not without some serious conceptual framing to justify pasting rolls and rolls of printed text to the wall, we have literary journals, anthologies and our own books that I think could fit the same purpose in this discussion. I mean actual published-by-a-real-publisher books, not I-spent-ten-minutes-on-Lulu-picking-page-dimensions books. Stuff you might actually see in a bookstore somewhere
Absolutely. Just because it doesn't get commented on, doesn't mean that people aren't viewing it and reacting to it.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
Depends on where you define the lines of porn, really. I would say a lot less interesting. Not in how things would look though, more to do with what it's about, and what is fueling
the artist.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
"Wow, Tex Avery sure changed a generation."
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
There would be less exposure to it in general, but that's why we have the internet ;D
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Some see mascotting as a job.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Tracy Emin, for her repulsive attitude. Interesting artist, but repulsive human being.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
What isn't worth doing these days? Nothing wrong in asking people to think!
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Human characters that are not furry. Anything that has had "high art" applied to it by the creator. Art can be anything, and yet it can also be nothing. Art simply is by someone calling it, and reacting to it.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
No. I'd be more interested to hear what people with no professional investment in casting an opinion around would, though.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
Jetpacks, little ones that make the Jetsons noise. Also more people with tablets emulating traditional media.
Yep. Back in the 1990s, that was the only we posted.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It would be like the internet now, with safe search turned on. There'd be a lot fewer commissions.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
Dunno. Be interesting, though. Furry art isn't really outsider art anymore.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
There would be a lot less of it.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Fursuiting is when you make a costume and wear it. Mascotting is when you represent some team or franchise.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Bill Willingham, because he's an over-rated hack.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
If it helps you.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Derivative., joyless art designed to jump on some bandwagon with only surface elements.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Yes.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
Yes, I remember 2000. I remember 1990. :) I can't say for sure what will happen in 2020, but I suspect you'll hear more complaining about how there's too much of it.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
Probably; At the most basic level, it's an easy way to store the image for display - showing to friends, showing to coworkers, showing to random people of the public. It's still a way to show people things I've done, or show people neat tricks (like the 'pawprint filter', the dodgy snoot I made, crap like that).
(On the other hand, comments and 'faves' have helped me to realise that technical accomplishment is easily trumped by a story or a moment that people can directly relate to. These are things I would likely not have realised for myself without the indirect feedback of comments/faves)
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It'd be much easier to turn the pages of borrowed art books! (boom boom)
I'd like to imagine that with less energy spent on cawk, more energy might be spent on narrative or storytelling within the work. Could just be my imagination tho'. :)
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
Mm, this possibly doesn't apply to me a great deal. :)
General photography of animals and scenery? Well.. I'd hope that they'd be as accepted as any other photographic work. These photographs aren't particularly furry, however.
Portraits of fursuiters? Like this? http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3773072/ I don't think art gallery clientele would really care for it. I haven't really told any "stories" in photography with fursuiters. Not a great deal of narrative content. An internal battle I have with myself is, "Is my photo only appealing to the furry community simply because it's furry?"
Fursuits I've made? A spottycat on a mannequin, in some goofy pose? Or propped up like displays of medieval armour and such? Maybe if my stuff was more stylised and better captured the spirit of the animal.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Let me drag out a couple of copies of South Fur Lands from 1996-1997. ;) I really don't know, TBH. I've noticed a fondness for physical media and intricate works that incorporate the frame and 3D-ness at convention art auctions. Without conventions I imagine it'd be all digital.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Kurrel and I discuss this from time to time, heh. The other comments here have talked about how mascotting is about selling a product or working up a crowd and how fursuiting is more about roleplaying a character and having fun dressing up, and I'd have to say I agree.
(Though something I'd like to see more of, both from others and in my own fursuiting efforts, is portrayal of a different personality in-suit. Too few critters take that opportunity I think, myself included)
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Mike Wazowski. I really don't know, to be honest. Michael Bay? ;)
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Certainly. I enjoy (for want of a term) 'intellectual' discussions about Furry and aspects of Furry, 'n a lot of my favourite moments at conventions have been quiet discussions with furs about all sorts of stuff.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Bad furry art? I think in Furry we have a lot of pictures, some of them quite good, but not a whole lot of story or narrative in our art. So I suppose the worst possible furry art would be technically poor, anatomically wrong, with a neutral expression and no context or meaning. ;)
(On the other hand, some people might find that refreshing... so who knows)
Bad "high art"? My response will probably be born out of stereotyping and the like, but I suppose one issue I have with intellectualisation (is that even a word?) of art is when someone hypothetically hangs two white canvas-wrapped frames on a wall with a black canvas-wrapped frame between them, and the little card below explains that this piece represents the duality of man and the human condition and how although everyone has some evil inside them, good ultimately prevails.
I don't think art should have to come with an instruction manual in order for people to relate to it - if two white squares and a black square look aesthetically awesome on a wall, then by all means, go for it, but we shouldn't pretend it has some secret meaning.
(On the other hand, some people might find that refreshing... so who knows)
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
My photography? I think so, yeah. Do I get to choose which photographs? ;)
I'd like to know where my photography sits in the scheme of things, outside of furry interest. I'd like to know whether, when I really do put some effort into trying to tell a story with a photograph, I actually succeed at connecting with the observer beyond people giggling that the cheetah's balls are visible.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
Stereoscopic 3D.
I'm not an artist, I'm a sporadic writer, but I'll try to answer some of your questions.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
There's something about what I write or how I write that gets me very few direct comments or feedback. It's not necessarily that people dislike my writing or ignore it, I occasionally find out that someone loves something I did, but this appreciation rarely comes to me directly. I'm not bothered by this lack of direct feedback, it's not at all relevant to why I'm writing in the first place, but I find this phenomenon fascinating. In particular, it seems to me that there are many other people who write or draw beautifully but get very little feedback, possibly for reasons similar to why I don't get much feedback, but they find it discouraging and lonely when it seems that everyone else is getting thousands of comments.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
Explicit porn is maybe about 20% of all furry art, but I'm not sure furry art would really exist without the porn. Or rather, if you removed from people what motivates them to produce furry porn, there probably wouldn't be much motivation to produce other furry art either.
If you try something like banning explicit porn without changing people's motivations, you'd still have all that "tame" pinup poster art, and there would be a lot more sublimation and symbolism.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
Writing is very much about aiming words at a particular audience, at a mental model of a typical intended reader. So the writing I aim at non-furries is a bit different than writing aimed at furries, because my mental model of the typical reader is different. It's not necessarily about whether things need explanation or not, it's more about choices in ways that things get expressed. I think a nonfurry looking at specifically furry writing would either be bored, since much of the signaling is going to miss, or be intrigued or weirded out by the alienness, when they see the signaling that misses but don't understand what it's aimed at.
I don't know how much of that applies to visual works, since visual works have much more of a split-second gut reaction aspect to them.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Ignoring the basic issues like technical competence... What bothers me about furry art is when some artist I watch produces dozens or hundreds of pictures over the years and never evolves. They're still repeating the motions they learned a long time ago, it's like they're filling in the daily sudoku out of habit. If you're doing something stagnant to fulfill a particular requirement of some product, that's one thing, but if you're drawing for yourself and never change... it's kind of sad to see that kind of pointless self-pleasuring in public.
I don't watch high art that much, but it seems to me where people go astray is when they focus on reaction-against something. If you define yourself as anti-X, you've trapped yourself in X's shadow, and it's stupidly easy to just keep taking another step away from X into the random undeveloped wilderness. There's nothing challenging about that.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
Yes. That's pretty much the cast anyway!
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
Perhaps like other little subcultures of things? Like with Trekkies or something like that, while there is plenty of "rule 34" porn out there and sexualized Star Trek things, it's not a huge thing. So, I think with furries, there'd always be pornography SOMEWHERE, if it was more in the back, I imagine it would just be a bunch of cartoon enthusiasts.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
"Take more life drawing classes" would probably be the first thing, which is something I mean to do and keep forgetting to go to my school's free evening life-drawing classes. I don't really draw furries all that much anyway.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
I have no idea. Perhaps there would be even more of a "basement dweller" stereotype.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
With most fursuiting you're representing yourself in some way instead of representing a team or an institution or someone else. That seems to be the main difference to me. Fursuits sometimes also have more detail, and mascots are sort of simplified and iconic.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Probably Vito Acconci. His work is some of the most cold, unfeeling, misanthropic art I've ever seen. All of it is extremely anti-emotion and so intellectual that it feels almost like a narcissistic masturbating robot made his stuff. There's also all the artists whose work is solely "about the medium itself" which is extremely disconnected from the world and people and life around us; awareness and creative use/abuse of form is definitely important but if it's just that, it just smacks of cleverness for the sake of cleverness, tooting your own horn.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
In the least it's interesting field-research. It's kinda interesting how most of the people on here for the "least favourite artist" thing answered either Thomas Kinkade or just some post-modern artist (all from 20th century). I still like a lot of post modern art, but it really has to have some kind of pragmatic human emotional base to it (ones that I think have that are people like Mark Rothko, Gillian Wearing, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Matthew Barney, Robert Longo, and Marcel Duchamp (Something interesting one artist said about the current love affair with highly conceptual art today went something like "Today, conceptual art is the complete opposite of what Duchamp made around the turn of the century; back then, he was fighting an institutional norm that he thought was detrimental to the advancement of artistic thought, today the conceptual art is the institutional norm. Those people are fighting against nothing" or something like that. I think Tracy Emin's ex said that))
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Bad fuzzies: YOU... No, heh... Furries who are extremely "ironic" and "hip" are pretty painful. This question just makes me think if I've ever seen anything on this site that satisfies some sort of human connection; I kind of think that KinkyCoyote's sketches (especially with the descriptions he gives them) have a really touching and unique quality to them... If I had a gallery, I'd want to show his stuff!. I never really think about "Bad furry art" really. Things just are cute (and maybe get me off), or don't. There was one bad experience with furry art I had, though: There is one comic by Demon-Man that actually made me feel quite depressed for that day. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1104351/ something about this frightens and depresses me. I find Demon-Man's work technically quite amazing, but there are many cases where the weird transformative rape scenarios his pictures are about just put me in a bad state. Not necessarily "bad furry art" but just a bad experience with it.
Bad artsy arts: Something that expresses nothing or is extremely narcissistic with no individuality or vulnerability is bad art. Looking at a "classical" type art, I'd say that Delacroix is an awful artist because none of the people he paints seem like real people, they're just archetypes and "exotic" models most of the time; they express nothing. There's just not a certain "emotional depth/breadth" that gets to me.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
I'd be kind of curious but I don't really think I would. In the end I might get either too full of myself or too discouraged by it, depending on what that critic thought. I guess it also depends on whether or not I like that critic. If I made a film and Ray Carney wrote an essay about it, whether or not he liked it would be somewhat important to me because of how much I respect him. If David Bordwell wrote an essay about me, I couldn't care less.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
I do not remember the fandom in 2000. However, I was ten then, and I had just finished reading Watership Down for the first time. Without knowing about furries, I started drawing myself as a talking rabbit character and just doodling that all the time. I didn't find furries until 3-4 years later when I was looking up werewolves (thanks to An American Werewolf in London) on the internet, finding a couple transformation porn and furry websites by accident. With people getting onto the internet and stuff at an earlier age, I imagine that there might end up being more and younger furries. People find they like some anthropomorphic animal cartoon character, look him up on the web, stumble upon furries talking about it, drawing it or something, and get in that way. I also imagine that there will be more French furries from the Caisse d'epargne and Orangina ads.
Hope that wasn't stupid! Thanks for your time.
The first furry gallery I posted to was VCL, which did not and never will have a comment feature. I still posted, but I wanted comments (read: praise), so I would go fishing for comments in places like the VCL forum, the Yerf forum, IRC channels, basically attention whoring in places where it was least appropriate. If I didn't get any comments on my work today, I know what kind of person I am, and I would most likely go back to that annoying habit.
How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
SheezyArt. Okay, real answer: I can't imagine it. I can't imagine that in a group of thousands, maybe even millions of visual artists, not a single one would have drawn even a single piece of smut. You have a population of mammals who look with awe at other mammals and fantasize about gracing them with the most impressive traits of their own species. Do you think, as much as we animals need–and occasionally enjoy–sex, do you think that one of the most common practices in the animal kingdom is going to just be glossed over? I just can't see it happening. That being said, if porn disappeared, not much would really change. People have insisted that furry porn is nothing but a mentally degrading scourge, and if we got rid of it, there would be this blossom of clever and cerebral storytelling, nuanced character development, incredible technical skill, a whole big epiphanic "unplugging from the Matrix" moment. Bullshit. If we don't have porn, we have sparkledogs. We have Krystal's sandwich. We have characters floating in white space and grinning vapidly at the viewer. We have angsty howling wolves and crying 9-11 eagles. Furry artists don't need to draw porn to be shallow and incompetent.
If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react?
I bet they'd just walk by it. Or wonder what the hell cartoon doodles are doing in a serious art gallery. The crazy thing is, there actually is an art gallery that's interested in showing my work, so we'll find out eventually.
How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Again, this is something I just can't imagine happening. But let's say it does. You no longer have conbadges. There would probably be fewer real media pieces, as many people who do real media do it with the intent of selling the piece at a con. That's not to say there wouldn't still be merchandising of things like stickers and t-shirts. I don't go to many cons, and most of my output is unpolished, tailored to very specific tastes, made mostly on my own timeline, and for my own pleasure. There might be more of an effort to bring the con atmosphere to the internet, though how it would happen, I don't know.
What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
You would have to ask a fursuiter or a mascot that question. It's out of my league.
Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Thomas Fucking Kinkade, for crimes against color theory. Honorable mention goes to Shepard Fairey, who missed out on dadaism and is still pissy about it.
Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
How dare you.
Damn right!
Yes. Already have been through that in the pre-web2.0 days. :) Communicating with the people who enjoy what i do is nice but sometimes it's just an unconscious motivator to repeat myself, and that makes for a boring artist.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It would have depended entirely on what kept the porn at bay. But put a bunch of fair-to-middling writers and artists in a situation where they're not being watched and OF COURSE they're going to entertain themselves with smut. And like it or not, unless it's kept at bay with other factors, sex pretty much always triumphs. It's biological wiring.
I think when or if furry on the whole rediscovers the difference between erotica (art with a sexual theme), pornography (art intended to tittilate), confrontational/shock art and plain old parody, it'll be a good thing.
If you want to see funny animals without porn, i hear there's enough comics, animated TV shows, and other media which have done it. :) For a less fatuous answer you'd have to venture some sort of prototypical definition of "furry art", and nobody seems to want to anymore.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
I'm not sure i'd be up for putting it in an art gallery. It doesn't really say anything of significance.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Most of it, not particularly, because i don't think i've created anything which is worthy of serious criticism and analysis, compared to real artists. To believe anything else would be sheer egotism.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Not sure, since i don't go to many so i can't appreciate what function conventions have in its formation.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Mascots have a context and different set of expectations - mascots are there as a brand builder and are there to entertain or sell an experience. Fursuits have a different reason for existing.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
My former stepbrother. He was great at getting grants but wasn't clever enough to produce anything particularly interesting. Much better musician than fine artist.
Let's not be so negative though.
- Who's your favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
In terms of contemporary art, that would be Patricia Piccinini, hands down. She works with motifs that i really like (transhuman and even transspecies), she's not trying to take the piss or moralise in what she does, the pieces themselves are incredibly rendered and her art has this streak of sweetness and fondness for its subjects that i find beautiful.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Yes. :)
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
For me, bad high art is something that loses itself up the arsehole of its own concept without remembering to communicate it to the beholder. Bad high art for me is elitist prickery that has a failure to communicate, or any other kind of baffling wasted opportunity to say something relevant.
Bad furry art? Most obviously it just comes down to a lack of technical skill, but i struggle to think of any examples of actual good furry art beyond simple technique. That's not to say i hate everything any furry has ever drawn or written, but to me bad art is a simple failure to communicate or inspire for whatever reason - and where does that leave the majority of furry art which has nothing to say anyway?
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
It went from big titted vixens to hermaphrovixens to much more gay stuff. By 2020 who knows. I'm not planning to stick around that long unless Juanjo Guarnido himself begs me to stay by offering to give Kewey a cameo in Blacksad. :)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1995670/
Furry art and porn? How about high art and porn? Donatello's David caused quite a scandal when it was unveiled and has been judged fapworthy by centuries of gay and bi guys - and is unquestionably high art. Indeed, there is a lot of erotic (AKA porn) high art:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3185095/
Like you, I think that furry is a real art genre which merits serious consideration - including that which is literally LOL fun: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1818672/
My guess is that it will take at least another generation before furry art receives serious attention from academia because it did not originate there: Not Invented Here.
Thank you for your ideas on a subject that I had never considered.
1. I already don't get comments on my work, though this has a lot to do with not having a lot up.
2. This question should probably be rephrased "...if porn weren't a focus?"
3. Arguably, the work I've posted is all design, no art. (Except for the reposted commission.) So, their reaction would be the mild fascination of seeing the artist's notebook, followed by disappointment that the artist had nothing more substantial.
4. Never been, dunno. But I doubt it would change the subject matter.
5. Mascotting emphasizes a brand, while fursuiting (or cosplay or just costuming) emphasizes a character. It may be more obvious with a human example, like Santa Claus.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
No. The greatest reward that I get from posting my art (photography, photomorphs, and both slice of life and fictional stories) is that it sometimes leads to friendships.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
It would often be less emotionally intense. (I don't enjoy vore or guru.) Sex is an important part of my life, but almost all human porn literally puts me to sleep (Pink Flamingos being a notable exception). There is far more variety in furry porn because there is far more variety among furries. Once you have seen a few humans having sex, you've seen them all.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
I think that some of my photography would be well liked but that my photomorphs would tend to freak out a lot of viewers. The human brain has many hardwired pattern recognition features, with one of the most important being able to visually distinguish between humans and (other) animals. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that some people react so strongly in a negative manner to furry art. Photomorphs maximize the stress put on the human vs. wild animal pattern recognition system. Here is an example of a hardwired pattern recognition system: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/356788/
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
Since I have never attended a furry convention, my opinion would be uninformed.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
The former ranges from a pleasure to a passion, the latter is a job.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Kincade and his ilk. I used to make fun of Jackson Pollack until I saw one of his paintings live (not a little photo in a magazine). Five minutes later, I was still fascinated.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Sure! I would neither have read this page nor written anything if I didn't think so.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
Lack of technical skill X lack of imagination = boring.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Yes, at least if I found their comments on other artists worth reading and thinking about.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
One prediction is a no-brainer: The average age of furry artists is teenage. A decade from now, many those who have continued to create furry art will have far more skill and experience; the golden age of furry art is yet to come!
Good artistic skill X loads of imagination = fascinating art
Perhaps a reason why werewolf movies are so popular is that they play games with the human versus animal pattern recognition system. Ditto why William Wegman's Weimaraners squick many people.
Is Tom Sachs high art?
Then I can answer, myself.
I went to art school (ooh la la!) and I feel I learned most of what I need to know about art...
- Art's appeal is personal
- Raw technical talent is orthogonal to the 'value' of art
- Novel thinking is tangential to the 'value' of art, it's common but not required
- Art's statement is both the author's and the audience's to determine
- Art is, at the core, an elaborate game of bullshit that produces cool stuff to look at
- It's this communication, the context itself that makes something art
Maybe I was broken by Duchamp at an early age, but I basically think that art is the business of propagating discourse. Gettin' people to talk about stuff for money, basically. Sign a toilet, chop up a cow, paint a hot babe on an enchilada or paint a simple lily pond... it makes no difference. What Monet (or his pimps) had to sell was a movement. An upsetting of an order. A controversy. It was never about actual paint on canvas.
Furry art is not, for the most part, about discourse or change, It's personal. It's vanity art. It's projection and wish fulfillment. The goal isn't to find some new way of thinking, it's to make more real something that already exists in the mind. Glamor shots! Porn!
Most of the furry artwork that rises above the personal (or moves laterally into a different context, if you prefer) does so by introducing a narrative, or creating a world. A short comic story, lone images that tell a story by themselves (hello twinkle-sez), repeating themes and iconography across a series (or a lifetime), even if it's surrealist, like your own work, or f27's. The narrative can be about the author themselves, when seen though the lens of an oeuvre. In that, art along these lines has a chance at being what I'd group with high art. Other times it can work more as entertainment, a specialized media in the same sense as TV or radio (which may be a more apt analogy, despite the overwhelmingly visual nature of most furry art). It's a stream of content... not a gallery. It's a broadcast. You tune in.
Sometimes, if we're lucky, it's both high art and entertainment!
Not so secretly, I worry that most furries would not be able to handle actual academic critique. It can be rough, and we're so... sensitive, you know? And if we were to attract serious, sustained interest from academia, or if a culture of criticism were to grow up around us, I feel that furry art would rapidly splinter into 'high' and 'low' flavors. Basically, the ivory tower would carve out what it considered worthy, lock it away inside, and leave everything else pretty much as it would have been otherwise on the 'low' end, taking away from furry's current democratic charm.
To the questions!
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
Of course! I basically post for myself, and it'd never be art without trying to share it! Besides, I almost never do get comments.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
There would be a lower total image count.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
Ideally people would react with slightly appalled amusement. I want them in on the joke. If I were allowed to frame (as in politically) the show, I think it could be well received, but more like you'd appreciate the sketchbook section of an artist's show at the MOMA, not the actual works themselves.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
I'm not sure it would be much difference at all, the internet makes the world too small.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Mascots are usually at sporting events or selling something. Fursuiting is more Maker's Faire than sporting equipment convention.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Wow. Not an easy question. The short answer is Thomas Kinkade, but I'm just on the bandwagon. I don't really hate any artists for their art, they're just uninteresting. I kind of even respect 'bad' artists for 'getting away with it'. Kinkade's just a douche.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
The art world would not even exist without questions like these. It would be the craft world.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
I rate furry art on technical skill, narrative, and how hot it is. If it's poorly drawn, tedious, and unsexy, it's bad.
Bad high art? "I know it when I see it."
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Who doesn't enjoy a good wank?
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
Like anything, it will grow and you will get more good stuff, more stuff that pushes boundaries, and lots more dreck. (And no I kinda forget what it was like, haha!)
Love to hear your thoughts on this.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Jon McNaughton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KGlBHyVeYU
What a self-aggrandizing, sanctimonious prick. You'd think he'd take the opportunity to work those minor chords with an argument to support his political artwork, using it as a springboard for debate... but it's all about how risky and patriotic he's being. And he has a bunch of other videos, each worse then the next. Bleargh. Check 'em out! Not only does he paint lily-white Christs all over the place, he justifies it biblically! He doesn't paint an "anthropological" version of Christ because there are so few descriptions of him in the bible because Christ himself wanted us to pay more attention to his teachings than what he looked like. So white Christ it is!
Also I didn't like his brushstrokes. :)
I would argue that they do mean a lot. Most people grow out of anthropomorphic animals, but I think for those of us who had particularly comforting and vivid imaginary worlds as kids, there's a lot of incentive to allow that to mature as we get older. It's postmodernism internalized. That points to what's most interesting about the fandom: it's a fundamentally different practice in which the social dimensions of the dissemination of artwork are more important than the artworks themselves.
At the base of it, there's an idea of a collective project: to take an incoherent fantasy world based around animal-people and to make it real. This mission of wanting to live in a fictional world by drawing, by dressing up in costumes and persona playing, and by writing stories featuring other peoples' characters, doesn't want to privilege one artist over any other. It's a bit of a chaotic art practice, and it's very new and it's very postmodern and in order to really see it you have to imagine a paradigm of art in which the individual artist making art for the whole world is supplanted by small, loose groups of artists making artwork for one-another, but as a part of a startlingly cohesive whole.
http://forums.furaffinity.net/showt.....ght=born+furry
comment #24
Yes. I was posting it back before "comments" were an integral part of art archives.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
How would "normal" art be different if there was no "normal" porn?
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
They seem to be pretty impressed every time I've done it so far. Stuff gets bought and people ask when they can get my Tarot deck.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
Shepard Fairey, because he has become what he parodied.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Yes, though I am too lazy to answer them in detail right now.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Hell yes.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
Mainstreaming.
And let me start this off by pointing out that I'm not really a prolific creator of furry art, but more of an artist who is also a furry and will occasionally make things that fall into that category.
- If you didn't get any comments on your work, would you still post it online?
I wanted to respond yes to this, but that would be a lie, as I went through a long period of not posting artwork here and only posting it on dA because my lack of furriness in what I tend to create meant I wasn't getting any attention.
- How would furry art be different if there was no furry porn?
I think (or at least hope) that the focus would switch to more development of` the individual's style and technique. More personal growth and perhaps even a focus on creating works that meant something. Less of the cookie-cutter stuff we've currently got going.
- If you showed your work in an art gallery, how would people react? (and especially the addendum below)
As previously stated, I'm not a very furry artist, and actually I've shown some stuff in student galleries before. As for my furry stuff and showing it? I think the cat mask and costume I could swing, but the doodles (which I don't submit) and the collaged stuff isn't really anything good or special.
- How would furry art change if there were no conventions?
The focus might be less on the community in real space, and more on the community online. I imagine also that premade or mass produced things, such as comic books and tee shirts, would not be as profitable.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
Mascotting you're a a costumed representative of a larger group of people, such as a business or sports team, and thus your behavior is limited top that which rallies support for your cause. Fursuiting is a personal choice for expression and holds more in common with costuming.
- Who's your least favorite artist outside the fandom? Why?
I was going to say someone like Judy Chicago or Joseph Beuys, but then I read some people's responses, and they said Thomas Kinkade, and well, I think I'll hafta change to that. He wasn't my first response because I'm still not used to the idea of him actually being an artist, after all, the stuff he mass produces is not really art, it's just shiny things for your wall. However I recently heard about his artist statement, where he reveals that he is well aware that that stuff isn't art (although he won't allow himself to go as far as to admit it's crap), but rather that the artwork is the creation of the corporation that mass produces this plastic meaningless crap and rakes in millions based off people's ignorance of art. Still, my perception of him has switched from a slimy, dishonest prick to a slimy, dishonest artist.
- Do you think it's worth anything to be asking all these questions?
Oh goodness yes. I love your journals because they're often so thought provoking, and this vein you have of Furry Art is one that's had me contemplating of and on.
- Describe bad furry art. Describe bad "high art".
I guess the biggest failure in any piece is to not achieve what it set out to do. This, however, is not the only failures that would get me to categorize something as bad art. For fine art, if the message or means f conveying it are so well traveled that it no longer evokes any real meaning, if it is offensive just to be offensive and holds no further meaning beyond that, or if it's merely decorative. Mass produced anything, not editions of course, but truly shat out, made by children in third world countries isn't good art, unless it's of the sort where the medium dictates mass production (like comics or records). In furry art, well I set the bar a little lower. Furry art can be merely decorative and still be good in my opinion. If the style's to cookie-cutter identical to others, it's prolly not gonna be something I consider good, but it also won't necessarily be bad or unfappable. Porn of any persuasion is certainly not automatically bad or lesser or any of that rubbish.
- If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of your work, would you be interested in reading it?
Oh yes. I hope to someday be written about by professional art critics.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
I was 10 years old in 2000. I didn't bother with computers besides playing Lego Island or doing stuff for school, and I certainly hadn't heard of furry.
In the next ten years? We'll keep getting in young, immature ones, but this current influx of millenials'll age and calm down. Some will leave and mature past it, but I think there'll stay a fairly samey balance of maturity. Conventions appear to be continuously growing, and appearing in many more states, so either we've got a furry con bubble that's going to pop, or they'll reach an equilibrium. We'll get more varied characters showing up, and further relaxation of the dogmas about what content should be in artwork on furry sites (actually FA is pretty good about not restricting content). Many of the same dramas and controversies will still be around. Fursuits will become even more varied as new technologies are integrated and (maybe) people experiment with things beyond just the fake fur mascot variety of fursuit construction.
You know, there are those among my professors who have stated that the difference between high and low art is no longer a real presence, that it was obliterated thanks to the hard work of most of the 20th century. I'm not convinced of this, but there is certainly much more freedom for an individual to present something as art, as long as they are willing to defend their position.
Not exactly related, but I think it's fairly appropriate at least.
I'm actually tempted to say that it wouldn't be any different. I say that because the sexualization is the result of the environment in which the artist grew up in and that is society at large, not the furry fandom. Society in general sexualizes everything. I mean, you only need to go through a costume catalog to see proof. It's got things like sexy nurse, sexy police officer, sexy this, sexy that, sexy everything. We sexualize everything whether we like it or not and so I think furry art would be the same.
- What makes fursuiting different from mascotting?
That's a tricky question. I think, if anything, that fursuiting done of one's own free will while mascotting has a corporate element.
- Remember what the fandom was like in the year 2000? What's going to happen to furry art in the next 10 years?
It's got nowhere to go but up right now. And as it goes up, I think it's going to start attracting attention from the mainstream art community.
Is furry art really that large or mainstream that it can garner it's own special category or be compared to other more developed and known types of art? Indeed the whole furry scene has been steadily growing and will likely to continue growing in the near future. I wouldn't say ivory tower snobbery is doing anything to it as I am willing to bet that a lot in that supposed tower see furry art. In my mind a lot of furry art is an outgrowth of peoples natural sexual fetishes and mental state. A lot of artists here express this in various different types of media. Most commonly pictures and writing yet song and video games are even used. In the end, a lot of people on this site are drawing yiff because they find it a turn on or are wolves as they identify themselves as such a beast. One could even make the argument that furry work can often be just another branch of pornography. I don't deny that many artists draw beyond sexual arousal yet there are many who do. Like pornography they produce some form of media designed to specifically summon upon sexual arousal. The audience can often take pleasure at the mere sight of it or project themselves into the scene. Most people who like being prey in vore see themselves as the prey. All in all, I am saying a ton of furry art is just a natural outgrowth of a sexual fetish just as someone posting a video of themselves sticking a carrot up their rear is a natural outgrowth of a anal fetish. You could say it's a lifestyle but it's more people who push their fetish into their life.
Though you seem to enjoy the idea of compartmentalising different artistic types, I would say that it is not needed. On the scale of things, furry media is a small blip on the radar and is only so known now due to the Inernet. I feel like people will continue to draw art and if they feel like they want to be part of another artistic group, they will be. There is no real need to get into a debate on high/low art as it feels like an uneeded battle, as it were. In the end a lot of furry stuff will just be viewed as "That creepy/freaky/amusing stuff people post online". It's harsh but like how people joke about BDSM lovers, they joke about the fandom.
would wonder what the fuck is seriously wrong. This is a website where 5
minute doodles in MSPaint of Sonic blowing Tails get comments -- not all
positive -- but still comments. If I worked hours/days/weeks on something
and got no comments, it would be saying someone's barely coherent scribble
in MS Paint is better, and I would probably snap my art pencils in two and
throw them in the trash.
2. This is a triply tricky question that can be broken down into three
smaller and more interesting questions, namely: "What would furry fandom
be like if there was a clean art archive accepted by the community for
furries to direct newcomers/observers of the fandom toward?", second,
"What would the fandom be like if all the massive *chan furry image boards
-- fchan, pawsru, kemonono, e621, freehaven, lulz.net, anonib, ib4f, 2ch
-- magically disappeared?", and lastly "What would the fandom be like if
furry porn focused more on the characters and faces, not the fetishes?"
3. I'd like to preface my answer with a story. I recently went down to a
local contemorary art museum. There they had a picture hanging in the
display of a cartoonized old Western stallion reared up and aggressively
smirking. Yes the stallion was naked. Yes, the balls were drawn
inordinately large. The piece seemed to capture the cowboy atttitude.
Although the stallion was anthropomorphized, and thus furry art, the piece
seemed to capture a piece of Americana than anything else.
The point being, that it is quite possible for a furry art piece, even
kinda pornofied, to make it into an art exhibit -- as long as it is
cleverly disguised under a religious or cultural context.
Now, onto the question. I live in a Western state known for traditional
values. I know how people would react to my artwork if it were put into a
local museum here. Many would be shocked. Some would self-identify with
it. A few would try to burn the place down at night. I smirked when I saw
the furry art piece cleverly being accepted only because it had been given
a subversive cultural context. If the cowboy horse had been any other
animal looking at the viewer with an aggressive smirk and with large
testicles on display, it would not have been accepted.
4. Down below you have a question asking about how the fandom was before the
year 2000, and the answer to that question strongly relates to the answer
to this one because, back in 2000, there were only a few conventions and
they hadn't affected the old guard DIY furry community as of yet. To begin
to answer this question, we must first understand what a furry convention
is: a consumerism machine. Furry conventions neither produce talent nor
develop individualism, rather they showcase and consume both for profit.
What do furry conventions provide? They provide an interface between furry
fandom and John Q. Public. This unfortunately is an important and
necessary connection that comes with the price of distilling and watering
down the subculture into a mass-producable product. It would not be too
incorrect to say that furry conventions are the Hot Topics of furry
fandom.
Actually, let's explore this analogy a little further. Columbine happens.
People are afraid of Goths. A lot of tension exists. So Hot Topic comes
along and "bursts the anxiety bubble" between goths and the public. The
goth culture conceeds in allowing the existence of Hot Topic in
compensation for Columbine. Hot Topic is now the goths culture's PR. Of
course, Hot Topic itself was not the goth culture, and in making a mass
producable product, a lot was lost in the translation. One negative
consequesnce is now you have all these Hot Topic Goths who adopted their
identity with the same level of commitment one would make to a Hallmark
greeting card and the subculture is devalued as the Hot Topic goths
displace the old guard goths with sheer overwhelming numbers.
Can you believe that emo used to be cool? Emo was born between a marriage
between the goths and straight-edge culture that focused on rejecting
sexual exploitation of youth by the media and consumerism by dressing in
black plain clothes? Emo also rejected what it perceived as an unhealthy
transformation of lively youth to stoic adults. It sought to correct this
by encouraging its members to be open about their feelings rather than
repress them. Then, the consumer machine got ahold of that subculture, and
brought in a bunch of overneedy crybabies armed with daddy's credit card.
Again, if the consumer culture positions itself to teach the values of a
non-consumer subculture to the masses, ironically to consume and profit
off of them, one can expect quite a bit of sabotage to the orginial
message.
So we see a predatory pattern developing between subcultures and the
marketeers. Someone develops an alternative culture in an attempt to
escape the morass of mechanical non-identity that everyone is assigned by
mainstream culture. Then someone comes along, steals the blueprint for the
subculture, cuts out all the "yucky" portions to help its members found,
establish, advance their own ideas, and produce to sustain themselves
under the new identity, and sells the impotent castrated consume-only
version as "junk food" to the identity starved zombie masses for a lot of
money, transforming the original subculture into litter in the process.
The subcultures are the prey. The marketers are the predators. In an
atmosphere of cheap imitation and emulation for financial exploitation,
intellect demands to not exhibit any sign of independence or free-thinking
attributes except underground with one's own kin. A smart man, regardless
of his creed, understands to fade into the background; to not become a
figurehead of any kind lest he make himself into a lightning rod exposed
to attack.
With this understanding that publicity of any kind is bad as publicity
activates predatory consumerism, furry conventions are as douchey as the
fandom itself -- circa 2005. Final thought: all of the initial media
shitstorms in the fandom stem from the knockoff cheap imitation
exploitable consumer rubes and pathological attention whores making asses
of themselves at furry conventions.
5. Nothing, except that mascotting is more of the realm of professionals, and
fursuiting is the realm of amatuers. As such, freelance amatuers have a
much greater say in what goes into their costumes and acts. An increase in
creativity at the expense of quality control.
6. "Least favorite" is confusing terminology. There really aren't any artists
outside the fandom that I hate.
7. Not really. This place doesn't mean so much anymore. It's not so personal because the members are so uncommitted because the image has changed.
8. Bad furry art -- con badges of uninteresting mediocre characters, dragon
dildos, "adolescent dragon dildos", nerds having sex with sports mascots,
implausable characters, cartoon porn of childlike characters, cub porn,
diaper porn, feral porn, mutilation porn, poop porn, snuff porn, desperate
dweebs getting off to rediculously oversized hermaphrodite porn, porn that
focuses of the genitals rather than the faces, fursuit heads that look
like mouldering halloween pumpkins, and all this shit drawn/made by
unscrupulous artists trying to make a buck off a fanbase that isn't worth
shit these days. Oh, and 5 minute porn doodles in MS Paint by lonely
retards trying to fire enough neurons to explain their sexualities through
their dimmed intellengences. And aggressive contempt for sexual intimacy stemming from sour grapes and living a lifestyle not condusive to intimacy.
Bad high art -- most all of it. Sterile, inorganic, mechanical. It looks as though high art exists to get away from "yucky" humanity in praising flawless gods. The esteem for high art is as though it were a rejection of humanity, of baser lower things, and with it a rejection of reality. High art must always praise the beautiful and the holy and the glamorous and, in doing so, reveals a haughty shallow spirit.
9. If a professional art critic wrote an assessment of my work, I would be wondering what I did right. One thing about art critics is that they look for photorealism. They value artists by their ability to produce art as though taken as a photograph from reality.
10. Yes, I do remember the fandom from earlier. It was a welfare network because it was so small and managable. But then the mainstream came in, and the old fandom disintigrated.
How furry art ends up depends on where the fans take it.
The marketing of furry products is totally normal. People will find a niche and distribute within it. This is good and bad. I am frankly not sure what you expected from this. As said, more people are furry than ever and in the end, people marketing and that will pick up on this. Really, what image do you want from the fandom? Where do you want it to go given the current realities that may aid or impede your ideas? You probably want to stop the belittlement of sub fetishes or something like that but I dunno. The list of bad art you dislike impies that a lot of peoples ideas are trash but really ,where would you want it to go?
If, and if, high art is "overthinking" and "attributing value" ... than... aren't you already in the position to have furry art, something that you are rather intentionally overthinking AND attempting to valuate, be considered high art?
It's that kind of catch 22 definition of art, in general, even main stream art, that makes me stop for a moment and consider the worth of defining words with more words. Or, more impact-fully, ideas with more words. It's nothing against you, and you're right, in my book, but I just wanted to know what's up with that.
Oh, and what's up with high fallootin' talk that makes all other people around the person start talkin' the same way? I have to admit, though, you got the icon for it. It speaks all kinds of pomp and such'n'stance.