Why Art?Written by Joseph Devon
The following is hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. If I can get through this, all way through this, than my little corner of universe will make sense again and I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep. If I don’t get through it…well…if I don’t get through it then you won’t be reading this and I’ve vanished off into world of obscurity. The following is hardest thing I’ve ever had to write for very simple reason that I, in no way, feel like writing it. My father always used to question my interest with art in general, with writing in specific. He used to say, “In an English class, you can argue a point around and around, and at end of class nobody will have been proven to have right answer. In engineering, on other hand, if someone doesn’t have right answer, god-damned bridge will fall down.” His point was blunt it is what’s haunting me at this very moment. On one hand, you have very tangible fields of science with direct and provable facts that produce concrete results in our world. On other hand there is art, where no right answers exist and results, if any, are impossible to measure. The question is simple. Why art? Why am I writing this right now? Why not tuck it all away and become a banker? It can’t just be because I’m lousy with numbers. What sets me down in front of my computer time and time again staring at a blank screen that I’m to fill up with words? Is it hopes and dreams of a best-selling book and immortality? I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. But I’d be lying if I said it was, too. Those kinds of hopes and dreams are very much a part of it, but truth is, those are things that get me to sit down and stop procrastinating. What happens after I’ve written first word, and is still happening after I’ve written first sentence, what continues to happen after first paragraph, first page, second page and on and on until ending has been reached, what happens then has very little to do with fame and fortune. Those thoughts are long gone and have been replaced by a string of images and thoughts constantly being converted into twelve-point Times New Roman font. Thoughts of money have never ended up with me figuring out perfect setting for a scene. Dreams of fame are not in my skull while I walk down street talking to myself, working out dialogue. And bestseller list is nowhere near my mind when I come up with perfect word to fit a sentence together. The enticement of a reward is not what makes me write, it’s what gets me started, after that it’s something else entirely. Writing, like painting, singing, sculpting, dancing, photography and acting is a form of expression. It is an attempt to communicate something inside with outside world. Something that is important, important enough to make me sit down time and time again in front of this Satanic blank screen. There’s something inside of you, something inside of every human, that it screaming to get out, a universal truth. No, don’t blush. I don’t use those words lightly. Whatever you write, I know that it’s something huge. I know it because swarming mass of whatever it was floating through your mind was enough to make you sit down and get past that first word, and second, and third, and so on until ending has been reached. That’s a task that requires an enormous amount of will. Something is driving you. Something you want to say. It must be huge; blank screen is not a hurdle that is surmounted easily. Does that answer “Why art” question? No, not really. My father’s statement contains far more than just a questioning of why I make myself write. It contains question of why art is important to begin with. The more tangible fields have produced a great deal in our world, from wheel to indoor plumbing. What has art produced besides more art? It art even that important? Couldn’t we just do away with it altogether? If you’re like me, such a question makes you cringe with horror. Of course we can’t do away with art! But have you ever tried to explain to a non-believer why such a thought is ludicrous? It’s not enough to take them to a museum and stand next to them enjoying a Van Gogh. That sets you at ease, but it doesn’t answer question. And I can’t settle for convincing myself, that won’t do it tonight. I know I won’t sleep if I stop there, specter of my father surely wont’ be happy to leave it at that. Good news, though. I think I’m closer to an answer than it seems. Dragging a non-believer to a museum is answer, just not in way it seems. Your enjoyment of art is answer. Art is communication; I’ve already said that. Don’t kid yourself, in anything you write there are only two characters, you and reader. There is a bond established between artist and viewer in which something is conveyed. As I said, something fundamental, even if it’s only taking a few characters’ lives, tearing them apart, and then rebuilding them again by end of book. Something as to nature of what we’re all doing here is passed along, is encoded in each word, in each brush stroke, in each note, something harmonious, usually something simple. But something is passed on allowing you to enjoy, on some unexplainable level, art of others. And I think that’s answer. In engineering, if right answer is not present, then goddamned bridge falls down. But if all right answers are there in tangible sense, and bridge is built, is it worth it even if lives of those who walk across bridge are meaningless? No civilization has ever come into existence without artists. No civilization is complete without them. Without artists, civilization would not exist, we would only be isolated mass, unconnected, left to wander over bridge after bridge, because art is communication between one person and another. Art itself is a universal truth. If you’ll forgive a slight digression, there is a Zen story that bears telling.
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