Camp e-dorf // The Hobbyist as Professional

With a brief click on the following webpage (http://www.steinbildhauerei-herrmann.de/) it should be made clear that the participation in the introduction stone carving course by Walburga Herrmann can’t - at least for participants of a Fine Arts MA – understood as a challenge of their aesthetic methods. As the course is mostly offered to people that have a non-creative professional career who seeks for an interesting spare time activity, the challenge is for a professional artist a different one. Even Walburga Herrmanns own career can’t be linked to that of a contemporary fine arts practise, even if she might fantasize about it. On the other side each try to act creatively has its starting point in the individual decision making that can still be found in the amateur’s execution. Therefore the world of the hobbyist or the non-professional artist will always be for interest for those who do not understand creativity as a outer zone of their “making a living”. A discourse free environment allows radical decisions that are in the professional world “no goes”. In the confrontation with the normal world we as artist are constantly confronted with the aesthetic realm of this hobbyist branch of the creative industry, when we have to define or defend our existence/production. But this reality check might be also understood as a perspective where art does not need to be art, but can simply be a practice in an environment where the surplus-value does not need to be pointed out.