On Being an Artist (Part I)

Wow, this could take days, chapters, a lifetime. As R.E.M. once sang (in one of their better songs that the radio of course would never dare to play), "I think about this world a lot and I cry; and I've seen the films and the eyes...; I'm very scared for this world, very scared for me."

Being an artist is kind of like being a truck driver who hauls over-the-road for a distribution company. You never know what you are carrying until you get there, and you never really know where you are going until you are well on your way. Along the route, you could get mugged, hit standing traffic or just cruise on down the highway.

But what does it mean to "be an artist"?

James Joyce tried to write about, Pablo Picasso talked a lot about it, and now little old me will offer some thoughts.

It seems to me that being an artist is different than practicing art. If one chooses to practice art, one may do so in a variety of ways - paint various items, sing chords or notes in new or familiar ways, put together words in places and order they have never been placed before. You get the point. But art goes far beyond that. Being an artist requires seeing the unseen; or rather, seeing that which is often overlooked. The way a girl smiles - be she a ten-year-old getting released from the hospital or a recent divorcee finding the prospect of love once again - is a type of art. (Sorry, part of me appreciates the beauty that every woman still has a “girlish” quality.) A woman/girl's smile is an art form entirely unto itself.

Art is also found in the way a man reacts when patience is called for. Most certainly an art form! He could lash out or walk away. Which is worse, which better? Tough questions. Art is met when he takes a deep breath, considers the consequences of his actions and finds patience. (When he does, please have him call me because I could still use a few pointers on that lesson.)

A couple holding hands on their sixtieth wedding anniversary, is art. A driver actually enjoying the beauty of snowfall as it cascades through the traffic light, is art. A soldier standing guard under a sun hotter than his homeland has ever experienced, is art. A business man taking a comfortable lunch under the outposts of a small city park, is art. A window washer, a nurse, a taxi driver...well, let's not get nuts here, maybe not the taxi driver.

Art swells all around us. It just IS. The artist sees it, somehow.

So when Michael Stipe (the leader singer/songwriter of R.E.M. - keep up, people, it is a pop culture reference!) sings about seeing the world and its sadness, I delve into the thought process of being an artist. I want to explore that sadness - want to understand why and how people do the things they do. For there is a sort of ballistic art out there, an in-your-face reality that shows the underbelly of our existence. Is murder art? No, but the mind of a killer must be fascinating to interview. Is hatred art? No, it leads to destruction, but you have to wonder what seethes through that kind of rage. Is corruption art? (Maybe, if painted nicely enough!) It would be amazing to tap into that kind of justification as found within the soul of a criminal.

Between the two - the mundane and the profound - is the area in which we live. Being an artist means seeing that for all its beauty and ugliness, and turning it into song, into theatre, into dance, into art in its many, many forms.

While I am at times scared for this world, I am also realistically hopeful. I know the world is a good place full of amazing people. I just hope to live long enough to see the strong understand the weak, to see the helpless find help, to know that hope has not been abandoned.

After all, if not for hope itself, then what are we living for?