Wednesday, February 17, 2010

"You figure it out, I can't." "I'm only the middleman." "I don't know what's going on."

I've heard it before. Each sentence in the title is from a different cartoonist, painter and photographer respectively. Is it the calling card of the real, successful artist?

Is it pointless to try and explain any artistic endeavour?

If it doesn't make dollars it doesn't make sense, some say. In the case of art this has long been the exception to the rule in most instances, maybe because people believe it has to be the exception...but even the word 'art' makes people renounce its definition in full due to its ubiquitousness...

It's funny how in an essay I read by Flannery O'Connor, she mentions how a lot of good writers she knows paint - not because they're exceptionally good but because they use it as a way of 'seeing'. I've been painting on and off (on a canvas and easel) since I was nine. I still remember how surprised I was on my tenth birthday when...well, why should I share that story here. I paint, but it's not often. It's more often than when I drink caffeine though, which is about three to four times a year.

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