Art is what humans do. We are born and we die – in between is art. Art is inevitable. If you are human you will make art. To disappear into the activity of making art, to become inseparable from the process and bring your full being into the relationship of making art is the challenge, difficulty, desire, aim, intention, and point of art and all human activity.
Art is humanity’s extended visual and visceral conversation with life and death. When done reflexively – with full focus and attention – art becomes transcendent, limitless, immediate, perplexing, engaging, surprising, sustained and clear.
Art is a numinous mirror that allows us to see and acknowledge what we already know and what we will come to know as we disappear. Art forces us to let go and get to the point. Art continually becomes the nonverbal, ungraspable, super-obvious, right there in front of you reality we ignore so completely, know so well, fear so immensely, embrace, absorb, digest, and incorporate.
Art is where the mundane becomes profound and the profound becomes routine. Somewhere beyond intention, potential, or inspiration art becomes truly free and accessible to what is human in us all. Art is not magic.
Art, by being what it is, opens the door to what we are. Look until memories fade, judgments cease, narratives stop – be alone with seeing. Let go, stop thinking, surrender, disappear, come and go, and know what is simultaneously all and nothing. Art helps.
Art is timeless. Time does not pass or fly and cannot be kept. Time accumulates in things, mirroring the way ideas and experiences accumulate in the mind. The energetic mass of neutral time can be stretched, bent, and compressed as it accumulates, but not ignored without consequence.
Art is the thing in nothing. Art can whisper, scream, murmur, chatter, squeak, or speak at varying volumes. Art is decisive, direct, clear, heart to heart, human to human, unambiguous and complete. Art can be absorbed in an instant and be the catalyst of years of conversation as we grow, age, and change. Art is a useless, functional window to no thing.
Anticipation is the greater part of joy. The weather is always perfect. Simple is never easy. Change is constant. Love is the answer. Art works for me.
ed malina 11/11/2007