The mission of Mensa Artists is to communicate how art and being an artist enriches the quality of life and interpersonal social abilities in an environment.

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead.
Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow.
Do not walk beside me, for my path is hallow.
In fact, find your own way... Just be and let me be.
Create, think, be, and say... Waste not time, faulting self or me.
Together, this fine day... You be you, I'll be me, Free!

The Mensa Artists group will include not only visual arts, but also musical, literary, and any other art that an artist does artistically and esthetically revering beauty and truth, originality, and creativity. It will be for play and not for profit.

Art is a result of the artist’s attitude toward his work creations. I see no need to limit how an artist may express his art. Mensa Artists is founded to be just what the name says conceptually, ideologically, and intelligently. Pragmatics of interpretation of specific art, its execution implementations will not override the inter disciplinary openness of the organization intended to serve and promote art and Mensa Artists in their community socially. This web site is the Mensa Artists online Gallery dedicated to displaying Mensa Artists creative art work.

The strength of the Mensa Artists group is each other. The strength of the Mensa Artist is his unique art, individuality, and high IQ membership in Mensa.

************
A Yahoo group has been created to serve Mensa Artists organization and communication resources online. Membership requires approval and Mensa Membership authentication.

THE DALMATIAN WITHOUT ANY SPOTS

BY Darlene F. Cobb

This book combines fact with fiction as ten year old Mickey Tyler and his family tries to solve a puppy mystery and the disappearance of the fireman owner.

The antics of the family and their canine pets will amuse you; yet the seriousness of their advantures and encounters will hold your attention. There is an underlying moral to the story that should make one and all stop and think.

There are questions and answers, plus pages to do drawings related to the story at the end.

Ms. Cobb is a self published author who did the design and art work for the cover and inside pages. There are 74 pages, softcover.

ISBN: 0-9702549-0-7
Price: $9.95 includes shipping and handling
Send to: D.F.Cobb, 1326 E. Piute Ave., Phoenix, Az. 85024
Also available at: Barnes and Noble Books (nationwide)

For more info email: imdarlene43@q.com

---

Michael Gormley Editorial Director of American Artist writes:

"You Are An Artist

How do you know if you are an artist? Most children give their imaginations free reign, drawing and painting their wildest dreams with selfless abandon. Unlike most grown-ups, who put aside their art materials to pursue more serious activities, artists keep at it, committed to preserving a childlike wonder with the world and a deep desire to express that wonder. That’s how you know you are an artist; you need to create as much as you need to breathe. The world calls this art, but really you are just doing what comes naturally."

*******************


Yolanda Martin
(editing attribution BetteLou Tobin)

What is Michael Gormley saying?

Isn’t there more to being an artist than the uncontrollable impulse to create? As we mature we learn to think that unless we can create what is judged to be good art by others then we stop creating, or else we must work and learn to improve our art so that we can continue creating art, but still seeking approval from others as validation that we are artists so as to continue to enjoy doing what gives us so much pleasure.

Too often, the professional artists building their reputations in the art community emerge, separate, and distance themselves from other nonprofessional artists, those who with childlike wonder simply enjoy creating art and expressing themselves emotively, with originality and sensitivity resonating with the subject being communicated. The artists, whose priorities and motives are to make a living from their art, create art with underlying emphases that their work must be sold, should never feel more important or better than the artists creating art solely for the pleasure, health, and happiness they get in the art making process. Art is, for the majority of artists in the world, an enjoyable, quality ’me’ time, leisure pursuit, not a laborious, competitive business enterprise fraught with details of marketing and commercial economics trying to obtain revenue from the art created.

You are an artist simply because as a human being you were born with a need to discover, to experience, and to communicate your perceptions and life interactions, sharing those with others, affirming your realities and your existence through your own original creations. You are an individual worthy of enhanced positive self concept obtained through your personally chosen artistic endeavors. You should judge your art by your own standards, and not those of others who would discourage you perhaps only to better themselves by suppressing your individuality and personal worth.

The world is advanced by those who create, not by those who conform. You are an artist who can create what no other artist can create because you, and you alone, have a right to be you, the right to express your unique individuality. You are not a rubber stamp of another’s thought constructs about you. No one should be allowed to oppress and suppress your abilities and potential.

Build on your strengths, improve your weaknesses, and create love and positive energies around you because you are an Artist!