Re: CHAT: Steg's wonderful .sig (and a question)

Sally Caves wrote:
>
> Grandsire, C.A. wrote:
>
> >         My boyfriend knows that I do conlanging, but he seems to be unable to
> > understand the interest of it. He is an artist too (his painting is very
> > beautiful) but he thinks that art must be shared, that's to say that to
> > call something art, someone who is not acquainted in its technique must
> > be able to enjoy it. He accepts that I have another definition of art
> > (fulfillement of the artist himself) and understand that under this
> > definition, conlanging is art, but he doesn't share it.
>
> Then it's this very listserv and everything related to it that makes it
> a *shared* artform.  A crucial point!
>
        Yes, but only shared by people who incline in this art form too, as if
paintings were enjoyed only by painters and common folks didn't. That is
his point. Not that I agree with him anyway. I think "common folks" can
enjoy conlangs. There are already 900 people that went to my webpage
since last August, ad as I followed it at least 400 for the conlangs
(and for the 500 others, who knows if they didn't enjoy that too), and I
highly doubt that they are all conlangers (I've had exchanges with only
three or four actual conlangers since now), so I think that even people
that don't conlang themselves can enjoy this artform.

>  He also think
> > that I have a real talent in prose and poetry and that I should first
> > write them instead of inventing languages. He may have a point, but I
> > don't function like that. Sometimes I completely abandon conlanging for
> > a while to write my short stories or poems, and sometimes I do the other
> > way round, but in any case I have to feel it right to do it. It's a kind
> > of "compulsive" behaviour I think. Do others among you have also this
> > kind of behaviour?
>
> If you practice music all day long, is that a compulsion?  Christophe,
> I don't think this activity is any more compulsive than any artistic
> passion.
>
        I know. I used the term "compulsive behaviour" only to refer to myself
and the fact that I can spend months without doing anything and then
have weeks where I can't help but writing. I didn't mean to generalize
it to other people. The word "compulsion" only referred to my artistic
ways and was not a judgement about our artform. I'm sorry if I made
myself unclear.

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
        5656 AA Eindhoven
        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com