Speaking of Art

I am an artist. And sometimes, when I speak with other artists, I wish I wasn’t. No, that’s not true, I love being an artist. I wish they weren’t artists. Once upon a time, as I was finishing my art school education, I was so jaded by “artists” that I thought I would never want to be one myself. Sure, I knew I’d always love making art, but there was something so distasteful to me about the title of “artist”, and all the stereotypes it carried.

But then, I graduated, moved back to the Cape, and, surrounded by my brothers and their friends - all decidedly unartistic - I realized that being an artist is what made me different; special. It was my identity, like it or not. So I decided that my personal definition of “artist” was flawed, and would have to be reassessed.

As that there are so many types of artists, it’s almost impossible to define the common traits of great artists, but, in my opinion, there is one trait that is absolutely neccessary: The overwhelming desire to share.

Sure, sharing your art with the world would seem like a no-brainer; what artist wouldn’t want to show their work in a public forum, expand their audience, possibly makes some sales? But that’s not what I’m talking about.

We artists have been known to be elitist and exclusionary. We spend our days in our studios (or wherever we choose to create or work), communicating only with other artists, bandying about words like “controposto” and scowling at the non-artists when they don’t appreciate our vision. How could they not grasp the relevance of Kazimir Malevich “Supremist Composition: White on White”? (which is, in fact, a white canvas with a single, off-white square painted on it. I get it, but then, I’ve been trained to get it.) We create a mircochasm for ourselves, and then say of the outsiders, ‘If they don’t get it, I’m not going to waste my time explaining it to them.’

We dismiss illustrators as “prostitutes, ” and pop singers aren’t real musicians, because they create art for a mass audience. And then we’re shocked and outraged when the pencil pushers (whom we’ve never once reached out to, after all, they’re not our target audience) cut art programs from our schools.

It’s widely accepted that learning a musical instrument helps students in other subjects, but we, as a culture, cannot seem to rally behind these programs, and instead settle for the quick fix of “standards-based learning.” Whatever happened to the concept of artists being the spokespeople for a generation? This voluntary exile makes no sense to me.

When I hear somebody say, “I don’t get it,” in a gallery, I see that as an opportunity to let someone into the microchasm. The more people we bring in to the cult of art, the more we’ll have standing in our corner when the budget cuts come rolling around. Everybody knows why we need math and english, science and history. The need for art is harder to define, but no less essential to our society. Our art defines us as much as do our advances in technology. When we think upon the Renaissance, sure we know about Galileo, but we we feel like we know Michelangelo as a person - or, at least as the original “totrured artist.” Newspaper clippings, history books and news footage will pass along the facts of our time, but our music, our films and our art will enable future generations to know how it “feels” to live in this day and age.

I can’t think of a better justification for art than that.

To be an artist, you need to be fascinated by everything. To be a great artist, you need to be so fascinated by everything that you cannot help but share this fascination with the world. We need all the great artists we can get in this increasingly homogenous society, where standardization is the hallmark of education, and lateral thinking would be nice, but won’t help you pass the MCAs.

In art school, I learned a great deal on speaking about art. But the importance of being able to communicate this knowledge to non-artists was not imparted upon me. Conversely, my wife’s grandmother made a point of ensuring that her grandchildren be exposed to art, imparting upon them the importance of art, but not the vocabulary of the artist. Both of our educations were incomplete, but neither knew it until we compared notes. But, I daresay, as that hers was free, and I’m still paying mine off, I drew the shorter straw. With no formal education, she’d managed to learn what I had not, though hadn’t been given the tools to articulate what she knew.

I spent sixteen years of school learning to make art. I’ve spent seven furious years since then trying to define in words why we, as a society, need art - and wondering why only one instructor felt it neccessary to kindle in me that fire.

I an am artist. And I want to make sure that future generations get to say the same thing.

Special thanks to Professor Anthony Miraglia.