Art Blog: To freely go after your ART, if you dare...

The free pursuit of ART is a demanding task.  Everyone of us who has ever exhibited talent in one artistic form or another understands this, pretty much instinctively.  The comforts of Suburban life add stress to these demands; comfort levels offered to us by the "American Way of Life" pose both logistical, as well as character issues that must be dealt with before we can set out in our pursuit.   


But, once you have cleared the way for you to finally get your ART on, there are a few things to remember...

We should all do well to remember that MOST artists live in obscurity.   Those accepting that fact move on with their WORK, stepping into, perhaps, their true roles in life.  


Today's artists must work their ART, regardless of circumstances (typically among the poorest, financially); it is a magnificant obession that will often collide with life in the 'real world', such as it is...


Artists are attracted to each other, since misery loves company; we find joy simply pushing our elbows together over a bottle of cheap wine; hours pass speaking of perspective, or subject, composition or point of view.  Philosophy is wrapped around our discussions, having understood that most of the great philosophers were also, practically speaking, without great means.


Artists are very familiar with pawn shops and flea markets; possessions are merely funds we carry around and use as long as we can, then sell when survival is at stake.  In the America we find ourselves surrounded by today, ART is, for the most part, too soft a subject to think about buying into.  Lay offs, industrial closings, mortgages that can not be paid and how our childred all seem to have developed A.D.D. are far more important subjects, they are the snarl that kills the ART in most of us.  Few of us ever, move beyond those limitations.


Taking one of Walt Whitman's walk alongside nature with notebook under arm and no care about shaving, apperiantly, is merely a romantic notion, until you try it.  To step out into the raw world without the protection of "The Herd" strikes terror in the hearts of most suburbanites.  The folks one might encounter 'off the grid' are not, generally speaking, the sort you want to find sitting beside you, or sharing a bottle of cheap wine at that cozy bistro table on that favorite sidewalk you know so well... But they are the salt that flavors the world, the subjects of our expert eyes.  


It's ours to record, or illustrate or sing about in one way or another.  We are leaving the details behind that someone, one day, will find and study.