Talk:Margaret Noble (artist)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Potential sources for notability

"DJs may be stars on the club circuit, but the scene also has a democratic impulse: Dancer and beat are equal and inseparable. Noble brings that ideal to the gallery. Her primary goal is audience participation, whether that involves turning a crank or inserting one's head into a box to prompt whooshing sounds. Noble's work completes its circuit when the spectator is, literally or figuratively, inside it." "The artist playfully juxtaposes new and old by placing cheap electronic gear within handcrafted wooden containers. Her taste for cataloguing can knowingly flirt with the absurd, as when she surrounds a dead cricket with 12 recordings of noises it made."Mark Jenkins January 26, 2017
"One of the more striking pieces, by sound artist Margaret Noble, provides part of the soundscape of the show, a medium-pitched sound of something frenetically vibrating. Aptly titled, "Now Is Not A Good Time,"it’s an intriguing mix of innocuous traditional sewing and tatting materials crowned with the seemingly more dangerous rattlesnake tails powered by tiny batteries. It's tempting to read a cautionary tale of watching too much Little House On The Prairie and the nostalgia that lead us to these current times. By Rebecca Romani, April 6, 2018

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Grand'mere Eugene (talkcontribs) 23:17, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Following text copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women:

Seeking editing help to republish my artist page in Wikipedia

Hello All,

I am seeking help to republish my draft version of my artist page which is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Margaret_Noble_(artist)

Hope to hear from you. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Margaretnobleartist (talkcontribs) 14:46, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

@Margaretnobleartist: I added a "draft article" tag to the draft, and performed a cursory search to locate any reviews offering a critical perspective. Most of the current version of the article consists of local (San Diego) references, promotional in nature, rather than analytical commentary. It's okay to list selected exhibitions, but the case for WP:Notability depends on demonstrating artistic merit in national and international settings. In other words, less description of various installations and more content demonstrating notable contributions, such as the reasons for the Musicworks prize, or possibly the Athenaeum award, drawing perhaps on some of the text in this source. I can help paring down the promotional content to a more encyclopedic version, but do you have other reviews of your work that can be summarized for the article? – Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 22:05, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Hello @Grand'mere Eugene‬ (talk) @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene
Thank you for getting back to me and helping me navigate/understand. I appreciate your thoughts and the potential edit. To answer your question regarding more critical writings on my work, I have the following pieces:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/in-the-galleries-strangely-familiar-objects-for-the-eyes-and-ears/2017/01/26/2cacaf94-e191-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ef3430673c7d
https://www.artforum.com/picks/barnsdall-art-park-la-municipal-gallery-65190
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/visual-arts/sd-et-2016-review-visual-art-20161211-story.html
http://www.latimes.com/sd-la-jolla-historical-society-san-diego-four-ecologies-20180912-htmlstory.html#
https://margaretnoble.net/wp-content/uploads/art_ltd_review_mnoble.pdf
Looking forward to your thoughts. Thank you for replying!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.207.12.194 (talk) 02:56, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

End of copied text Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 03:56, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello @Grand'mere Eugene‬ (talk) @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene

I wanted to say thank you for looking over this web page and apologize if I am communicating incorrectly through Wikepedia medium.

@Margaretnobleartist: No worries! Usually the contents of a specific article are discussed on the article's talk page to keep reasons for the article's change history more available to people interested in the article, but it's no problem to have initial discussions on a WikiProject page like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women artists.
I've edited the content some, and added content from reviewers. I did notice that the previous article had at least one passage that seemed to be lifted from the cited source without quotation marks, so I want to complete a thorough check of the rest of the article to identify and correct/revise any other potential copyright violations.
I'd also like to check for updates on your most recent exhibitions. Can you point me to any additional, recent (past 3 years) reviews?
Last, remember to sign in, and sign your entries on talk pages with 4 tildes Cheers! Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 20:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)


Margaretnobleartist (talk) 21:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Hello @Grand'mere Eugene‬ (talk) @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene
That is helpful and makes sense! Thank you!
I have these as recent reviews/press (last 3 years):
https://www.artforum.com/picks/barnsdall-art-park-la-municipal-gallery-65190
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/visual-arts/sd-et-2016-review-visual-art-20161211-story.html
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/north-las-vegas/csn-gallery-a-nexus-for-art-in-north-las-vegas/
https://lbpost.com/life/arts-culture/multi-sensory-experimental-festival-pumps-up-long-beach-s-arts-cred/
http://www.latimes.com/sd-la-jolla-historical-society-san-diego-four-ecologies-20180912-htmlstory.html#
https://archpaper.com/2018/09/an-picks-must-see-west-coast-lectures-for-the-fall/
--Margaretnobleartist (talk) 21:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Margaretnobleartist (talk) 15:55, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Hello @Grand'mere Eugene‬ (talk) @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene
Thank you so much for your recent edits! Do you think I need more reviews before this page would be ready to submit for Wikipedia publishing review?
Margaretnobleartist (talk) 15:55, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
No, I think there are enough review comments. I will be making some revisions to the citations to add in archived versions, and hope to finish today. Cheers! — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 20:22, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
72.207.12.194 (talk) 16:04, 13 October 2018 (UTC) @Grand'mere Eugene‬ (talk) @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene
Good morning! Thank you! You are a kind person - indeed!
72.207.12.194 (talk) 16:04, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Margaretnobleartist (talk) 15:19, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Hello @Grand'mere Eugene‬ @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene
I noticed that the Youtube link for "artist talk" at the bottom of the page was broken - the link is blocked by Wikipedia which I am not sure as to why. I can repost the video on another link if that is helpful?
  Resolved
I corrected an error in the mark-up code which was apparently introduced by the Visual editor. Or maybe gremlins. Grand'mere Eugene (talk)
Also, I wanted to point you to a few videos online with other links on Youtube:
Voice of San Diego's Meeting of the Minds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bd4Ku4LHog&t=21s
KPBS The Artist from 44th and Landis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdIMyKaW0UI&t=1s
KPBS The Art of Computer Code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PF2T0Hyrmw&t=94s
KPBS High Tech High: Old School Vs. Now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDnfHHAMPAs&t=31s
  Resolved
-- added. Grand'mere Eugene (talk)
and I forgot to share this review:
Interactive 'Resonating Objects' Meditate on the Human Experience
https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/ez5eqm/resonating-objects-sound-art-meditate-human-experience
Thanks, I'll check it out! Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 17:56, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
I hope this helps - thank you for looking over my materials.
Margaretnobleartist (talk) 15:19, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Margaretnobleartist (talk) 01:38, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Hello @Grand'mere Eugene‬ (talk) @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene
I am much appreciative for this thorough accountability with more critical details and citations. It is also great to see this published!
I wanted to request a couple of edits if possible?
For citation 11,
"She collaborated in 2011 with math teacher David Stahnke in the "Illuminated Mathematics" project,[10] winning second place in knowledge building and critical thinking, among twelve educators who represented the U.S. at Microsoft's Global Learning Forum.[11]"
David Stahnke and I won second prize in the nationals for Microsoft education and we then went on to compete in the global international prize. We actually won 1st place in “Knowledge Building and Critical Thinking” category of the Global Forum Educator Awards. Here's a citation to confirm this detail:
https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/teachers-of-maths-creative-side-win-global-prize/
  Resolved
Good catch. Grand'mere Eugene (talk)
Also, I was born in 1972 but I can't find a press article with this listed correctly.
  Resolved
I found another secondary source and corrected the year.Grand'mere Eugene (talk)
Finally, I was wondering if it is appropriate for me to add new reviews as they come up on this talk page? Or, is there another more appropriate place that I would post updates for potential edit?
Yes, the talk page of an article is the most appropriate place to request an edit. I have the article and the talk page on my watchlist, or you can ping me using the code {{yo|Grand'mere Eugene}} from your talk page, or you can leave a note on my talk page.
Again, thank you for all of your contributions and guidance!Margaretnobleartist (talk) 01:38, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
You're welcome. Cheers! Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 03:08, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Margaretnobleartist (talk) 03:16, 16 October 2018 (UTC) @Grand'mere Eugene: I just fixed this: Margaret Noble (born 1973) to this Margaret Noble (born 1972) - I hope that's okay. Happy editing and kind deeds. Margaretnobleartist (talk) 03:16, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have caught that. The faster I go, the behinder I get. Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 03:32, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

More sources

@Grand'mere Eugene: Hello Again, I wanted to update this talk page with two recent articles from this month. Thank you!

http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/entertainment/art/an-artist-explores-the-world-through-recycled-objects-installation-and/article_d7026eb8-e2e1-11e8-8297-e7ab6b066e5c.html

https://lmtribune.com/a_and_e/what-sound-does-art-make/article_cb3235ed-2c72-5ae9-9ba8-42ce953b13c9.html

Margaretnobleartist (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I added to the "Solo exhibitions" section, and added a detail to "Early life and education."
Although sound art is the medium, the visuals in the Lewiston Tribune article are also interesting. Would you be willing to upload images of any of your installations to Wikimedia Commons? Read the licensing requirements for Wikimedia here. Let me know if you are interested in providing some visual images. Cheers! — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 23:33, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

@Grand'mere Eugene: Thank you for the updates. I really appreciate your suggestion to upload pictures. I have followed the licensing instructions and uploaded the following:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clamor_Machine.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Home_Made_Time_Machine.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:I_Long_to_be_Free_from_Longing.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Now_Is_Not_a_GoodTime.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reductionist_Records.jpg Margaretnobleartist (talk) 19:24, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Margaretnobleartist: I added these five to the article, and tried to place the images where they were discussed, as applicable. If you have more images that would be appropriate, they could be added in a gallery near the bottom of the article. (See Susan Mohl Powers for an example.) — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 20:33, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Grand'mere Eugene: That is great news! Thank you. Here's 4 more relevant images:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Shit_Pile_of_Lights_and_Sounds.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:I_Have_Arrived.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scaled_Discords.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:What_Lies_Beneath.jpg Margaretnobleartist (talk) 23:46, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality

@Spinster300: Thanks for your input on the neutrality issue and your comment in the edit summary when you applied the tag. I'm thinking that reviewers' comments need to be separated out from the Career section (which originally had descriptions of the works, but it lacked any reviews). You are correct that the content seems weighted in favor of the subject, but the reviews I've found have only been favorable. In fact, an interview I found today in Peripheral ARTeries Art Review March 2015 says specifically in the introduction, "Margaret Noble's artwork has been exhibited acreoss the United States, Canada and abroad in Europe. Noble's art has been featured on PBS and positively reviewed in Art Ltd Magazine, the San Diego Union Tribune, and SanFrancisco Weekly. [italics mine]" The more interesting observations in her reviews note she has broken boundaries related to the question of "What is art?" and also that there are inherent challenges exhibiting sound art in venues originally set up to exhibit visual art. I will work on summarizing those observations, as I think it will provide a more rounded presentation. If there are specific passages where you find the tone too heavily weighted toward the artist, please do make appropriate edits. Cheers! — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 21:12, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Margaretnobleartist (talk) 02:04, 26 October 2018 (UTC) Hello @Grand'mere Eugene‬ (talk) @https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grand%27mere_Eugene

Please see this discussion, I am looking forward to your thoughts when you have time to reply. Thank you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Margaretnobleartist Margaretnobleartist (talk) 02:04, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality, Conflict of Interest and Promotion

I just came across this article and find it to be almost obscenely promotional. The main points are

  1. we have the artist herself involved in the talk page discussion, which is borderline OK/Not OK,
  2. we have the artist requesting a draft improvement that led to the article, over at wikiproject women artists,
  3. we have the artist herself uploading nine images for the article, and a gallery of four those images (gallery now removed)
  4. We have a long fawning critical reviews section, (I've now removed half of this) and
  5. the article goes into such intricate detail on each work that I would have thought this was meant for Louise Bourgeois.

Overall this is a notable artist, but the excessive promotion in the article of fairly minor works is not good. For an artist like this I would expect a neutral article to be about half as long. She is in no museum collections and I see no evidence that she would meet WP:ARTIST. What we have here is a dedicated hard working artist who is very good at promotiing herself, per her involvement in creating this page. To improve the neutrality, I have cut the group exhibitions section and tagged the article for cleanup, which is a start. I have trimmed some of the excessive positive reviews, which amounted to promotion, and brought the article from 30K to 25k. It still needs a lot of work to become a neutral wiki article. I would suggest that, in the interests of neutrality, whatever the artist requests is considered irrelevant as the collaboration here seems to have resulted in a very promotional and non-neutral product. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

@ThatMontrealIP: Thanks for your close reading of this article. I agree this subject may not meet WP:ARTIST, but would point out does easily pass WP:GNG. Making the case for GNG requires demonstrating coverage in independent, secondary sources, which is the point of including details of critical reception. You have deleted comments describing one installation as a "claustrophobic challenge" and other reviewers' descriptions here and here.
I disagree with your 3 points here directed at the COI subject of the article, especially posting requests on the talk page characterized as "borderline OK/Not OK". Wikipedia's Plain and simple conflict of interest guide under the heading "Types of COI" directs article subjects to propose suggestions on the article's talk page:
* Article subjects or company owners: This places you in a conflict of interest, and you should refrain from editing affected articles. Instead, propose suggestions on article talk pages for other editors to review.
I am puzzled by your perspective, "For an artist like this I would expect a neutral article to be about half as long." As far as I know, article quality assessment does not depend on an assignment of article length to artists depending on their status in the art world. Rather, the criteria for content assessment are based on a letter scheme which reflects principally how factually complete the article is, though language quality and layout are also factors. Completeness and accuracy of facts are built into the assessment of an article's quality.
I'm also interested to learn how you define neutrality. I was puzzled by your edit summary indicating "teacher" was more neutral than "high school teacher". Is it disparaging or elevating in your opinion to refer to someone as a high school teacher? — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 18:49, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Grand'mere Eugene, your version of the article was in general extremely well written. Technically, it was precise and perfectly cited. But it was just too good, if that makes sense. It was not encyclopedic in my view. The critical reviews section, for example, was more or less a fawning essay on her work, with no balance. Here are the quotes in the earlier version, with your own text removed. Bear in mind that you did not write anything in the following blockquote; these are simply just of the quotes you used in the Critical Reviews section, and do not include the many quotes used elsewhere in the article.

  • "enlarging the sensorium of art with sound begins with disorder," but while visual art may be viewed with "one or one hundred other hushed-up viewers," sound art is more like "a Fourth-of-July picnic, Charles-Ives polyphony, a resolute disequilibrium". *"What can art be? is a good question to pose to students — and to the larger community. If people are walking through the door thinking art is a drawing or a painting that's rectilinear, this is probably going to blow their minds."...
  • "doesn't fit into a neat category of art."
  • "Artist Margaret Noble isn't afraid to push the boundaries of what's art."[22]
  • "So why does sonic art still seem unusual 100 years after Luigi Russolo built his first intonarumori, or experimental noise instruments?"[24]
  • (Quoting the artist): "It's hard to exhibit properly. Curators might not know how to assess it, and there aren't many collectors rushing to buy work that they can't see. It's difficult for sound art to break away from the paradigm of musical performance. It requires time and space to fully appreciate. Art galleries are often bare rooms with concrete floors, which means poor acoustics and one sound art piece overlapping another."
  • "underground club DJ’s flair for performance and a conceptual artist's commitment to the rigorous investigation of ideas".[16]...
  • "Her primary goal is audience participation, whether that involves turning a crank or inserting one's head into a box to prompt whooshing sounds. Noble's work completes its circuit when the spectator is, literally or figuratively, inside it."
  • "Look close and you'll see the ghosts of Ms. Pac-Man, the labels from Animal Cracker boxes and Laffy Taffy, and, on the seedier side, signage from neighborhood massage parlors. The paper dolls are pint-sized mash-ups of '80s pop culture and Victoriana. They seem to emerge from Noble's childhood dreams as she tried to make sense of both a threatening and exciting environment."
  • "...there is an excess to the sound collage, a soft but persistent drone of spinning bottles or coins, rolling glass marbles, the eternal creak of a cabinet hinge, the rapt knocking on a door, or the sound of something falling over. These reverberations are strikingly material, a confluence and collision of metal, plastic, wood and glass that mash up and reconfigure what we can imagine as a neighborhood's aural life."
  • "intriguing mix" of sewing and tatting materials and rattlesnake tails powered by tiny batteries. Romani commented, "It's tempting to read a cautionary tale of watching too much Little House On The Prairie and the nostalgia that lead us to these current times." ... "claustrophobic challenge", "seeking to go deeper on conceptual levels about human experience and our relationships with technology and each other"
  • "Temporal works like Noble's prompt new opportunities and formats for engaging in public art, producing interactions that are flexible, dynamic, and socially conscious. In place of monumental permanence emerges a sustained program of placemaking and experiential learning."

That kind of quoting would be fine in an essay, but when paired with a collaborating subject who has uploaded ten images to illustrate her work, and excessively detailed descriptions of very run of the mill artworks that garnered a review or two, it turned the article into something very promotional. The excessive use of positive, promotional quotes here also strikes me as synthesis or original research. The last version before I arrived looked exactly like I would expect a very positive magazine essay on her work to look, or perhaps the subject's own promotional web site, rather than a neutral wiki article. I hope that explains my view.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:12, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

"That kind of quoting would be fine in an essay, but when paired with a collaborating subject who has uploaded ten images to illustrate her work, and excessively detailed descriptions of very run of the mill artworks that garnered a review or two, it turned the article into something very promotional." Please clarify for me, ThatMontrealIP, what is a "run of the mill artwork"? Bus stop (talk) 12:57, 20 May 2019 (UTC)