4/30/2011
For decades now, it’s been impressed on us moderns that art is a frill, unnecessary and usually unaffordable. This view has always struck me as patently wrong, but I’ve never had a ready answer for it until now. You can try to explain why art is not a frill, or you can simply answer the question “What would life be like without art?”
If you’re really strict with yourself and strip out every form of art there is, you may start to see what a gift art can be — a gift of joy, beauty, inspiration, and pleasure.
Art is everywhere and most of it is not high. Artists create graphics for print, television, Internet, and other forms of media. Musicians write jingles, film music, television themes, and pop songs. Sculptors, dancers, and architects still work at their crafts, and do so with great professionalism.
Which is part of the problem with art today. We have a lot of it but for the most part it’s either:
- a) soulless and commercial
- b) done by highly trained and skilled people who are paid to produce it
- c) both
Art is not of the people anymore although it may be for the people in the sense that most of it is designed to be purchased by us or to influence us. But regular people are less and less active participants in the arts. Few of us do art or even craft. Many leave home decorating and gardening to the professionals. It’s always faster and easier to buy something — a CD, a framed picture, a shelf — than to do it yourself.
Which is too bad. Once upon a time, not that long ago, regular people did many more things for themselves and they found it satisfying. My grandmother knitted and crocheted beautifully for all her children and grandchildren (I recently found a bunch of her old patterns and remembered which ones she made for us). She sewed as well, including complicated patchwork quilts, and tatted lace doilies. My grandfather and his relatives built things — furniture, cabinets, houses, boats. Grandpa could make those curio shelves with the curlicue cutouts that looked so delicate holding up my grandmother’s knickknacks.
It was their generation that made the American popular song popular, not just by buying and dancing to the records, but by learning the songs and singing them together whenever they cared to sing (which according to my mother, was all the time). As for centuries past, people made their own arts as well as their own entertainment, much if not most of the time. They didn’t even know enough to be embarrassed by their humble efforts.
But it’s not that they were more noble than we are, just that they had less access to entertaining gizmos to distract them from doing creative things themselves. Who needs to make things when you can watch electronic pixels dance on a screen? Appworld so cool and undemanding, you stop wanting real things.
I don’t live life in virtual reality, so I tend to be fairly conscious of the state of my real world surroundings. That said, just recently, I was looking at a long-tolerated ugly patch in our apartment and thinking: “How depressing to look at this plain and unloved corner. I don’t even want to be here.” Which made me think again about art and beauty and how even simple decorative touches can transform a thing or a space into something inspiring instead of a discouraging drag.
Why art is joyful and inspiring, I don’t know, but I believe that except for the most angst-ridden people, it is. Which is why I also think it’s good to let people know early and often that it’s ok to have a creative side, to do some art or craft, to enjoy some form of self expression.
So many of us seem to need permission (and a lot of privacy and/or support) to do anything arty at all, whether it’s sing out loud or play an instrument, dance at a party or paint a picture. But when you look at how long mankind has been doing art, you know it has to be a pretty basic part of the human make-up. Why do are we inclined, here in modern times, to suppress it?
I don’t deny that some people feel they have no connection to the arts. I’ve known people who could care less about visual art, and one who thought music was unpleasant to hear (very rare, thankfully). But most of us will tend, more often then not, to sway to music or tap a toe. Most of us can carry a tune with or without a bucket (and only humans can do that). Although drawing is regarded as a rare and almost magical skill, most people can do it with a little help and some practice. Moreover, it’s a skill that’s native to the human species and has been since home sapiens emerged on the planet. It’s just that in today’s world, individual creativity has been superseded by the massive output of a well marketed professional class, pushed through phones and devices to make our own artistic efforts seem superfluous. But can the impulse to creative expression be satisfied by browsing pictures on Instagram or Pinterest?
I doubt it. It’s think it’s more of a mental health thing. We need both to appreciate and make things to feel whole. This isn’t a “should” so much as a warning — sooner or later, you will miss it if you don’t. So, if you’ve been wondering why you’ve been feeling bored and uninspired, art might just be the answer. After all, it’s one of the things that makes us human.
