if art really matters

I love these questions and this discussion. I am by no means a well educated person. Most everything I know I have learned by self-led learning- that is, I followed my own interests, I went to the library a lot. I asked people who knew more than I a great many questions growing up.I was a real pain in the butt, I'm sure. But if it hadn't been for art- for music, singing, drawing, poetry- all the things I spontaneously pursued with passion-and occassionally had a teacher's encouragement prompting me to continue, I don't believe I would have made it to now with as much positive "self". I won't go into the details but the pure act of creating something, is in opposition to destroying something, obvious, I know. But rather than being destroyed by my environment, or as more commonly happens, internalising and then destroying myself, I became a creator. The secret beauty in being a creator is that you must be in nurturing relationship to that thing you are creating. The big word there is relationship. Being an artist is a delicate and brutal experience of push pulling, of being coldly objective and intensely intimate- it demands you experience, if you show up and participate, every element of relating to another living thing that exists. So, art not only gave me an outlet for survival, it taught me how to be with myself and others. This might seem like total bullshit to somebody but it is my genuine experience. Art matters to me. I write AS IF what I write will matter to someone. If it never does, that's okay. But I'm going to aim high. What the hell. I don't know any better.


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