ArtPrize: Open Framework or Open Season?

Actu­ally, I did just that when I read all the com­ments a week or so ago. I was astound­ing by the vorac­ity of the poster going by the name of Mof­Pointil­lism. My com­plaint to WOODTV was that the com­ments of this poster were esca­lat­ing to the point of feel­ing threat­en­ing and the irrel­e­vant inclu­sion in nearly every one of the com­ments of links to Pro­fes­sor Rockman’s pro­fes­sional web­site felt unnec­es­sar­ily intru­sive. I also sensed an under­tone of vio­lence that had me won­der­ing about Pro­fes­sor Rockman’s per­sonal safety and I feared for her even though we’ve only met once or twice and spo­ken in pass­ing. As an artist and a woman, I asked that WOODTV con­sider remov­ing every com­ment made by this poster — at the very least, it just became creepy and at the worst — the poten­tial to com­mit or incite harm to Pro­fes­sor Rockman’s per­son or rep­u­ta­tion seemed a very real pos­si­bil­ity. I hope WOODTV recon­sid­ers and changes it’s pol­icy from anony­mous post­ing to requir­ing real names be used.

I find it curi­ous that you felt ‘threat­ened’ by any­thing I said, but Deb didn’t seem to feel the need to do any­thing about the posts, like you did. Are you just an overly ‘sen­si­tive’ per­son? If I or Deb didn’t want our infor­ma­tion out on the inter­net then nei­ther one of us would have a pro­fes­sional web­site, lol. Just because you “sensed an under­tone of vio­lence that had me won­der­ing about Pro­fes­sor Rockman’s per­sonal safety and I feared for her even though we’ve only met once or twice and spo­ken in pass­ing” is really the most igno­rant thing that I’ve heard in a long time. “the poten­tial to com­mit or incite harm to Pro­fes­sor Rockman’s per­son or rep­u­ta­tion seemed a very real pos­si­bil­ity” when she opened her mouth in pub­lic and said what she did. The fact that you felt threat­ened by facts and words is very scary. I did not say any­thing even remotely vio­lent or threat­en­ing, lol. I can remem­ber oth­ers on that forum that were far less artic­u­late, but much more vocal about what they ‘thought’ and what they’d like to do about it. So that leads me to think that there is some other issue that you have here. What is it? http://www.linkedin.com/in/mejaneink http://activerain.com/blogsview/430373/Grand-Rapi… and least we not for­get: mejaneink@comcast.net

It’s funny that ‘Jane Van­der­laan’ com­plains about “anony­mous post­ing” since it seems she posted on that forum as ‘localart’, LOL!!!! Read for your­self and see if you do not agree it’s pos­si­ble: http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/artprize/Could_GR_becom… what a hypocrite .….….….…

Here is another ‘threat­en­ing’ com­ment: “Deb has some points, if this were the nor­mal run-of-the-mill kind of art con­test where some­thing like this could win: http://www.debrockman.com/waging/*****.html . How­ever, this is not your art teacher’s, or professor’s, kind of con­test, where some­one with a PhD judges what is and is not ‘Art’. This is a bet­ter ver­sion of ‘Amer­i­can Idol’ made for the art world, where any­one and every­one can judge for them­selves, instead of hav­ing a ‘pro­fes­sional’ tell them just what ‘Art’ is. Deb has com­plained in the past that the peo­ple of this region, and town, don’t seem to have the ‘courage’ to buy her works. Most of the peo­ple I know who are not ‘pro­fes­sional’ artists or crit­ics would find it hard to explain why they bought a won­der­fully draw­ing of a dog with a deroga­tory word cov­er­ing most of the pic­ture. Art­Prize is not the Oscars of the art world, it’s more like the People’s Choice Awards, and to try to make it into the Oscars is to go against the spirit of the contest.

Her state­ment about being a pro­fes­sional was elit­ist, and that is some­thing most peo­ple can not swal­low, along with her work. Art is what it is, no mater if the viewer likes it or not. It doesn’t mat­ter is it was cre­ated by a ‘pro­fes­sional’, an ama­teur, or a five year old kid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Kid_Could_Paint_T…