ABOUT "ABOUT"
Founded in 2006, Gone Lawn™ has two purposes :
1. To raise awareness of the progressive and nonconventional literary artists writing today, and improve
their accessibility. We aim to make this sort of work, wherever we can find it, more visible and accessible to an audience who
is seeking more stimulating fiction but not finding it.
2. To establish and sustain a social force of progressive, nonconventional literary artists and their
promoters, in order to withstand and counteract the essentially corporate-driven force that continues to marginalize us. We
understand that phrases such as literary establishment and marketability are in fact fallacies intended to
simplify the market. But literature is not a cheap commodity, nor is it a clearly defined substance which provides either of
two given parties with a definite and clear end result; it is art, and art is a jumpy thing, which is very much interested in
confusion. Through confusion we grow, as individuals, as a society. By means of Gone Lawn, we intend to advance
a widespread awareness of the true, progressive nature of humanity and of literary art. It is in this way that we seek to
liberalize the literary market -- particularly in America -- and so hopefully motivate the most apparently stagnant of the
artistic media.
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DEFINITIONS
PROGRESSIVE LITERATURE : Any literature that intentionally counters conventional templates in order to realize a personal
vision, itself a broadly implicative human element, is considered "progressive". It is in this way that the "progressive" and the
"nonconventional", though not synonymous, are linked. While the nonconventional may repeat templates developed by one's
influential predecessors, the "progressive" proves itself an entirely self-developed art, one borne out of necessity and drive.
Kafka, Bely, Joyce, Stein and Walser are only a few examples of the progressive literary artist.
ART : Art, by definition, is a human creation which engenders thought by means of the deliberate re-juxtaposition of named
and unnamed -- and often pregnant -- elements. The development and creation of art, from these elements, exists
not within the artist's mind but rather within that of the audience. Also: whenever the human mind perceives
conspicuous change within any presented scenario that is perceived to be in some way familiar, and so must grapple with and
understand the very elements of that change: this creates psychological growth, be it subtle or dramatic.
For example: When a person stares at a painting, unable to break herself away, and does not know why this
is so: what is happening is that she has unconsciously transformed the painting into art, and so is now actively trying to realize
and understand exactly what it is about this painting that interests her. Is it the colors? The composition? The context?
The narrative subjects? All of these descriptors together can easily be reduced to two essential parts: conception and
juxtaposition. One's worldview grows whenever one's understanding of interrelationship is challenged.
Consider dreams, which are probably the best example of unrealized art. Although they are not expressed
socially by means of any human organ but are confined to the human mind -- and therefore cannot realistically be called
art -- dreams perform the same function as art.