Just thinking out loud
about art
Now and then I have to stop and write my thoughts down about what art really means to me, as it is an ever-evolving mark. As a teacher of drawing and painting to thousands of people (artists!) who would never have had the hubris to call themselves “artists,” I have experienced the up close and personal of the effect that a creative practice can have on the ordinary life (like mine) and it is about the most fulfilling kind of work I can imagine. Art can heal. To be fully human is to create. Artists create. We are artists, all, when we are creating.
But what do I mean when I use the word art? I think it’s easier to say what I don’t mean. I don’t mean cleverness. I don’t mean some kind of cryptic labyrinth of words or marks and colours that needs someone else’s clever explanation of what I am actually seeing. Especially the artist’s explanation. When art leaves the creator’s hands it ceases to belong to him or her or them—it instead belongs to the viewer, the receiver, the reader, the listener. If it needs to be explained it cheapens any kind of connection or intimate experience that receiver might have. Instead, it forces it back to belonging to the creator. I so admire when someone creates something and just shares it… no angsty words to accompany it, just the image, the sound, the words across the page. Let it breathe and live separate from its origins. Let it leave the nest and fly or fall.
When I use the word art I do not mean something done by a “professional” or hanging in a gallery or a museum. Sure, we can call that art, too, but the word is too vast and wild to be saddled to only that horse. Art is not created only to be seen or sold. It is the recognition of a moment, a deeply human desire to experience something beautiful or painful or transcendent and capture it, document it, deepen the experience of simply being alive on this earth in this moment in time and space. It may never leave the creator’s sketchbook. It may never be shared with another soul. Think of Emily Dickinson’s thread-bound parcels of hundreds of poems, tucked deeply into a dresser drawer and only to meet the gaze of another set of eyes after her death. Art does not require to be seen, or read, or heard. Even if you have no desire to share it, create it anyway.
Gerhardt Richter made a statement once that really stuck with me:
I pursue no objectives, no systems, no tendency; I have no program, no style, no direction. I have no time for specialized concerns, working themes, or variations that lead to mastery. I steer clear of definitions. I don’t know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-committal, passive; I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty.
I wrote this in large script on the wall in my house. That statement is art, to me. It’s why I steer clear of juried shows or shows where there are qualifications, or curated “themes.” We cannot box in art. And as soon as it is boxed in and organised it has become commercialised and it becomes a product, not a call of the soul to be present to life. I know that this is an unpopular opinion…people like to profit off of what they create. I get it. People need to pay the bills. But what does it mean when one-of-a-kind works are sold? It means that they will be expensive because they have taken a great deal of time to make, the creator needs to be compensated for that time and the materials, and it means that only a very few will be able to buy them. It takes the most profoundly intimate and universal act of responding to the world and creating something from it and turns it into something very narrow.
How can we reimagine how we compartmentalise art? How can we give it more freedom and allow it to be more democratic? How can we value the artist in each of us when it’s already so damn hard to survive for the artists who have made it their career? Do you know how many people earn a living wage from being an artist, of any kind, in today’s world? As of 2018 only 19% of professional artists made over fifty thousand dollars a year and the median income of all US citizens in any line of work was $58,000, according to a statistic on ArtNet. Why is this acceptable? As a species we need art, in many forms, to bolster our spirit and thrive. Why isn’t it a part of every single human being’s life? Big questions. No answers.
But I keep thinking about it. And we can keep talking about it.
I know this was rambling, and it is straight off the cuff, and I welcome your thoughts. I want this to be a household conversation. More art in every person’s life might mean less violence, intolerance and hatred. It might not. But it might.
The first thing I thought of after reading this is that is gives EVERYONE permission to make art. I have seen so many people hold back or even refuse to sing, dance, paint, write because they only see art as the box that we have put it in with may requirements of skill or talent. So many of us have missed out on the creative experience due to fear we won't measure up. It took me decades to figure this out!!! Thanks for helping to guide the way.
As I read this I thought of the ancient cave drawings done at a time when there were no galleries, the art and book writings under the pyramids, pottery chards and ancient tools that were not only functional, but beautiful for the sake of beauty. I think the experience of creating images is a highly individual experience and done for a variety of reasons, but the desire to express ourselves in this way is universal. It is part of being human. I think that’s why selling or creating art specifically for the public can be a little blurry. Our spirit is infused in our work-wonderful to share-tricky to sell. I love that Emily kept some writing to herself in a dresser drawer. I imagine the old cave dwellers, totally present, escaping the heat of the day, and drawing on the walls simply for the pleasure of engaging with the muse-praising life. That’s enough.