The Artist and The Art
The Artist
He has seen a work and is stirred to his mitochondria. THIS is what art is all about, he reckons…a call to the heart and a punch to the gut. A piece outside of time that can reverberate through generations.
“I’ve seen The Master’s other creations…it doesn’t seem that he has that much skill. In fact, his most recent phase is exceedingly simplistic. If HE can make this kind of impact with so little, perhaps I could as well, if not more…with MORE!” the artist opines. “Yes, I will set out on this course, and with an ocean of instant information at my disposal, I will rise to this caliber and surpass it in short order”.
“I’ll need the tools”, he rightly surmises.
The artist immediately goes home and begins consuming content from every direction discussing the latest advances in the space. Widgets to shave hours off the more laborious aspects of the craft. Intelligent AI that can do half the work in advance. Accessories to look the part, and subscriptions you simply cannot create without.
”Surely the best tools will be the ones spoken of the most”, and he spends his evenings of the following week diving deep into a land of veiled corporate shilling and purposeful omissions of opinion, replaced with an opaque varnish of approved language by committee that tells him that if he doesn’t buy Tool, he will never reach his full potential.
The artist looks at his bank account and realizes that being an artist is a more costly endeavor than he originally assumed. “You only live once, and if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it RIGHT!” he proclaims as he charges his initial investment on a 24 month, 0% APR line of credit.
In 3-5 business days, the Tools arrive, and the artist is now The Artist.
The Art
Amidst the research of his Tools, The Artist is presented with The Art of the Moment through the eyes of the Tool Sellers. Having only been a recent purveyor of the Art, the Artist sees the same themes, tropes, compositions, and styles presented in largely similar fashions from the bevy of his Fellow Artists, and he arrives at the logical conclusion that THIS is art and the long-term aspirational level of quality to which he will aspire.
He notices small hives of other newfound Artists, and he is drawn to them. He sees Art he likes and art he is told he should like, Art that seems to be near the peak of the current Moment, and he implores his fellow Artists for the “secret sauce” behind their work. These fellow Artists, buoyed by this newfound position of authority are all too eager to share, for the sharing is the proof of profundity, the better-than-ness, a too-sweet nectar with a biting aftertaste. This cycle continues until The Artist reaches parity with The Art of the Moment, and he switches gears, offering his expertise to those poor souls who are too new to know up from down. As this cycle continues, the Artist forms a tight circle with his fellows, and they ritualistically applaud each other’s contributions to The Art of the Moment, reinforcing to each other that they have “made” it and are firmly of the Moment. In this dance, the Art suffers and stagnates until the next Trend emerges, at which point all involved pounce upon the fresh nuances of this new Moment.
The world explodes with new works of this fresh Trend, and for an instant, actual Art has the oxygen to be breathed into existence, yet as quick as the flash happens, the Trend morphs into the Moment and creativity gives way to chasing tropes. If you do not pursue the Moment, The Artist thinks, you are not OF the Moment, and if you are not OF the Moment, you are NOTHING. You are a useless anachronism that failed to evolve and by virtue died away with the rest of Moments past.
The Spark
One day, The Artist, wings exhausted from the churn of chasing the Trend, decides to share something distinctly different, a work outside of the Moment. The thrill of standing on the precipice of the unknown is a feeling The Artist hasn’t experienced since their first attempts at Art. This work is presented in the same fashion as their previous, yet reception is tepid. The backpats, once expected and predictably reassuring, no longer come. The shoulder, once warmed from the community of Artists united by the Moment, stands cold.
Isolation and despair swoops into The Artist’s heart as swiftly as a winter squall crashes against the jetties, and The Artist, having never felt this sting retreats back to The Moment. This experiment was a mistake, a tragically misguided excursion into unknown territory, a space inhabited by lesser thans with no sense for the Art, he rationalizes. The Artist internalizes the rejection of the work as a rejection of himself as An Artist, and to be of the Moment and in The Club of Backpatters, one MUST remain in good standing…thusly, the Artist evacuates back to The Moment, tail between legs.
This failure, but a spark against unused tinder, lights something inside The Artist that they will now be unable to shake. The fire starts with a dull crackle, nearly fizzling out over and over, but once The Artist takes note of it, there is nothing they can do but tend to the embers, breathing life into it by following the call of the flame.
The Fire
Stick by stick, The Artist cultivates The Fire until it grows large enough to call for logs. Soon, an inferno rages that could power a ship across the Atlantic through the darkest of nights and harshest of days. The fuel is the honest pursuit of Art not of this Moment, but of his Soul. What The Artist sees now through the dance of his holy conflagration is the image of himself projected into his Art. The more he speaks through Art, the more he says about himself. The Moment has been replaced by Time Immemorial. Whether the world chooses to acknowledge or remember the Artist is of concern no more; an honest transcription of The Artist’s soul through the vessel of Art is all that matters to The Artist. He discovers the more he pours of himself into the world, the more there is to pour. He has discovered a happy glitch, a consequence of hearing one’s true call.
So he creates.
When he’s not creating, he’s dreaming of creating. Visions of works dance in his mind and he can scarcely find minutes among the years to capture them. He is now known for his style, not his pedantry of the Moment. His nuance, not his brashness. What he doesn’t say, not his words. His soul shouts through time and he is immortal.
The Art
The Artist is the Art, he realizes. It was never about the Art at all, it was about actualizing himself through a medium and refining his ability to speak in this new language so that all could hear his words through his works; to product Art without soul is to speak inaudible tones. While the lips might performatively move, the endless essays of beauty and destruction and hope and despair can never be heard. To infuse a medium with one’s soul is to scream in all languages at once, the first gasping breath of a newborn cry, a death wail to pierce the canopy of the tallest trees. It is the essence of man distilled to its perfect form, bodiless and forever, as long as forever allows it to be.
The Artist is the Art.