How many times have you heard someone say, ‘Why are you so worked up about (name your art)? It’s not like you’re curing cancer or something.’ How would they know? The actual truth is – YES YOU ARE. You ARE curing cancer, you ARE stopping war, you ARE solving global warming – pick your crusade. Art saves lives.
Those who are not involved in art on the daily don’t really understand what the artistic life is about. It’s not just slapping paint on a wall or throwing words at a page. It’s sure as hell not about throwing ‘artistic tantrums’. Yes, these things do happen, but there is so much more to the life of art than that – the soul–searching, the study, the experimentation, and the endless, endless, endless Practice. Artists are not in the business of showing off (not even on stage), so much as they are in the business of finding new paths, taking the ‘road less travelled’, and coming back to tell others what they found. The Age of Discovery is not over. In fact, it’s really just begun.
Here’s how I currently see things: creativity can be best described as a mixed blessing, like much else in life. Yes, there is darkness and pain – there is also light and joy. It is the artist’s job to describe the world he sees in the clearest and most honest way he can. All of us know that ‘life’s a bitch, and then you die.’ Those of us with slightly more active dendrites are aware of the various philosophical cul-de-sacs that most people find themselves in – some even care about getting people out of these various forms of bondage. Here’s where the artists step in.
Artists have the ability and therefore the duty to show people both the lies and the truths of life. They do this by accessing the audience’s emotions directly, often bypassing their logical minds completely. The audience finds themselves touched or repulsed or entertained or mystified by what the artist presents them. They are for the most part unaware that they are also being educated and lifted up. This is the primary function of the mental construct known as ‘the fourth wall’. All arts incorporate the fourth wall in some form or another. What the audience does with the art it is given is not, finally, the concern of the artist. We just have to get it out there.
Art may be the only important thing that humans do.
All other animals work and strive and hunt to supply their needs. Other animals protect and teach their offspring. Many species are social and have complicated forms of communication. Grooming and status and acceptance are very important in certain species. Some species build shelters. But as far as we know, humans are the only animals who engage in trade, we may be the only animals that can ponder the future, and we are absolutely the only creatures that intentionally create new things, just for the pleasure of doing so. Humans are animals plus.
Without art there is no history – art gives us a cohesive narrative and guesses at places we might go. If there were no art, there would be no science and no technology – the creation of new things and new ideas, even if just for personal amusement, is the bedrock of art. Mathematics is an art form. Art is the fabric of our spiritual lives – music and paintings, stories and poems lift up our hearts and our spirits. All of human civilization is indebted to art and artists for its very existence. And yet, artists are still seen as inconsequential, as weirdos existing on the fringes of society – and are poorly paid for their efforts, usually. This is a travesty I will address in a different blog. Onward.
When the possibility of getting paid for your art exists, you should absolutely get paid. But paid or not, you must do your art and make sure it gets seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled. Art encompasses all the senses, because art hits people where they live – square in the emotions. It bypasses logic and laughs at erudition. So, when you make your art, you must be completely honest about what you see and feel. It matters far more that an artist be truthful than that she be correct.
The only right way to make art is to be truthful and effective. Truthful, because you should never dilute down your message to save someone’s ego or to pass someone’s test. Effective, because you should never allow your message to be lost because you couldn’t communicate it clearly. Muddy art is usually bad art.
Because artists operate on the fringes of knowledge and culture, we are positioned to see the next steps that humanity must take in order to blossom and thrive in the coming years. You may have an insight that will make others think differently or feel differently or act differently. When enough people are affected by your vision, they will become first a community, and then a movement. That movement can change the course of life on this planet for years or even centuries to come.
In his seminal work Connections, author James Burke voices the contention that real progress in the human condition and real historical change was brought about, not by art, but by technology and the science that went with it. I believe this is a narrow-visioned view. Even technology is a form of art, as I said before. But even art which is simply made to adorn or to entertain is far more than it appears. The artist’s thoughts and beliefs will almost always come through the work. Observers will see and feel these truths whether they understand them or not. They will be affected, they will be changed – so be aware of what truth you are putting out there.
Go forth and boldly make your art. Save lives. Save the world.
pax et ama
bcd