The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-12
PARSONS LECTURES 0N COMMON ART Tells How to Be Artistic in Every Day Common
 Life

| Ava w. Parsons, member or the IdcuitS l of the New York School of Fine Arts | and Design, spoke under the auspices ol the Birmingham Art club yesterday att- ernoon in the auditorium of the Cham bcr of Commerce.. In the audience were men and women practically and artisti- cally interested in general laws of cor rect interior decorating and also many of the leading studio artists of the city. Phrasing a few predatory remarks Hugh Martin, architect of this city, in troduced MT. Parsons, who began with certain boarding school definitions of art handed him on one occasion by a body of young lady students. This started the thread of humor that was interwoven in
 his address. MT. Parsons said in part:
 Art can be in pictures, in sculpture. in
 a prize oat meal package, or in anything
 that the hand of man creates or handles.
 It is & relative term and It's degree de- @pends upon you and me. The degree with
 which 1t touches you and me indicates
 what we are, Art makes it's appeal to
 individual natures, according to the ele-
 ments that compose their make up and in
 every human being is the love for the
 beautiful, more or less. which is usually
 QeVelOpeu lO hlOiS Dy e'iSAi ASSNHAA-o ~s
 beautiful things.
 Art Is just as necessary as the elimina-
 tion of insanitary conditions and dimming of jarrng noises If we expect to produce a pleasure loving, artistically cultured and dominant race. We should avoid looking at ugly things as much as we do those unpleasant things of the taste, hearing, feeling and other senses. As we can ap- preciate, so we are artists for whenever nf ny. the furniture of room that harmony pre- walls, you are creative artist whatever else you may or may not be.
 "Art Is not only aesthetic but must | measure up in fitness for what it Is made. You may have a good looking hat, but Ii l if is nartistic, it has missed one Of the | elements of beauty The fitness of a pcture frame is to frame the picture, not | to eclipse it. Beauty Is harmony and har- mory is that which is made up without a
 discordant note. Bring into the home only those things which are useful and do not overshadow them with American flag 6raperies. pennants from every college in the country and antiquated family por- traits. 9a.. 0. 'The home Is the one place that has mt lost its grip on people, the place for which men and women strive and the ono place whose interior is more or less significant of the man or woman who lives there.
 Birmingham has marvellous future pos abilities to develop some beautiful homes and surroundings, especially on the noun tain wonder, and to become thickly pop ulated with houses of architectural mag nificance. But you must remember that | the impress that you leave in the selec- l ton of the style of your school and oth- CT public buildings, your parks and houses will be handed down for genera tiors to come for your children's children will have to live with the constructions | that are now put up by you New build l ings may take their places. but your view point of the beautiful will be unconscious | iy conveyed to them through assoca- | tiop with those that stood for your gen | eration.
 "The expression of art is in color and l in form and there are more artistically | bad things in our homes for the sake of sentiment than for any other reason Sen | tinient Is not art and it is not just that a man or woman should be judged lac,Sin,
 sn the artistic sense because they .llnR