Categories for ‘Staying With Art’

To help search the Twitter posts, I am suggesting the following hashtags. These categories will also be used in setting up the full map-based interface for Staying With Art. The categories are all based on actual members of the group. If you have a category that is not included here, let me know! But we do have to strike a balance between covering all bases and keeping things under control. If we split 24,000 members among 24 categories, we should average a thousand hosts per category. But if we split them into a thousand categories, it doesn’t work!

Actually, pigeon-holing creative genres is a headache. For music, I’m suggesting the pragmatic Popular / Classical / Traditional triad, but in reality the list should be long and fractal. Well, if hosts start tweeting the hashtag #StayingWithJazz then that’s the way it is. This is an experiment, after all.  For dance, I separated Burlesque as it seems a distinct form of performance from Dance per se. For art, I am suggesting classification by medium: Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Conceptual Art, but separating out Jewelry (wearable art) from Sculpture, and Bodypainting from Painting.  I felt that Digital Art needed a separate category as its mode of execution is so different; and Design is another discipline altogether, and from that I separated Fashion as a distinctive enterprise. (I don’t know where puppets fit it, but I once stayed with AirBnB host who ran a puppet theatre using his own hand-made puppets, so there has to be a category of Puppets.) Photography and Movies complete the set of visual arts. For writing, there is obviously Poetry, but I split prose into Fiction and Writing. Several members of the group play support roles for the arts, such as teachers and models, gallery owners and managers, and organisers of events, festivals, exhibitions; so we have the categories ArtTeaching and Galleries (the latter including transient displays such as pop-up galleries and shows). Crafts might be considered a distinct other half of the pair ‘arts and crafts’ but I felt that it fits the intention of this project. Finally, Drama encompasses all aspects of live theatre and spoken story-telling.

1. #StayingWithArtTeaching – art teaching (in schools, colleges, or freelance), life modelling, running art courses, and so on.
2. #StayingWithBodypainting – specifically painting faces and bodies.
3. #StayingWithBurlesque – burlesque dance as an artform, including belly-dancing.
4. #StayingWithClassicalMusic – all forms of classical music or ‘art music’. (medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, contemporary, atonal; orchestral, chamber, opera, ..)
5. #StayingWithConceptualArt – art installations, performance art, art happenings, situationalism.
6. #StayingWithCrafts – making dolls and dollhouses, dreamcatchers, doorchimes, model ships; also includes ceramics of all types (earthernware, stoneware, porcelain); also high-end confectionery; but not puppets.
7. #StayingWithDance – performance dance of many kinds (ballet, contemporary, tango, flamenco, …)
8. #StayingWithDesign – graphic design, architecture, and other creative design.
9. #StayingWithDigitalArt – computer-generated artforms (distinct from graphic design).
10. #StayingWithDrama – live theatre (stage acting, directing, playwriting, stage lighting, costumes, backdrops, street theatre) and story-telling, mime, and so on.
11. #StayingWithDrawing – drawing with pencil, charcoal, chalk, etc.
12. #StayingWithFashion – fabric design, garment design, fashion modelling.
13. #StayingWithFiction – novels and short stories.
14. #StayingWithGalleries – art galleries and art shows (gallery owners and managers, exhibition organisers, festival organisers).
15. #StayingWithJewelry – wearable art (stones, metal, upcycling).
16. #StayingWithMovies – film and video (filming, directing, producing, scriptwriting, film acting, running an art-house cinema).
17. #StayingWithPainting – all types of paints (oils, acrylics, watercolour, tempera, and so on) on any kind of flat surface (canvas, board, walls …), also drawing; see separate category for bodypainting.
18. #StayingWithPhotography – still photography (analogue or digital).
19. #StayingWithPoetry – poetry (scanning or otherwise, literary or concrete, including prose-poetry, …).
20. #StayingWithPopularMusic – all the diverse genres of popular music – jazz, blues, soul, pop, rock, rap …
21. #StayingWithPuppets – making puppets, performing puppets.
22. #StayingWithSculpture – three-dimensional artworks in any materials (but not wearable).
23. #StayingWithTraditionalMusic – folk music, ethnic music.
24. #StayingWithWriting – non-fiction writing (the work of authors, editors, journalists, bloggers, et alia).

I know that we commonly use the expression “the art of …” for activities that are not art. For example, the “art of cooking”, the “art of conversation”, even the “art of motorcycle maintenance”, … I hope it is clear from the above list that that is not what we are talking about here. Also, I hope it is clear that this is a group of hosts who are actively following an artistic practice. Sorry, but going to art galleries or watching movies – although these are commendable and attractive qualities in a host – are not what we mean!