Filed by Bries at 8:46 am under The Arts

I started to write a serious, politically themed blog (horror of horrors!) about the reasoning behind my being a dedicated non-voter (gasp of gasps!) and that it in fact has nothing to do with me being lazy, irresponsible, ignorant, and/or a hindrance to society, as non-voters all get lumped together as (not that those words don’t describe me, they just happen to have nothing to do with my decision to not vote). But I got distracted talking about art and artists and pretentious things — it’s a running theme with me — so I made a u-turn. Maybe you’ll get non-votership in a future blog. Maybe.

I got sidetracked when I started writing about how the best art tends to come from the worst circumstances, and it basically turned into a big ol’ sloppy love letter to the overzealous and bullheaded. I aspire and admire humans who have no doubt in their mind how life should be lived and then proceed to do so, because they almost always are the first to demand the same from others. But the beauty lies in the fact that the demand is not that “others live life as I have no doubt that it should be lived” but that others live life as they see fit. But that they do it wholeheartedly.

Stick around me long enough and you’re bound to hear the phrase “if only everyone thought like me, the world would be a better place.” I am, of course, kidding. Or at least half-kidding. But what I do believe, with every ounce of my being, is that the world’s problems have very little to do with ethnocentrism and arrogance, but an inability to allow others to feel the same. Humility is a virtue, not a requisite. I’m as self-obsessed as the day is long — instantly convinced that I am right in every sense — but I don’t need the world to agree in order to validate my view. Which I feel is probably a big reason I am not a politically-minded person. The political slag heap is little more than a narcissistic power struggle. And while I’ve got no big qualms with narcissism, power doesn’t much interest me. Oh, it interests me to be sure, but not in the sense that I seek it out, much less struggle for it. In fact, I fear the day I am given great power — my eternal quest to fuck shit up is no longer valid when I am the shit that needs be fucked up. And look at how the political blog that I unwittingly changed to an artistic blog has unwittingly been changed to a political blog. Fine. Changing gears, then.

I strive to be (and find) an equivalent to Plato’s philosopher-king: the philosopher-artist, if you will. Artists, true artists, philosopher-artists, are a paradox. Instinctual creatures, beasts, really, they survive only on wisdom, on knowledge, on philosophy. They move about the creative world not oblivious to, but unconcerned with, above, in a manner of speaking, politics, business, popularity, critical reception, audience reception, zeitgeist, the entire “game” that artistic production too oft becomes. They create. They create. They create because they create. They create because there is too much bouncing around inside them (their brains, their hearts, their souls, their viscera) to not create. And because they create, others respond. Others respond both positively and negatively, but either way most certainly, because they have found something that does not concern them, is not concerned with them, exists without them, and will continue to exist whether or not they choose to acknowledge it. Which is exactly why they do. This is the art that, post-creation, only expands with more ideas, with ascribed philosophies, with a deeper meaning than it may or may not have originally been imbued. Because it is the truest of art, which raises it beyond its origins and into an clime of thought. An echelon of pure and free thought, which neither man, woman nor god can ever claim to harness, only to skim ever so briefly as a hand reclining over the side of a rowboat.

And the philosopher-artist is not only a creator. A state of being driven by wisdom cannot come solely from the self. No, the best of these skimmers, the few who can on slight occasion grasp a singular concept, perhaps even two in one pull, and reveal it in an earthly light, are also the philosopher-artists.

<Note: I am coming back to this after a two day respite. Watch as I try to maintain a coherency that was never present in the first place.>

The philosopher-artist, then, reaching the nearest to pure creation and the nearest to pure interpretation, are the few who can lay gaze over the realm of Art as an entirety. They may not — will not — grasp all that they see, but with the horizon comes the awareness of how little they do grasp, and the impetus to forge ahead bold-faced, as they shall ne’er reach the edge of this everlong precipice.

I am not a philosopher-artist. I don’t believe that I would say that I know any, either. I know many great artists and a few great philosophers, but to firmly ensconce the two sparks such a flame that all acquainted take a step back, unaware of what they have witnessed, but aware that it was an event that shall be passed down through generations, some recounting the moment they witnessed art not made but birthed, others telling of day they were privy to the final moments, the last rites, of art.

I am not a philosopher-artist. But I am trying. And I believe I am closer than most. Humility is a virtue, not a requisite.

About a month ago, a friend asked me a very simple question via e-mail: What do you want?

I gave her a laundry list of replies — self-doubts, frustrations of being eternally single, concerns towards my artistic direction. The final one, left to linger, was “I want art to start riots again.”

As I look back, one month later, I still have the same doubts, frustrations, and concerns. But the only thing that seems to have remained pertinent: “I want art to start riots again.”

Merdre.

-Bries.