20 February, 2009

Artist Manifesto - draft 3 of 3,529

Become the art you wish to see in the world.

I call for the elevation of kitsch and the worship - or at least close rapturous scrutiny - of false idols with a grain of truth inside. How do events conspire to make the world the way it is? Does the art we make actually contribute to the motions of culture? Of course it does. In that case, by G/d/s, I am going to paint sleeping babies and people kissing passionately. And puppies playing "go fish".

Your list of "25 random things about me" is not random at all. What are the 1000 things you left out? They're no more random - unless EVERYTHING is random, and if that were the case, *nothing* would be predictable. Acts, events, and choices may be surprising to someone who doesn't know the full picture, but that is completely different from actual randomness or coincidence. Predictability is a tool of science, but it's the proof of order. Can there be order without mind? Does order matter? Does mind matter? Does matter matter? It's all or nothing, baby.

What if there is no why? That doesn't make sense, there's always cause and effect. Or is there? discuss amongst yourselves.
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The Door is Open

I took this phrase from two sources:
the U2 song "Gloria", and my favorite Rumi poem:

"The Breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep
you must ask for what you really want
Don't go back to sleep
People are going back and forth
Across the doorway where the two worlds touch
The door is round, and open
Don't go back to sleep"

I have spent a fair amount of my life wide awake and dreaming, other times sleeping where my dreams were so vivid I wanted to go back and figure out how to make them real. How do I bring dreams into the waking world - dreams of creativity, of joy, of peace, of fun? How to take the shadow of my psyche and use it to heal myself and others instead of hurt?

I have eclectic taste - possibly insane taste - ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. I like silly humor more than I like sarcasm. I have a lifelong interest in why the heck the world is the way it is... cause and effect? G/d/s? Quarks? Who knows. Even if I thought I knew, that would be faith. The intersection between faith and knowledge - a dangerous and blurry place.

As the Firesign Theater states ".... a force that can only be used for good... or evillllll..." but I don't remember what they were talking about, was it a time machine?

I'm blessed with brilliant and creative friends; you'll find links to their blogs, art and ideas here. I'll add my own art and interests as time permits. Daring to put ourselves out there is one of the greatest challenges many artists face. Creating is easy, sometimes it happens all by itself. Communicating... hard.