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Friday, August 12, 2011

Why Art?

I'm not a politician, nor am I a head of a corporation. I am an artist. Here's my thinking - if people practiced an art on a regular basis our world would be different. I'm pretty sure there would be less war. I also think we'd start being more humane to one another. Why? There's something about the creative process that honors and uses human emotions. If I am working through an emotion or feeling I find I intuitively turn towards art (the specific medium depends on what I'm working through) & something about making something gives voice to what I am feeling. If I don't create that feeling gets stuck.

There is also an extreme joy in starting out at the beginning of a project & not knowing where it's headed. Almost each time I set out on a creative adventure I think, "How the heck am I going to pull this off? I can't do this!" And yet, bit by bit I figure it out (or it figures me out) & the answers begin to appear. I love that. I love it because this process humbles me and shows me greatly. I always feel like I'm walking this very thin line when I create. I navigate & determine lots of parts of the process, but within each creative project there is also a moment when I know I just have to let go & when I do... something beyond me works through me & this expansion is really a state of grace.

4 comments:

  1. In my mind, I am trying to think of artists (of any medium) that were "fighters". There are certainly those who were disturbed, but I don't picture "fighters". You may be onto something. Sad news though... How much art is left in the schools. How much art is left in the homes. How are we to forge a nation or world of creators instead of fighters, when the value is not seen? How to have it become a value?

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  2. I have a similar experience when I cook. Sometimes, if I'm feeling a wave of stress, it's just compulsive. I'm in a cooking book or rifling through the cupboards before I even realize it.

    I think too that it is true of anything creative, not just limited to art (what IS art anyway?) and that just having an outlet for your imagination as an adult is SOOOO therapeutic (not everything is constructive though, being addicted to fiction or video games or something like that is an outlet but doesn't serve humanity in the slightest).

    Good post.

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  3. Nice post, completely agree with you. I believe you're speaking of "living life as art," i.e., comporting oneself in such a way that everything is art-as-such, sheer aesthetics imbued with wonderful, interpenetrating meanings.

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  4. Great post, Lora! I love the beginning of the creative process, too - so much promise, so much possibility..... :D

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