What is an artist, but a misfit,
who does not belong with misfits? As if the island of misfit toys even rejected
one of their own, exiling them to their own winter island. But they crave it, this loneliness, because
it is too hard to look up; too hard to take in all the details; it is too much.
Why were many of the great artists tormented into near insanity? I will spill
it, here, now, in a language that others will understand; because many believe
that art is in the eye of the beholder—this is wrong—it is in the eyes of the
artist, understood by no one else, and thus our very form of expression is a
failure, and so, I write it now in English.
The reason is their extreme
sensitivity to the world around them: everything is taken in: colors, sounds, happiness,
relationships, injustice, indifference, sadness—It becomes conflicted and remixed
all in one; white noise—yet somehow we interpret it, but no, this cannot be
done on a cognitive level—all must be forgotten, yet at the same time all
things must be present—think of those actors that can get into the skin of any
character, of musicians or painters that can feel political injustices better
than any proficient political scientist. The swayed emotion in Beethoven’s Fur
Elise. Mary’s pain in Michelangelo’s Pietà. The confusion is Picasso’s
Guernica. Will Smith’s performance in The Pursuit of Happiness—Interesting word
pursuit: that’s what art is—for it is never fully attained. It is desperation
to convey this sensitivity that ultimately drives us towards insanity—because
who can convey a million thoughts all at once? We take all of it in, yet
produce so little.
People say a picture is worth a
thousand words, just as this paper is a thousand words, yet we still fall
behind, and driven to convey these perceptions so clearly, we become creatures
of self deprecation and perfectionism—only pushing us further behind in our
productivity, yet further forward in the skill of our craft. It is this sensitivity and this drive that
ultimately will break us—everything has a cost, and this is the price we pay
for our becoming indispensible to the human race. It is this process; this
finding one’s self amid the white noise that brings us peace. It is not that we
have created art, but participated in it, as if some higher power or invisible
hand is guiding us. To this we are grateful. It is as the Greeks said—we are not
geniuses, but have geniuses—leading us by the hand through the chaos.
I am a painter. I prefer the shut
doors, in apprehension that others will see what the real process of what my
art is. Sometimes I delve so far into nothingness while I paint, that I will
suddenly awaken as if out of sleep—and when I awake I realize what has
happened—I find that I had been crying, or dancing, or painting with my left
hand, or both at the same time—sometimes painting on opposite ends of the
canvas simultaneously. It is at this moment when I wake that I realize that I
couldn’t have done those things if I had tried, yet, somehow, it was me. In
waking, I gaze at what I have created, my thoughts taking the shuttle across the
corpus callosum, right to left, and the left argues with the right, critiques
it’s thoughts, sometimes harshly, and sends them back again. Right, left,
right, left, right, as if steps in a journey are synchronized with the drumbeat
of a brush on canvas—a million times, a million strokes, a million shuttle
tickets.
The journey becomes one, and no
one’s, and the artist is along for the ride. The art is never fully theirs, but
yet, it is their creation, their child. It is as if it has a mind of its own,
and from the first stages, the final product is predictable, yet containing a
sense of uncertainty. It is a blessing, and a curse—our creative womb opens,
creating a mystery child—and through this birth canal, or better spoken,
channel—we channel our feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, yet not fully.
Never fully, for it is not fully our own, and it seems, many a time—as a
painter, all we do is fail, and end up only protecting the surface of a canvas
from the elements, and expose it to the critiques. Critiques. Everyone. The eye of the beholder.
In a sense, that statement could be true. For art becomes something entirely
different, a packaged gift for each individual, the product of the artist
extricating solace amid the white noise in the lives of those individuals. In a
sense, “art is in the eye of the beholder,” is entirely false, yet entirely
true. Indispensable. This indispensability is the realization of a work of art.
It is the gift of Providence Himself, gifted to
one with unsteady hands, and a crude mind and spirit. Art is a refining
process, for the artwork as much as the artist. It is not so much about art, as
about life. What we leave behind is not art, so much as stones to step on or
stones to avoid. Art is a gift, given by Providence, and given again through
the artist. It itself is a misfit, the same as the artist, but you see, that’s
what makes it beautiful, irreplaceable, and invaluable—the same as life—and
each day, each stroke is unique in that sense, and time becomes valuable. The
way you live your life, that is art, and that is what The Great Creator has
been trying to teach us—we are his—his crowing creation, yet we are not fully
His, because we are ourselves, and He chose that. So who is along for the ride?
The Art, or the Artist?
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