{"id":1244,"date":"2018-03-19T14:39:09","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T18:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/?p=1244"},"modified":"2018-03-19T14:39:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T18:39:09","slug":"the-pleasure-of-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2018\/03\/the-pleasure-of-context.html","title":{"rendered":"The Pleasure of Context"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1245\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wall-1245523_1280.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Like many people, when I read a great book, I immediately cast about for other titles by the same author.\u00a0 When I see a film that catches my attention, I look for more by the same creative team.<\/p>\n<p>Part of this practice is a desire to get more of the same \u2013 the personal version of the ubiquitous marketing ploy \u201cif you liked this, try these.\u201d\u00a0 Another part, though, is a pursuit of the pleasure of context.\u00a0 Getting to know an artist\u2019s life work, from early efforts to late accomplishments, gives satisfaction in a way that no single art work can.\u00a0 Youthful gestures recur with increasing refinement over the course of decades.\u00a0 Shifting circumstances \u2013 personal, economic, political &#8212; push the music in unforeseen directions.<\/p>\n<p>This, to me, may be the greatest tragedy of the historic suppression of music composed by women and non-Caucasians.\u00a0 We get individual compositions that pique our interest, but we seldom get a life\u2019s journey, and when we get a life\u2019s journey it is often as notable for its lacunae as for the clear path it traces.\u00a0 Composers whose music never gets performed miss out on one of the most important tools for developing an artistic voice.\u00a0 They continue to make the same mistakes, spending needless time on dead ends, and they often lose sight of the very things that could make their work special.<\/p>\n<p>The only way I know to make up for this loss is to keep it from happening to the artists of today.\u00a0 That\u2019s not an easy task; there are lots of obstacles still in place.\u00a0 But a corrected course begins with making sure we don\u2019t become obstacles ourselves, however inadvertently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many people, when I read a great book, I immediately cast about for other titles by the same author.\u00a0 When I see a film that catches my attention, I look for more by the same creative team. Part of this practice is a desire to get more of the same \u2013 the personal version [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1246,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions\/1246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}