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3. Classic Wets kick!!, Page 2

I disagree with the whole "trout fly is art" discussion. Yes, there are flies that are not meant to be fished and can be considered "art" (look on Shawn's website for some amazingly beautiful creations), but the garden variety trout fly is a "tool" designed and then made to perform a precise function.
I consider my fly tying "tool making", not art.

Realistic flies (like the ones that Fred makes) take the "tool making" to a whole new level - IF they are meant to be fished. Otherwise they are "art"

Artistic Flies (like the ones that Shawn ties) are just that - art.

My flies are tied to fool trout. I take pride in them, and constantly try to make them better, but they are just tools.

Fellas...Where's the love??? :)

I'm going to take the responsibility for unfortunately sending another thread off in to the ditch. It started when I said, Somehow Jonathon misunderstood my attempt to apologiize for talking "art" and not entomology, fly tying, fly fishing etc...I was not in anyway making a commment on what "art" is or isn't or anything really what-so-ever about fly tying.

When he chided me my smartass hackles went up and in a knee-jerk reaction I responded to him in this smartass mode. I tried to let everyone know a few times that I was just having a little fun...

I really wasn't, at first, saying anything about fly tying and whether or not it constitutes "art". I was just sharing an antedote about the painting that Mark had posted.

I have spent a great deal of time, during my travels, in art museums all over the world. Hell! I even have a closeup photo, I took after being told to do so by my wife, of Michelanglos' "David's" ass end!, :) I really don't care how anyone defines "art" for themselves or whether they consider fly tying an art form. Really!

This is one of those topics, subjective in nature, that they have filled libraries trying to resolve...

I will say that in 1987 in Berlin at the Painter's Gallery I viewed a Vermeer and when I visited Berlin again in 2006 I visited her (its a picture of a woman standing at a window) in her new home in the rebuilt, historic Potsdamer Platz area that had been on the East German side of the Wall. I teared up both times I have stood in front of her and both times spent some extended time in the room where she is housed...On the other hand, Jackson Pollock, hasn't moved me in such a way...

Now before you all go and get your shorts in a knot, and try to explain to me the flaws in my J Pollock remark...;)...and maybe how in someway J Pollock would of been a hell of a fly tier, let me just say beforehand...Stop! Your killing me!

Spence, You are a trouble maker. You even pulled Gutcutter off the stream to set things straight. You make trouble making an art.

Paul,

Like myself, Tony's an old "shinny" player from way back...I think he's just letting me know he has my back the next time I head in to the corner for the puck...;) He's old-school! Our bark is way worse than our bite unless you forget to skate with your head up...:)

I'm a mending my ways Paul...Promise! It just takes time...I've spent way too much of my time in hockey locker rooms, and Teamster driver's rooms, and hanging with the grumpier set of anglers...Not a triumvirate for the thin-skinned.

Back in my college days a poli-sci professor nominated me for a graduate fellowship. He said I needed to meet him at this local bar where the poli-sci department met after work...They hung there because it was a place also visited by the nursing staff of Henry Ford Hospital. I was introduced around after he asked me where I wanted to go to school etc and he then went off to dinner there with some cutie...I saw him again on class day and as he walked in to the class he looked at me, smiled, and held his fists up like he was going to spar with me...I can't exactly remember what I discussed with the boys from the department, but I must of made an impression...;)

Spence

PS I can't let this story go un-reported...A week or so ago the free-agent bidding wars began for the NHL. I actually got a call, from Tony between procedures in the operating room, to tell me that Pittsburgh had let Maxime Talbot go...For you folks not in the know Mr. Talbot scored the game winning goal against my Detroit Red Wings to win the Cup in 2009...Right here in Detroit! Though I didn't know him at the time Tony was there at the Joe to see his boys steal the Cup from the prior years Stanley Cup Champions. They had a radio set up in the operating room just to keep track of the free-agency trades..."Spence. This is Tony...I just called to let you know you won't have to worry about Talbot in Detroit any more...They just traded him away...Got to go...I'm up...Back to cutting!...Talk with you soon."

Fly-fishing, hockey, entomology...We are all fanatics in one way or another here at TroutNut!

Not sure how I missed the last half of this thread. This is good stuff. Thank you, Mark, for answering my question about light - makes perfect sense. Thank you, Jason, for that commentary on post-modern flyfishing - gave me a good chuckle. And thank you, Spence, for keeping the whole thing hopping along - a little levity is always welcome.

-Shawn