laramie

Thursday night: Filking and Songwriting
I was disappointed that Mercedes Lackey, who was the featured member of the panel, did not show up. Someone from the Concom came to convey her apologies, and later I heard that she was ill. Still, I never did get to see or meet her during the convention and I had looked forward to meeting her at the panel.

However, the rest of us still managed to have a lively and interesting discussion. We talked about what Filk is, and how it compares to Dementia and Found Filk and the other kinds of music found at f/sf conventions. (By one definition Filk is music that f/sf fans like, and so includes all the rest. (Although I’m sure some people will persist in thinking of it as nothing more than parody music with f/sf themes.) )

We also talked about song-writing. The panelists and attendees all had different approaches to that, which were interesting to hear about. They include starting with music, starting with a feeling or story situation, starting with lyrics and more.

The music circle following the panel was a lot of fun, and a first introduction to filking for some of the participants.

Saturday 11- Noon: High Level Creativity
This was a panel that could have benefited by a moderator. (One guy who went on at length, and a few of us who had trouble getting a word in edge-wise.)

The panel included a discussion of myths about art that we wanted to debunk. These included ‘you have to make money at it’ and ‘you can’t make money at it,’ ‘artists must engage in self-destructive behavior’ and ‘artists are all smelly anti-social outcasts.’

We also discussed things that help creativity. I mentioned sleep, and dreams (and passed around a postcard of one of my dream-inspired paintings.) We also talked about techniques from ‘The Artist’s Way’ – such as morning pages. I said that creativity was something that shouldn’t be forced, that it was like a romantic relationship (between conscious and unconscious processes) and should be more like wooing than coercion. Another panelist said, “What, no SM?” and another suggested the need for a safe word.

I noted belonging to several professional associations: (ASFA, MFW, MSCBWI) and expressed a wish for a writers' /artists' /musicians' /puppeteers' /craftspersons' /costumers' guild. Someone else said, "That's ConVergence." But seriously, a Multi-Discipline Artist's Association would be cool. People who practice more than one art have some concerns that are a little different than those of artists who focus entirely in one area. (Not that I know many artists who focus entirely in one area.)

I was intrigued by the panel description that asked what kind of impact it had on the ConVergence community, that it included so many highly creative people. I suggested that the arts are tools for making models of individual subjective experiences available in an objective, community-based forum, and that the net effect is to make the community smarter. (Or at least better informed about human experience and human nature.) I pointed to the collages composed of many small photos that are arranged in a way to create a larger picture. (It was cool to note that the poster for the Convention had adopted just that technique.)

Saturday 9:30 – 10:30: Overuse of iconic f/sf imagery
This panel was scheduled opposite the art auction. Only two panelists had signed on. Chris Pasquarette and myself. And he had to leave to check on the auction for part of the time. Nonetheless, there were a fair number of people attending, and by opening up the discussion to them it turned into something pretty interesting.

Everyone agreed that it was kind of boring to see so many dragons and fairies and unicorns.

I likened it to the pre-Renaissance period when most art was church-commissioned and every artist was producing his or her own version of ‘Madonna and Child’ and ‘The Crucifixion.’ As long as the writers are writing about dragons and fairies and unicorns, and the publishers are buying those stories, and the readers are buying those stories, and the art editors are commissioning art on those themes, and buyers at the convention art shows are buying those images, there will be artists who will continue to produce them.

The most interesting part of the panel was when we turned to talking about the kinds of alternatives that might be possible. I suggested images from dreams, from stories that weren’t about those icons, from the perspectives of characters who weren’t the usual primary subjects of the art. (Like, a battle between knights as seen from the perspective of the cowering peasants.) Someone cited Garth Danielson's 'Slaughter of the Smurfs.' One of the attendees mentioned a scene from a story he’s writing, featuring zombies disassembling Minneapolis to build a ziggurat. Someone else mentioned including characters who look like real people (i.e.: not buff, maybe overweight, differently proportioned, older, shorter, etc.) Chris mentioned ‘women in armor that’s actually practical.’ I mentioned my, already existing, Alien Icon series (when Chris said someone should do something like that.)

The fact of how market-driven the art is was mentioned several times. It’s something I find pretty frustrating, since I’ve introduced a number of pretty original approaches to art at local conventions, and find them largely overlooked. But not entirely: kudos to the cognoscenti.