An Artist's Manifesto

Yesterday I started reading the collection of essays by Chuck Klosterman entitled Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (this interrupted my reading of Tennessee Williams' Memoirs but I think he'll be just as (ir)relevant in a few days). Anyway, Klosterman calls his opus "A Low Culture Manifesto," in which he discusses society at its best and worst, and how it is influenced and influential in the viscous circle of life, through the lens of the mundane yet hyperreal. As I've been reading, I've been thinking about what people think about, what makes them think, and how conceptions of the world I live in have come to be what they are.

Let me clarify that I do not intend to presume that I know all there is to know about the conceptions of my world; I'm not sure I know all of my own conceptions, and I cannot pretend that the ones I recognize are in any way static. Fluidity is part of the point of life, I think.

So as you probably know, when I think about life and the world, I think about art. I find art to be the greatest form of unique expression and at the same time the unifier of communities large and small. I believe it is a basic necessity for living, for surviving, which is different from existence, which is pretty pointless if you can't find meaning, and to me, meaning is art.

Thus I think about the term "art" itself. If I say, "I like art" to the majority of the population, that means I like paintings that are framed and hanging in museums, reprinted millions of times over and hanging in housing developments across the globe. And then there's the "performing arts," the field I say I'm in when I'm applying for scholarships or looking for jobs, but really what's the difference? Does not a painting perform, instigate an interaction with its viewer, a medium between artist and audience, one time and another? 

Perhaps one may look at The Mona Lisa and say both, "This is art," and, "This is an inanimate object." I have come to believe that both cannot be true. Whether a painting, a sculpture, a theatrical performance, a concerto, or a paper towel wrapped around a pencil, if it was created with intention, in my book, it's art. And that art breathes, and has a voice, a spirit, a message, a purpose that it actively puts forth whenever a passerby chooses to engage it. Therein lies the beauty: art is everywhere, and art is eternal.

Art is not always aesthetically beautiful. I believe it is inherently beautiful through its intention of creation, but it may manifest itself in less universally harmonious ways. The United States' government was created with the intention of being separate from that of England and with voice given to the people, presumably with the hope of fairness, security, stability, and wellness for its people. Of course I realize this has not always been a successful endeavor (see the years 2001-2008 for example), but I believe the core vision of this government is beautiful, a work of political art (and I don't mean propaganda, like Mao's big posters).

I believe something out there created me, created humans and relationships. I haven't figured out that purpose yet (if I had, I guess I'd be Buddha), but I have faith that there is a purpose, and that faith allows me to believe that individuals are works of art. Granted, I sometimes have a hard time believing that of some people (see the year 2001), but it is a truth that allows the world to look a little brighter in my eyes.

Part of the beauty of the art that is humanity is that each world view is unique. No two people believe exactly the same things, and that creates billions of realities, a malleable common experience of this earth upon which we live. The beliefs I'm currently expounding is perhaps more optimistic than my usual world view, but I think my inherent truth is perhaps more enlightened and perhaps also therefore more optimistic than my daily drudging self. And that's okay. Nobody can wear rose-tinted glasses every day.

Chuck Klosterman says in a footnote about Billy Joel's song "Laura" after interviewing him, "Obviously I can't argue about the meaning of a song with the person who wrote it. But I still think my interpretation is more interesting than his truth." And here I deviate from much of what I agree with in Klosterman's postmodernic-societal crusade. I certainly agree that one's interpretation can be much more interesting than another individual's truth. And sure, if Billy Joel says his song is about something, that's what it's about--but art isn't about what it's about. Art is about interpreting what it's about. That's what makes it universal, that's what makes it fluid and eternal and omnipresent. And those things are what make it art.