Life invades art. Experiencing life
October 27, 2002
Life invades art. Experiencing life wins battle. Art is temporarily driven from this corner of life only to return today. I have heard the statement, “there is no greater enemy to art than a pram in the hallway”. Total bullshit of course. How many wives and children did Picasso have? I believe he treated most of them poorly but continued his stud service well into his seventies.
Suffering and time to create seem to be the variables that the author of that epithet finds so attractive in an artist’s life. Firstly ...I’m not an artist. I don’t think what I do is necessarily “art” and , therefore, I am free. Secondly...suffering is possible in any situation. One can be pool side, hanging with the Rolling Stones, and enjoying a massage and still be suffering. Some are born to suffer. Thirdly ... “time to create” has never existed. If you don’t have anything better to do you are guilty of shirking. Art is seen by most as a frivolous enterprise so when you are “working” it is not given the same weight as other “real work”. Most people see an artist as working in a parallel universe that is not actually connected to the way that life is supposed to move. This concept changes when people start to cough up money in shitloads for the art. At that point the artist is actually “working” . . . for real. This is why it is so hard to get the ball rolling in the first place. You need all the support and praise at the beginning. You need the money at the beginning. The “experience necessary” Catch-22 of the job description comes into play for the artist too. How can I get the experience without ever being given a chance to get the job?
When the artist is finally commanding value for their “work” it is said by snobs that their best work was done back when they were struggling and starving. “I liked the first independent albums in the period before they sold out”. Struggling produces uniform art of a different kind. Why do people want to endlessly experience the artist’s pain? Does is validate their own pain? Does it make them feel better to hear that someone is worse off than them? Is it because blissed out music so truly sucks.
Most children’s music completely blows because it denies that children have intelligence or experience pain. Usually it is cheaply produced on a midi keyboard and features absolutely no ethnicity. It is the sonic equivalent of the Happy Meal. We allow folks to market shit for food directly to our children and then we give them shit to listen to while they chow down on their fatty free-radicals wrapped in nice cartoon character prints. Give them the big people food. If you crank AC/DC records around kids you will see just how much they are missing. Apeshit. Sly & the Family Stone or Muddy Waters can also turn the rumpus room upside down. I’ve been busy trying to give my kids a good healthy start. Must...build...muscles...to ....swim...upstream...against....what I’m supposed to want. “There is no greater enemy to art than a pram in the hallway”. I can think of a few greater enemies. “There is no greater enemy to bullshit than a child with the right question”. Art builds immunity and strikes back. Beautiful sado masochistic cycle is complete. Dad returns to the battlefield with fresh legs. Life invades art.