Thursday, April 28, 2005
Where does art come from?
I had a really interesting convo with a brotha, poet, performs, produces his own cd's, etc, and since we are both artists, naturally, the convo turn to art.
So he says at one point in our convo that art comes out of poverty, and destitution. Globally. I had serious issues with this statement, because all people who collectively do art are not in poverty. For instance, there is an artistic community in Kyoto Japan where daily life revolves around art, and they are in no way poor!
I mentioned this and then he says that as a people, meaning black people, that this is of course true. Indeed there are some groups of black folks that this statement will probably apply. He used grafitti as his example. Folks got tired of their neighborhood looking so bad, so they decided to make it look better by putting art on buildings. But, I think the people of Mali or the ancient Khemetians would have knocked him upside the head for making such a broad generalization.
So, because we are so destitute as a people globally and art springs out of our destitution, we naturally turn to art to fill a void. At this point, I think he is talking about himself, because that is his way of filling his voids. He does say that yes, he uses art to fill spaces in his life that are empty. I said to him that he is very lucky, because not alot of people turn to art for such therapy. Most of the time, it's a gang, or drugs or multiple sex partners.
Lastly, he said it doesn't cost anything to do art. I almost flip out about that one, cause yes, it does cost! But he says that it doesn't cost anything to began the process of making art. But isn't that what we usually call creativity? At what point does the intial creative process actually become art?
I am not sold on art coming only from poverty and destitution, if that wasn't obvious. But it does come from somewhere. I would like to think it comes from a need to birth something into existence. I don't have children, but I'm constanly producing something into this 3 dimensional world-a choreography, a costume, a new dance move, something, anything!
Where else would it come from?
I had a really interesting convo with a brotha, poet, performs, produces his own cd's, etc, and since we are both artists, naturally, the convo turn to art.
So he says at one point in our convo that art comes out of poverty, and destitution. Globally. I had serious issues with this statement, because all people who collectively do art are not in poverty. For instance, there is an artistic community in Kyoto Japan where daily life revolves around art, and they are in no way poor!
I mentioned this and then he says that as a people, meaning black people, that this is of course true. Indeed there are some groups of black folks that this statement will probably apply. He used grafitti as his example. Folks got tired of their neighborhood looking so bad, so they decided to make it look better by putting art on buildings. But, I think the people of Mali or the ancient Khemetians would have knocked him upside the head for making such a broad generalization.
So, because we are so destitute as a people globally and art springs out of our destitution, we naturally turn to art to fill a void. At this point, I think he is talking about himself, because that is his way of filling his voids. He does say that yes, he uses art to fill spaces in his life that are empty. I said to him that he is very lucky, because not alot of people turn to art for such therapy. Most of the time, it's a gang, or drugs or multiple sex partners.
Lastly, he said it doesn't cost anything to do art. I almost flip out about that one, cause yes, it does cost! But he says that it doesn't cost anything to began the process of making art. But isn't that what we usually call creativity? At what point does the intial creative process actually become art?
I am not sold on art coming only from poverty and destitution, if that wasn't obvious. But it does come from somewhere. I would like to think it comes from a need to birth something into existence. I don't have children, but I'm constanly producing something into this 3 dimensional world-a choreography, a costume, a new dance move, something, anything!
Where else would it come from?
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