A culture built of people invested in creative enterprise is a culture that cares about building connections. Creative expressions almost always reach out. By its very nature art does not insulate itself from interaction; it pursues interaction. In times like these, when identity politics and political polarization press our self-interested faces into hand-held screens, the value of shared experiences becomes not simply a luxury, but a campfire on a bitterly cold night.
Read MoreTHE LOOMING DARKNESS (Pt 1 of 3) — RESPONSES
Idealists may think that art in its various forms can function as remedy for chaos and pain. The rise of Dada in the early part of the 20th century suggests otherwise. The peril here is that when ideologues try to use creative work as a mechanism for political or social coercion, the work instantly corrupts itself. Political forces have always used creative enterprise as a means of influence, but in its most trenchant expressions, art speaks for itself as a reaction to the world much more evocatively than when it’s wielded as an instrument of power.
Read MoreWhat Happens When I Hear The English Beat
Sensations of all sorts are new in everyone’s adolescence, no matter where or with whom you lived at the time, and the geologic pressure of successive years piling up fossilizes memory. Intense moments of sensual, visceral pleasure become reinforced with subsequent mental recollection, which is why we can conjure our teenage years in sparkling detail and cannot recall what we made for breakfast this morning.
Read MoreTHIS ISN’T REALLY ABOUT ANDY WARHOL…OR THE SUPREME COURT
I don’t mind angry art, I don’t mind sad art, I don’t mind disturbed art, or erotic art, or challenging pieces that ask me to pause and think. I don’t even mind “bad” art that I might choose to ignore. What bothers me are so-called artistic assertions that knowingly, consciously, conspicuously waste my time by pretending to be something more vital than they really are.
Read MoreWHAT I TRY TO REMEMBER
Art is the reason to preserve life in the first place, to fortify our shelters and our camp, to share sustenance with others around the fire. Art is the reason we exist. We exist to create; creation becomes the over arching beauty worth pursuing in a finite life; beauty is the reason to endure.
Read MoreHERE'S LOOKING AT NEW, KID
Nobody creates in a vacuum. Nobody emerges with a fresh take without already being fiercely and voraciously pursuant of something that foundationally has nothing to do with pure commerce. Money makes things possible, but money by itself has nothing to say. Artists with ideas look to other artists, and other people, and what comes before is always the genetic code for what comes after. Just like children, we may know the parents, but we can still scarcely predict where their lives will go.
Read MorePAINTING THE WALLS
In a time when we’re all overwhelmed by media from carefully managed corporate committees, or ceaseless chatter from social media, a small painting on a piece of a former teenager’s bedroom wall is enough to make us stop and smile and notice how it, too, has influence—perhaps even more lasting influence than any disposable electronic signal that may tempt us for ten irrelevant seconds.
Read MoreTRANSFORMATIONS (or, Why an Essay about the First Gulf War appears in a Blog about Creativity)
Performers on stage? Soldiers ready for battle? Protesters lining the streets? That’s the thing about moments of transformation. There are usually multiple, simultaneous forces at work. In this month’s blog post at 1AU Global Media, we consider moments of transformation, when real world events intersect with lives pursuing creative expression.
Read MoreSHIELDS UP!
Artists and accountants are not always motivated by the same forces, but there are often more crossover forces between artists and accountants than first glance might suggest. Clearly this is a matter more about aesthetics; I cannot fathom a life in accounting, but I’m sure glad I know a good one when I need her to sort things out. Success for artists, accountants, and everyone else too, is often a function of figuring out how to get something completely done.
Read MoreYOUR INSTRUCTIONS: RATE, REVIEW, SHARE
Some things simply don’t rate very well in the ten minutes after then pop into existence. But in a world seemingly powered by social media uber alles we seem to regard all qualitative assessments only in relation to the positive metrics defined by the title of this blog.