There is such a complex beauty to artists and their art. Truly is. Every one. At least thats how I see it. Some might call it other things like being fucking weird or off or " I just dont get him sometimes"; to each their own. I'm sure there's plenty of people who get hurt by artists ( cause we are crazy in doses) and then expect all of us to be demented drug addicts with long hair and small jeans, drinking coffee with a cigarette in one hand, art in the other who care about nothing but ourselves...

That actually doesn't sound too far off from me...

But seeing how I am myself though, I have to start to like that person some where along these lines. Eventually it'll happen. So on my way home I was thinking to myself how vague and unspoken creativity is to live in. Really. If you find an artist who's capable of doing their art in public, watch them. Not that its going to be a huge spectacle or anything, its just going to look normal. Its going to look like their doing what they're supposed to. Theres no conversations. Nothing gets between them and their focus. Their hand and the paper, eyes forward and straight putting the peddle down. Now, I'm sure theres artists on every extreme I left out; ones with complete distractions, with no drive and even less work ethic and others that just go fucking insane and mumble to themselves naked by an easle. Dont worry, I have not forgotten you.

All of this goes to my point which is: anyone who knows an artist, of any kind and any caliber of insanity, has to want to know whats going through their head. Maybe not on a day to day basis, but when they come up with shit, they do something brilliant or they do something completely bizarre that leaves you questioning if your even okay with that- thats when people start asking questions. They get curious. See, that right there is the artists card: NO ONE will ever see what goes on behind your eyes. THEY WONT KNOW! And confusing shit always makes people try to understand it. Thats why art always has some sort of interpretation to it. Its essential for art. Its a component to it. There has to be some way to look at what ever it is, whether it be a dance routine, a painting, a novel, in a way that isn't for plain face value. Because at face value, honestly, a lot of art is down right silly bullshit. And other times, its just intensely perplexing. Structure doesn't exist. Aesthetics, manners, barriers of any sort- no where. But because art is beautiful and its not something everyone can do, it is appreciated and analyzed and picked apart and put up on walls and tattooed on bodies. This almost gives the artist an inherited brilliance. A endowed meaning that, for all you know, might be completely undeserved. He might have just drawn a raven... because... he likes birds. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW!


Knowing would ruin shit though. Symbolism in itself would be completely wrecked. There would be signs and paintings and letters that would mean distinctly different things then they do to us now, and that would be lame. We've handed down hundreds of symbols from places that we aren't 100% positive of their true intended meaning. And thats half of the fun- getting to create our own meanings. Now, sometimes it might be fulfilling to know the story behind some work or hear how the gears move, but then again, we are the artist. We might not be able to fully articulate that process or what happens during it. Sometimes I black out. Then, I'll just go back and fill in the blank as creatively and meaningful as possible. THEY WILL NEVER KNOW! WE CAN ALL MAKE UP

CRAZY

SHIT!

For this reason, the vague is a powerful place to stay in. Especially if you aren't destructive. If you're destructive, you can't take on this responsibility correctly. You'll produce bad. Lots of bad. Not that I'm not destructive in ways, or that every artist for that matter is, but the ones who know how to hone it and create positively from that odd negative area are the ones who get noticed. They're also the ones who can extend this grey area into other dynamics of their life. Actions, phrases, character, the work place.

So today, I went into work. I sat down for the best salad in my life and started discussing the program I wrote up last week. I didn't hear back from my boss for almost 6 days and I was beginning to feel that he might have hated it, realized how incompetent I am and already contracted someone with a PH.D to write a program that didn't look like a fucking one legged monkey wrote it upside down and blind. But sure enough, he liked it. I asked him if there was anything he wanted me to note and he said

' Well, we'll have to work on the video selection that you decide to show and when. But other than that, I was asking myself for a second why you picked certain topics for certain days. Then I realized that each day was like a building block for the next. Certain topics can't be discussed with out the others already there and so on.'

I looked at him confidently and said

'Yup. Thats how I wanted to do it too. I couldn't just start off talking about the big stuff at the end because that wouldn't make a cohesive meaning. I'm not here to shove the kids.'

As I was driving home tonight, I tried to think about if I actually creatively thought that out. I will not share that with you.... But I will tell you... I fucking didn't. Straight up. I didn't sit there and say ' Oh, how can I make this look like I'm building up to something AMAZING? ' or ' This is going to fucking matter'. I just did it. I wrote down some ideas on a bunch of paper, watched some t.v and drank some water, looked down at the paper and said ... nothing. It just happened that way.

Maybe the vague isn't something we even know about. It can even be confusing to the artist. Its sorta violent that way. It just comes over us like an demon, gets left in areas we allow it and later, when the clouds pass, the wind stops and everything settles down, we look back and say

Yup. I wrecked that shit.

Thats art. Thats our exclusionary clause right there. We dont have to explain. Your minds will explain it perfectly for us. We depend on your judgment and your criticism. Your stares and confusion. Without them, we might not even understand that what were doing- matters at all. However, there is this one rad super power to being an artist and thats this:

We can just make shit up and take credit for being awesome.

Not much beats that.