Flashback Friday: Four August Stories from Six Years Ago --The Creative Class, Basquiat, Robert Hughes and Olympic Sex

This summer I have been taking an inventory of all my blog posts during the past 11 years. It's been an interesting investigation, rummaging through 4000 blogs posts along with some of the comments they engendered. Here are the intros to five of these from August 2012.

Fall of the Creative Class
August 1, 2012
Last week a Facebook friend posted a thought-provoking critique of Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class. For those who care about these things, and I realize a lot of folks don't, the article addresses the current relationship between the arts and contemporary culture, and challenges certain beliefs regarding the economic value of art in society. The article, by Frank Bures, is titled "The Price of Everything." It's popularity may be due to the fact that it attempts to knock over one of our newly erected sacred cows.
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Olympic Sex
August 2, 2012
I intended to write about the "art" of the Olympics this morning, but I have a friend who mentioned that he doesn't read my blog as much as he used to now that I write so much and so frequently about art. If it says "Art" in the title he skips that day. So today I'm throwing him a bone, something more in keeping with the prurient interests of our fans while remaining wholly up-to-the-minute and relevant culturally.
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Was Robert Hughes Right About Basquiat?
August 9, 2012
Yesterday it was announced that former Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes passed away at 74. His perch at Time and a television series that sought to explain the development and history of modern art all served to make him better known than most art critics. L.A. Times writer Mike Boehm called him "a sometimes lacerating reviewer who may have commanded a larger audience than any other art critic in history."
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The Leisure Class and the Arts
August 17, 2012
Every now and then I make observations that I do not know fully how to process. One of these is in relation to our notions of wealth and poverty, and especially wealth and the arts.

It occurred to me as I was reading the diaries of Andre Gide that his "situation" was far different than mine. The Nobel Prize winning French author produced 80 books, many of which were self-published small circulation pieces that were shared with friends. Some diary entries mentioned playing piano for six hours during the day. When he traveled to Tunisia he had fourteen large trunks of belongings. In short, he was not like me. He was from a different class of people.
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I discovered another place where there is art on display. Check out the Protein Pub in the Board of Trade Building across the street from the Y on First Street.

THIS WEEK 
Mark your calendar for the Downtown Duluth Arts Walk (Friday) the a new show at the Barn in Wrenshall called Free Range Trials. FYI Eris Vafias is the August artist of the month at Beaners. Check out my own paintings at Goin' Postal in Superior and Art on the Planet. Both these Tower Avenue venues deserve more traffic from the Duluth side of the bay. To quote Karin Kraemer, whose Duluth Pottery space in Lincoln Park looks fab, "It's just a bridge. Get over it."

Meantime, art goes on all around you.  Engage it.