where ARE all the poets and writers? the artists?

maybe they're posting on everypoet or some place like that?

Buried. Beneath the grime and goop of daily life.

i found them! (but not there...)



it can be difficult sometimes.

where then, where?!?

let me check it out for a bit, first. then i'll pm you. (i'd hate to recommend a crappy place.) i'm sorry there aren't more here. it seems the lack of artistic expression is synonymous with a "frum" lifestyle. i feel that much beauty has been lost somehow.

you've made that point before, but i don't think it really holds up. for starters a lot of artsy people aren't interested in the arguments and debates h.com is supposed to provide. it's not exactly a tree-huggers paradise. And a significant number of active members post or used to post about their artwork, or share their poetry, or talk about making music, or photography, or going to art museums, and so on.

Some of us (I mean me) realize that our creativity is either better left kept to ourselves or nivul peh. mostly both.

yes, and then others are concerned about anonymity and choose not to share (since the forum is not really anonymous for a lot of people).

according to the people i've talked with, it holds up. i don't consider under a handful of people who post periodically a significant number out of the registered members on the site. the arts seem restricted and repressed within the frum community. those who do study privately and express seem to do so behind closed doors and can't even share publicly because of the response they'll receive.

the site i found does not condone censorship. they do request that you honor the openness by acting appropriately but also understand that discussions can be quite heated between artistic types. it's amazing how people will honor openness and trust.





the latter two support my point.

artistic types are very sensitive. i used to moderate a poetry board back in the day, it was quite something. poetryboard.com it was called. good times.

anyway, i don't know how people see art in Boro Park since I've never been there and don't know anyone from there, but based on the Orthodox people I'm around on a daily basis your generalizations are waaay off base.

And being reluctant to share something you wrote with others is normal and of course not in any way particular to the frum community.

There are publications and books full of frum women sharing their creative side -check Horizons. Then there are the endless frum plays, choirs, dances put on by frum girls. What about all the frum graphic designers and photographers -there must be billions...

you're missing my point. being reluctant to share what you wrote because it's intimate (i have several pieces i wouldn't share) and being reluctant to share because of reprisals within the religious community are two different things. i was referring to the latter, which does apply more to the frum world. it also applies to fundamentalist Christians as well. it's not a generalization. when ingrained in religion the religion expects to define what is or isn't art, what is or isn't appropriate literature and so on. it's happened for centuries. if a religion doesn't condone nudity they certainly aren't going to condone art which contains such. Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam isn't even appropriate for this board because it's "frum". that's what i'm referring to. i can't tell you the people (from this board) who have told me they wished they had more exposure to the arts when growing up or that it was more accepted now. art is art and isn't limited. religion limits everything. you know this.

who conform to frum standards.

When you say things like this you come across as as much of a fundamentalist as the people you are criticizing. You just have a different religion.

People have competing priorities in life, art is one priority, their religious beliefs are another priority. I don't understand how an artist who doesn't paint nudes because of his or her religious beliefs somehow doesn't count as an artist. That's absurd.

Until someone logs on and states that posting in the Creative Expression forum is liable to bring reprisals upon him, I'll consider the notion of "reprisals" to be ridiculous as well.


I, too, wish I had a better art education in middle school. My school was a secular school in the USSR, and my art teacher was also my geography teacher, and she knew neither subject, and couldn't draw to save her life. Ok. There is a limited time in the day. My school's focus was math and English. Jewish schools' focus, the reason they are being paid $15,000 per child, is Jewish education, and then they have to also provide adequate math and English education or else more people will complain.

No one is repressing art, it's just that for most people regardless of religious affiliation art is generally lower on the priorirty scale than subjects of more practical importance.