Maternal Stillness

We could start this discussion about how the arts are necessary to life. We could opine on the arts are Mankind’s great achievements in spite of Mankind’s great flaws. We could glow about the double fugue ‘Kyrie’ in the Mozart Requiem or the clarity of vision of a Henri Cartier-Bresson. Name a genre and a quick ‘shopping’ list of genuine masterpieces can be compiled, discussed, dissected and ranked.

But when we build this list, and check it twice, we ‘purify’ the art. We extract the times and culture of the artist from the work and view the final product in a sterile lab environment. A college music prof of mine used to say that music was not written in a vacuum. The fact is that few artists enjoyed the fame and fortune in their lives that allowed them to become ‘comfortable’. The word ‘complacent’ is seldom associated with great works.

So, when the oracles of our day portend economic doom and cultural collapse, the arts community typically passes along the same message – ‘Tough Times Are Ahead – Prepare for Rough Seas – Survival Is At Stake’ to its members.

The Fluffytek Art Blog is a blog for which I have high respect, but I have to disagree with their recent post Profit From Passion.

There is no merit in starving to death or not having enough dosh to pay your bills or buy more paper to print your pictures. You may only want to concentrate on photographing nudes but you can’t let this one style govern your work exclusively unless you’re a dilettante and make your main living elsewhere. It’s all very well if nude photography is your life’s guiding force (join the other millions of digital photographers out there) but nude art photography has now become so commonplace and so associated with tacky porn that its reputation has been seriously degraded. Even if you are as good as Newton (and frankly, many of you are) you are unlikely to find your work supports you financially in this modern internet age. So unless you are prepared to shoot to order, be friends with the right people and produce the type of images that your buddy clients want to purchase (even if that means moving genres) then frankly my dear, you’re not worth a damn.

Bukowski’s words from decades ago act as an oracle for Fluffytek:

drunk again in a crackerbox room, dreaming of Shelley and youth, bearded, jobless bastard with a walletful of win tickes un-cashable as Shakespeare’s bones. we all hate poems of pity or cries of the wailing poor — a good man can climb any flag and salute prosperity (we’re told) but how many good poets can you find at IBM or snoring under the sheets of a fifty-dollar whore? more good men have died for poetry than all your crooked battle-fields were worth; so if I fall drunk in a four-dollar room: you messed up your history — let me dawdle in mine.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2008/10/bukowski-writin.html

In my opinion, the voices of the oracles are wrong and always have been.

A close look at your ‘shopping list’, or any ‘shopping list’ of any genre for that matter, will disclose a list of artists who sometimes succeeded, sometimes struggled and sometimes starved for their art. I am not suggesting that you stop paying your bills, quit your job and find some great Zen-like nobility in starvation. I am asking you to keep in mind that throughout history wars, and rumors of wars, did not stop the artistic process. It often accelerated it.

The bright days of benefactors may soon be gone but all artists know that it is in the dark night of the soul that the creative process bubbles, then churns, then insists on being born into an imperfect world. It’s as if the weight of this world crushes the artist until he or she produces the vintage work.

Let’s face it, a select handful of powerful men, presidents of banks and countries, make decisions that trickle down to effect the lives of the ordinary people. Artists must make the extraordinary decision as to whether they will continue to create in spite of day jobs, bills, and other banalities. Time must be carved from every week and dedicated to the artistic. This extraordinary decision must lead to equally extraordinary time that is fruitful and not wasted on the tyranny of the mundane.

The arts community has been ‘dying’ for centuries. In fact, the arts have been dying on and off for so long, you could say that they have perfected the art of dying. I wish you all well in the coming tough economic times but I wish you something greater – a beautiful death. Make your art with a compelling sense of duty and purpose and an enlightened mind that realizes that the hearts of all people need the arts more in time of famine than in feasting.

The sole purpose of this blog is to pass on technique, information and inspiration. We can make our communities better by supporting each other or we can wait for ‘better’ times. We can decide that our artistic voices are worthy to be heard in the here and now or we can value and devalue our work based on imaginary ‘points’ in the stock markets.

Your voice is welcome here. Here your voice is important. The importance of the arts is the only thing not up for debate.

May your ‘dying’ art be your most eloquent.

I chose the ironic maternal image above as a way of catching your eye, and as a metaphor for the ‘birth’ of my new blog and your new work. I took the shot in my studio with a Canon 5D, 85mm, f/2.2, ISO 50 using one Alien Bee AB800 and a diffusion panel. The background is a large piece of styrofoam spray painted copper. Model: Dominatia.

ars moriendi