Art Pecking Order

Monuments
..Masterpieces
….Masterworks
……Classics
……..Works of Art
……….Art Works
…………Antiques
…………..Objets d’Art
…………….Artifacts
………………Collectibles
………………..Keep-sakes
………………….Tchotchkes
……………………Junk

[From an "Interactive Learning Center" console at the The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.]

I visited the MIA the other day to view a special exhibit, “Georgia O’Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction.” This exhibit displayed forty-four works, including drawings, watercolors, paintings, pastels, and sculptures dating from 1915 to the 1970s, that track the evolution of O’Keeffe’s use of the circle. It was an amazing exhibit. I loved the altered perspectives, especially when she used the unconventional bird’s eye point of view.

The MIA’s press release regarding the exhibit puts O’Keeffe at the “masterworks” end of the art pecking order. She definitely deserves this acclaim. I can only aspire to reach the “keep-sakes” end with my creative contributions. If they sit on my shelf for 50 years, do they automatically rise to the level of “antiques??”