Monday, February 11, 2008

Introduction

Welcome to The Metaphor Group. Let the productive arguments begin! War and Peace are mutually exclusive and destructive of each other, but competition and cooperation are complementary and creative. So let us agree to disagree agreeably.

What is this group? This is a place where serious artists -- meaning those who produce works all the time and know what it is they are doing, meaning they have the ability to explain what they are doing -- can meet and talk about art, the idea of art, the ideas of art, aesthetics, etc. I myself am a poet, fiction writer, playwright, and scholar, but many kinds of artists are welcome. I do hope, in fact, that like-minded painters and musicians and sculptors, etc. will end up joining. This group will be by invitation only, but anyone may come by and see what we are discussing and leave comments. That will add a little shot of chaos to the order of the group.

The idea of a group like this comes out of a long tradition of artist groups. Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Christopher Marlowe were members of the School of Night. There was the Surrealists, the Paris Salon, which included Hemingway, who had a letter of introduction to the group from Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, For Maddox Ford, and James Joyce, among others (including irregulars, like Picasso), The Bloomsbury Group, which included Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forrester, and the economist John Maynard Keynes, among others, etc. Of course none of these people were who they were when the met up (though some were already established in some ways), but their interactions which spurred on creativity helped to make them who they were. While they all had to be in one geographical place and had to meet in one location on certain nights at certain times, we don't have to do that now with the existence of blogs. Thus, The Metaphor Group.

3 comments:

Troy Camplin said...

I would like to welcome Todd Camplin and Fred Turner to The Metaphor Group. If you have any recommendations for members, please let me know. I want membership to be by invitation only, though comments can be made by anyone. And remember: being a member means you can post any time you want on anything regarding the arts and aesthetics you want. I really want to get something good going here.

Troy Camplin said...

I would like to welcome Mary Grabar to The Metaphor Group. After reading some of her essays and work, I thought she would be a good addition to our new group.

Troy Camplin said...

I would like to welcome Robert McDowell to The Metaphor Group. I think there's little question he will make a great addition to the group.