"To give one specific example, Leonardo's mural of the Last Supper has come under close scrutiny of late. Historical and Biblical purists have pointed out that he got the table wrong. The architecture is wrong. The drinking vessels and tableware are wrong. Those who are supping are sitting upright, which is wrong. They all have the wrong skin tone, features and dress. The scenery in the background is not Middle Eastern. (The list continues, but you get the idea.)

If you know Leonardo, you also know he did not travel to Jerusalem and spend years researching historical detail. Does that, or his liberal use of artistic license detract from this being a superb painting? My vote is no."

Taken from About Education.

How does one define good taste?

Something I found on the internet. Problem is, we now have to define style, excellence and propriety.

so who decides, the creator or the beholder? and don't we all have different view points? AND don't we all think ourselves persons of good taste?

I chose creativity instead!
Yes, it IS a joke: alas!,I am currently under the spell of Julia Cameron's course (curse?) "The Artist's Way".
Besides,I believe the real creator is as much a beholder as any outsider, even a more qualified one (if only he/she is able to stand aloof from his/her work).
My favorite works of art are often anonymous.
If you make a Google>Images search for "Bad Taste", you will be suprised at how narrow the range of themes in this cathegory is -- mostly gross or gore. Easy, but unaccurate.
To define or point at "Good Taste" is harder still. Probably because there is NOT such a thing as good taste. Your beauty is in my eyes, not anywhere else (except perhaps in our neighbour's). If you do now the same Google>Images experiment for "Good Taste" as before for "Bad Taste", you will see the words meaning basically confined to tongue-related issues.
Burping at table would be enough to made you a nonentity for life in our familiar,elegant circles, while NOT to do it after dinner would be considered bad manners among many Middle Easterners -- just an example among so many.
I am confident we could find traits agreed to be of either good, or bad, or neutral taste everywhere on Earth, any time in History, after searching deep enough... A scheduled task and/or a proposed thread: select and show good taste beads and bad taste beads.

Her hugely popular website, Regretsy.com, compliled many of the extremely questionable items for sale on Etsy. So popular, she eventually shut it down and wrote a book about the whole thing. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to even find the Regretsy.com archives. However, I found a blog that referenced some of their favorite entries, and another blogger that was inspired to carry on (thought without April's biting wit to make the crap work easier to....er....swallow. (Bad metaphor.)

Actually, I think both of these might be less-talented and less-entertaining variations of the original....

http://thefw.com/say-goodbye-to-regretsy-with-these-strange-etsy-finds/
http://missingregretsy.tumblr.com/ A Regretsy reboot

And clear as diamonds, when facing an excellent example (as your necklace). Still...
When forced to discriminate between genuine and fake, we realize that although many fakes mimic their genuine models so well they even the experts are deceived, the genuine pieces do not look like fakes at all.
Concerning products of activities officially aknowledged as artistry sometimes just plain bad taste (good taste does not exist, but bad taste does) is used as a substitute for real creativity, and commercially uphold so-called artists are listed as geniuses by lobbies. Then trust in our own capacity of discrimination may betray us, and we may consequently comply: "Such a degree of celebrated ugliness must be great art".
If I had to answer what good taste essentially is in my opinion, I would create the category out of thin air and say: restraint.

This sentence from my previous paragraph is a blatant blunder, for good taste AND bad taste depend on each other to be: No day without night, no yes without no, etc.
I was expecting someone's rebuke, but in its absence, here is mine.
If I had to rewrite the paragraph, moreover, instead of the last word (i.e. restraint) perhaps it would read "equanimity".

Now, Fred: please tell me how do you feel about the (good or bad) taste of these two necklaces.
The first one is made with Venetian cylinder beads and French jet, with tiny gilded silver beads, all of them strung on gilded safety pins, hanging fom a gilded linkless Indian chain.
On the second one you can see: small bauxite beads, white and blue large Dogon, and these other smaller, undescript white trade beads that are coming also from Africa. Strung on a cord of thick white cotton threads.(The assembly echoeing the colors of a faded Chevron of sorts).
Chose a word from this list to adequately qualify them : hideous/revolting, plain/bland, --/--.
Do not ask ME: motherly love is blind...(As you may infer, what I am actually asking is: are these two necklaces examples of artistic miscarriages?).

My favorite quote about taste:

"Be faithful to your own taste because nothing you really like is ever out of style."
Billy Baldwin

Here are some other thoughts to consider:

"A dull thing with style -now that's what I call art." Bukowski

"I am very attracted by bad taste -it is a lot more exciting than supposed good taste which is nothing more than a standardized way of looking at things." Helmut Newton.

"A little bad taste is like a splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste. It's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against." Diana Vreeland

"The good thing about bad taste is you don't know you have it." Sam Becker

Just Fred

As for me, if forced to endure either bad taste or scabies, I would most certainly choose bad taste.

Nishedha,
You and I are trying to do entirely different things.
You can squeeze the essence out of a single beautiful object.
I put collections together and try to show them off as a single necklace.
I wish I had the ability and restraint to do what you are doing so well.
Neither is easy. But we try to make it look easy...
Just Fred

If someone was expressing their reaction to something of mine, I would see it neither as good taste nor bad taste, but simply his taste. I have long recognized that my taste or style is not for everyone, & I am jubilant about that. People that love what we do in this forum, certainly are not about pleasing the standard man or woman with our style, thank God!

As Coco Chanel said : Good taste ruins certain true spiritual values; such as taste itself.

Lynne

Taste is then a nonentity, it does not exist, except in the eyes of the beholder, something purely whimsical, a word with no backing concept, devoid of sense, even politically incorrect: potentially a fertile ground for clashes of assertive individuals...
And as suspect words often are as well, an opportunity for mere dialectical discourse and rethorical questions. As an example, this Coco Chanel's quote :"Good taste ruins certain true spiritual values; such as taste itself"-- Coco Chanel: top- most icon of the world-wide much celebrated French "chic", Good Taste manifested in the flesh! Perhaps should we ponder whether she wasn't right after all; perhaps just fashionable...

Summarizing: good taste looks like a mere side effect of succes, while the wastelands of bad taste would be the proper place for misfits to stay put.
Which could be said of so many basic words, beauty a related one: a soap bubble, a myth.

Still, I do not feel the thread happy-ended.

Dear Nishedha,

I feel honored that you have asked me to say something about these two examples of your work.

I know I would have a hard time trying to sell these two necklaces. So what? In any case, the best examples of your work are superior to almost anything others could create.

Each of us has made necklaces we are not proud of. Having great beads to work with is not going to insure a successful design. In my case, a good design takes a great deal of time -often with a lot of help from my friends. I am a dealer who collects a little. Occasionally, I feel forced to put a necklace together to wear to a talk. Sometimes, I am particularly proud of a group of beads and feel inspired to work with them. But I seldom string beads just for the fun of it because it is torturous for me. So I take classes and rely upon feedback from those with much more experience. I am only satisfied when others agree that the design works.

I respect your humility. I would be relieved to learn that these feelings of self doubt may be universal -even with the most talented. Because I don't want to suffer alone. Nishedha, everyone agrees you are the best designer on BCN. In a recorded interview, I have heard Georgio Armani say that only fifty percent of his designs are commercially successful, if that is a proper gage for good design. Frankly, I think I am unlikely to sell any of my designs because I have too much time and money in them. Almost all of my necklaces will probably have to be parted out for their precious bits and pieces -to sell to other collector/designers who have scissors in their eyes and money in their pockets.

Perhaps the book you have been reading on creativity is instigating painful introspection. Please tell us what you are being advised in Julia Cameron's course (curse?) "The Artist's Way."

Your biggest fan,
Just Fred

In the first place for not allowing this thread to be ended with the sad note of my previous contribution, uploaded just seconds before I read yours.
The Artist's Way is a remarkable book, not easy to be commented, sometimes comforting, sometimes infuriating. I am now at chapter 8, which means I am gone beyond the equator of 12 weeks the course lasts. As an example, I will add one more quote to this already quote-rich thread: "Focused on process, our creative life retains a sense of adventure. Focused on product, the same creative life can feel foolish or barren. We inherit the obsession with product and the idea that art produces finished product from our consummer-oriented society. This focus creates a great deal of creative block.(etc)".
I think the above is not foreign to our current thread. Bad/good taste may only apply to the product, not the process -- which is the real thing, after all! Many years ago I saw a documentary film on Picasso ( painter I do not specially like). He was shown in his studio, painting a canvas from start to end. The canvas was somehow translucid, and the painting process was filmed from the back of it, so you could see the work grow as an organic being, follow the process brushstroke after brushstroke. I was absolutely astonished, understanding how great an artist the man was.
Thank you also for your personal feedback. Let me comment briefly on it. I understand the word humility as a synonym for lucidity -- related of course to enlightenment. Far from my intention to uphold such a claim. It may be true that I am a good designer of necklaces for BCN Forum standards, but please realize that it is a Forum for Bead lovers and collectors, not designers! I entered it somehow by stealth, when many years ago Jan asked me to post the image of a recently made necklace (curiosly enough, with some pemarakas strung into it). But after making a broad search -- say "necklaces" -- in the internet, often I have been sobered and (yes, why not confessing it?) humiliated.
Now the Forum has been tremendously significant for me since then, both as a person and as a designer. It has become costumary for me to post here works of mine that I like. One reason is I greatly enjoy to read enthousiastic comments. But also because refraining as I do from signing them, such posts at the Forum are useful as a kind of evidence of "made in nishedha".(Inmediately after one of my "children" does leave home (i.e. workshop) and starts "adult life", I delete all info and photographs related to it, so I do not keep records of products gone. Sometimes I meet them again, on the internet (Google>Images, pinterest...), and this is gratifying enough. By chance I found sometime ago an image of the necklace that facilitated my initiation into the Forum, and I kept it: see it below.

Wishing to second your previous quote, I made a Google>Images search for "bad taste" and I found myself inmersed in such a bounty of wit that I recommend Forumites to do the same instead.