Look at this or it’s meaningless
Why do artists need to have their work seen? Why, if the divine act of creation is really their sole intention, do they need to have their art on the cover of some magazine? Who needs to read some tired book some random guy wrote, or look at some weird painting that doesn’t even look that much like anything anyway? If it were not for the artists will, no one asks for that story, that image, that song, and everyone would just go about their lives as happy as ever. But no, a bunch of people with cool wire rimmed glasses and hemp cardigans just want to, need to, with every fiber of their beings, get their art, get themselves seen. And everyone else has to go around for the rest of the day thinking about some ugly paint on a canvas somewhere that is supposed to make them sad about some town in Spain.
God, I swear, sometimes I just hate the fact that I know hot cross buns, and that you do too.
Hot cross buns, Hot cross buns, one-a-penny, two-a-penny-
And now I am singing it and typing it out and now you’re singing it in your head and the gift just keeps on giving- and the truth is that I don’t think I’ve ever even had a hot cross bun.
I don’t think it is as simple as fame. I think that there are a lot of people who only want to make “art” to get famous, but no one wants to see the art of someone who just wants to be a famous artist. No one is that good at faking anything for that long. So, that kind of person just ends up getting into “the industry” whatever that means, and they can talk about all the famous people they know, and they feel like that's close enough and they’ll wear leather shoes all the time.
What I am talking about is real art. The kind of stuff that really says something about something. The sort of stuff that will make you cry without having to be so obvious about it. It's the type of thing that you remember. not like how you’d remember a joke or dog's name, but like how you remember the smell of going back to school by the flagpole in 1st grade or that one dream you had that you always think of when someone brings up remembering dreams. It’s the sort of stuff that is just part of you from that point on. That really means something, you know?
That stuff is made by people who, really care, who have no choice but to make it. Those people, the real artists are out there right now, making something, not because they want to be famous, or be some big artist, or have fancy shoes, they are making it but because they have something to say.
Most of the time I don’t think they could explain what that even is. Not really.
Because some things can’t be expressed with words, no matter how hard you might try, some concepts can’t be said without something a little inexplicable. And maybe that is what art is.
Art is trying to say something that you don’t quite know yet, a thing you can only feel. Maybe you can’t find the right words, maybe they don’t exist.
Real art comes from a desperation not to be seen, but to be understood. Art comes from the aching desire for others to hear what you have to say, to feel what you feel, to almost know what you almost know, to be what you are, if only for a moment.
That’s why art has to be seen, because on its own, some paint on a wall, or videos in some order mean nothing. It doesn’t really become art until someone is looking.
