A tree grows in Eugene
A tree grows in Eugene
by sonya hammond
A recent Don Bishoff column in the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard reports that some readers took issue with his defense of the by now infamous Lane Transit District tree as 'a living piece of art'.
Bishoff's response included a valiant effort to define the perhaps undefinable ... exactly what is 'art'? We Eugenians have a real problem with this sort of thing.
Now as far as trees go, in Eugene they represent a subject that touches extremely sensitive nerves ... tree destruction is a situation that usually rallies local environmental troops ... but in this case one is being planted rather than destroyed. One would think the addition of a tree would be cause for celebration rather than complaint, but since it has been planted, we're told, with an eye to aesthetics, the question of 'nature as art' has brought out an entirely new group of complainants with a far less important agenda than that of those who seek to save our forests.
By the strict Webster definition, which purports that 'art' is that which is created by man as opposed to that created by nature, one could certainly argue [as many did] that a tree does not qualify. But I propose that Webster's definition is somewhat limiting. Art, like beauty, may be 'in the eye of the beholder'.
A fan of Titian could argue that Jackson Pollack's work is simply paint splattering, while Pollack supporters might consider Titian an artistic dinosaur. Viewers of Warhol's Campbell soup can may scorn a Clyfford Still because it defies 'reality', while Still's admirers might dismiss Warhol as a cartoonist. Neither side in these cases is necessarily 'right' or wrong'; they see what they see, and define that within their own limitations or taste.
Moving outdoors, one could postulate that while Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin residence may stand alone as 'art', viewers might appreciate it less if it were plunked down in the middle of the Sahara, an environment for which it was not designed.
Which brings us back to Eugene's latest tree issue. Would the beholder's eye be more offended at viewing the Transit District's new station with or without a living symbol of the environment we are trying to preserve? Is the tree art? Even by Webster's definition, since man placed it there in an effort to create something that in this time and place nature did not, it is. Does it matter? If the eyes of most beholders are honest, it does.
One Bishoff reader, however, went beyond arguing the definition of flora as art to suggest that both Bishoff and fellow columnist Karen McCowan, in their reports of this semantic protest, are guilty of presuming that a columnist is 'foremost an entertainer and secondarily a journalist'.
Bishoff, who took this criticism with remarkable forbearance, pointed out that he saw no reason why a good column could not entertain while informing. Right on, Don, but perhaps too kind.
It seems unlikely that newspaper readers of Sketches by Boz, found Charles Dickens merely 'entertaining', unless they were extremely dense.
More recently, San Francisco lost Herb Caen who, while carrying on his 6-decade verbal love affair with his city, took on [for one side or another] every issue brought up by an arguably even more contentious population than Eugene's.
Meanwhile, Molly Ivins in Dallas keeps a sharper than a serpent's tooth eye on just about everything, while giving the rest of the nation good reason, if they needed one, to live just about anywhere but Texas.
Entertaining, yes, all of them. Informative, you'd better believe it. The list of columnists who not only appeal but inform is lengthy, but this columnist is periodically reminded by the TOP staff that space is limited.
Personally, although not for one instant suggesting that I belong in such celebrated company, I am probably considered, when considered at all, a writer of humor, and as such have been accused of having no interest in serious issues. This is a bit like assuming that because a cat likes catnip, it could care less about mice.
Deliberately hidden below the surface of humor, there is often a serious point waiting to be discovered by those whose sense of the ironic is not impaired. Such journalistic attempts, as Bishoff points out, may not be art, but I would argue to the death that they do inform.
When columnists attempt to amuse, their humor is often at the expense of some issue that deserves to be taken down a few notches from the pedestal of seriousness. A point made with humor is digested more easily, and often just as thoroughly, as a strictly 'just the facts' account.
Is a columnist's viewpoint objective? Probably not, unless she/he is gutless. You want objective, read the news section.
You want controversy, read the columnists. We thrive on it. Hey, it's a dirty job, but if we don't do it, we'll deprive readers of a daily source of irritation.
So keep those cards and letters coming. They tell us that, like us or not, you're reading us. Like that controversial LTD tree, opinion too is all in the eye of the beholder which, sometimes, may be visually impaired.
©sonya hammond 1996