Productive Art

                Art. For something mean to be a celebration, a term that is supposed to have the positive ramifications of, say, “joy” or “love,” it certainly is a divisive idea.

                Art brings joy, and it expresses love. We accept that these are good things, and yet they are not quantifiable. Art, on the other hand, is treated with nervous suspicion. It’s as if, as ideas go, Art is some sort of unwashed uncle with limitless untapped potential who just loafs on the couch all day. What good can Art do if you can’t count its virtues?

                I was out for a run the other night when I stopped to speak with one of my town councilors. He addressed our town’s consideration of forming an Arts Council, and the troubles entailed. How can a town of over 10, 000 people justify all the golf courses and hockey arenas you could ask for, but we have no museum, no gallery, and our local theatre group has often been forced to put on shows in a barn at the rodeo grounds?

                Because Art, as I said, is often treated with suspicion, or at least a suspicion of its purposes. People can see validity in entertainment for entertainment’s sake, but Art for Art’s sake they find rather icky. No judgement is made of television, a mindless medium many people dedicate the majority of their evenings to consuming, because it’s entertainment. Art, while it can often be entertaining—and I’d argue, when it’s best should always be—is about something richer, something more fulfilling. I’ve been stuck on Julia Cameron’s definition: “Making [A]rt is making love to life.”

                I suppose, as with most I see wrong in the world, once again it’s capitalism’s fault. Capitalism is just a human version of one of our most basic mammalian behaviours: win. Taken at its most base, that’s all living for money is, a more eloquent version of what monkeys do: eat, fuck, sleep.

                Art for Art’s sake is often viewed with a cocked eyebrow by most people (and by the major levels of government in this country). People who work exclusively for money cannot seem to fathom doing anything without doing it to accumulate capital. If you do something and you make money doing it, you can push the furthest boundaries of morality and you’ll still have reams of supporters. But do something for the sheer joy of doing it, because you’re expressing yourself or because you want to explore an idea and you risk being labelled lunatic, hippie, or—worst of all—non-contributor. Art does not always toss slop into the trough.

                Recently, I completed a history text. I found this overall to be a great experience, unfamiliar and refreshing. As I learned the history of what I was writing about, I also stretched my creative muscles to fit the information into the concept and the parameters of length and design. History writing has a very specific style and a purpose, it calls for careful creativity. I succeeded, I was rewarded.

                I encountered a friend just after finishing the text and told him about it, and he became fixated on the topic of how much I made doing it. When I tried to share my joy with him, or even a historical anecdote which I was packed full of, his brows knitted.

                “Yeah, but how much did you make?”

                This was his only concern, his only interest in the project.

                When you make Art, you struggle with enough inner guilt that you don’t need this exterior stuff. Hell, I’ve struggled with guilt in composing this very blog because I am only a partial—I have yet to abandon my day job, because I need the money. I see my slight hypocrisy there, though I would argue I don’t live for the money.

                I imagine there are no artists who haven’t struggled with guilt over doing what they do. Why? What’s the purpose? What am I saying? What am I accomplishing?

                I had a little epiphany when considering my own Art/guilt struggle, it’s what led to this blog. I’ve been struggling with why I write what I write. I don’t write exclusively to entertain. I suppose there’s some expression of the human condition in it, but that’s always felt like pale philosophy in search of a moral to me. I enjoy playing with language and telling tales. The epiphany occurred—as so many do—while I was playing with my children. They were telling me about their days, in language rife with errors and non-sequitors. The plot of this day mattered much less than the details of a cheese sandwich or a game of tag. The quality of their language, their ability to express joy, sadness, elation and pain, is improving daily. This, I realized, is the importance of what I do: I use language, the triumph of humanity, most significant of inventions, and I push it as far as I can. This separates us from the beasts. Unlike money.