Art! (Hungh! Ugh!) What is it good for?
Now, as you all may have noticed, I do consider myself to be a creative person; Whether it’s entertaining you guys with Elf Blood, trying to write longer form drama in the shape of graphic novels, or even just mucking around with a bass, I do enjoy just making stuff up. Primarily, the stuff I make up tends towards being a story of some kind or another, since a) I like stories and b) I find that, for me anyway, it’s the best way to explore ideas and concepts.
However, there are those who deride the creative types, those who do not deem them useful to society and would rather they go do something more useful. I’m sure we all know these types. People for whom anything that’s not a science or profession is immediately worthless. In my engineering dayjob, fortunately I don’t come across many of these types. After all, most people watch TV, or listen to the radio, ergo deriving pleasure from art. I have come across one or two of the worse examples, those who are ACTIVELY rude and go out of their way to make lives miserable for those in more creative jobs than theirs.
Now, this post isn’t so much about the rudeness: That’s just them being jerks. What I do wawnt to address, however, is the perception that art is worth less than, say, maths or physics or soup-making. Yes, art has no immediate use: In a post-apocalyptic wasteland you could not eat it, nor could you hunt with it or defend yourself with it. Even in these (more?) civilised times, one could argue that there is still no immediate use for art, even within the realm of marketing: One could convey the message simply by handing slips of paper with just the facts in plain text to people.
I think that last statement, facetious though my tone may be, sort of points towards WHY we have art. Life without art would be DULL. Without art, we would diminish our ability to fantasize and escape from the drudgery that, let’s face it, most of us slog through day after day. Without art, we would not feel vicarious feelings: Everything we felt would be happening to us at that moment in time, which is not novel and is in many cases outright dangerous (imagine the situation you would have to be in in order to feel the same terror you felt when you watched Alien). Without art, humanity would rapidly fall into a boring, dreary greyness, a muddy brown slosh of routine and repetition and conformity. We don’t have magic in the real world: Art is the closest thing we have to inject a little color and sparkle into reality.
Of course, one also runs into the problem of defining ‘art’. I personally think that art is everywhere, whether you see it or not: As long as it makes you feel something deeply, it could be considered art. The reflection of a sunset on water. The sound of the wind as it rushes through the towers of a city. The seemingly-simple elegance of a singularity, reaching profoundly to infinity. If you want, you can find something awesome in everything. And if you consider just the facts and figures, you’ll never see it. You would simply see glare as the light reflects, you would hear nothing but noise, you would find that zero that’s been buggering up the bottom line of your calculation. You need that little spark of artistic vision to recognise the beauty in life and draw it out.
M.
I believe there are only two types of people who dismiss art and artist this way. Those who are blinded by logic seeing no real use for art, even if it’s a part of their everyday life, and those who are jealous because they lack the skill to express themselves through art
I’ll add you a third type: people reacting to pretentiousness.
Okay, that sounds a bit caustic, but let me expand on that for a moment and I hope you’ll understand what I mean. I’ve been trying to learn to draw off and on since I was a kid, but the past 18 months or so I’ve been making a regular effort to get better at this “art” stuff, by which I mean better at putting down the things I want to put down that are in my head or in front of me. As part of this I’ve been going to life drawing classes.
One of these classes is run by an artist. They’re much better than me at putting stuff on paper and coming out with things that they’re happy with. I don’t think there are many, if any, people who would say that I’m even in the same league as them. They speak with passion about what they’re doing and you can see they really care, and that they mean what they’re saying.
However once or twice a session they normally manage to say something that I find utterly pretentious. I often feel that they’re being condescending and patronising. They talk about the “energy in the room” or liken what people are doing to artists and movements I’ve never heard of. Sometimes they talk about “the work”, as if to call it “a drawing” is to lessen what’s been done somehow.
Now, I’ve gotten to know this artist a bit over the last 18 months, and I know that they are completely not trying to be pretentious, condescending or patronising, so I bite my lip and try not to take the piss out of them. But it’s not just one person. There is a culture of this sort of behaviour. I don’t know if it’s instilled and reinforced by experiences of art college and living in the field, I don’t know if people are already wired to act in that sort of way and are drawn to an area where it’s normal, I’ve got no idea at all where it’s come from.
Wherever it comes from it is a massive turn off from art. It becomes something “too clever” for people, rather than being something to enjoy. You hear people walking around art galleries talking about how this “piece” (I’d call it a painting) should be appreciated because of its pivotal role in such-and-such a movement – that’s great if you’re studying the history and trends, but dammit I’m looking at it as a picture and I’m going “Meh”.
Whether it’s intentional or not (and I really believe it’s not) the implication of a lot of what’s said – mostly because of how it’s said – is that I’m stupid. That I’m under-educated. That I’m inferior. I believe I’m far from alone from being given that impression. And you know what word that impression is associated with? “Drawing”? No. “Painting”? No.
Art.
Shame – I was privileged to roleplay with a pod of engineers, and they were somewhat creative…
I’m going to use that collective noun at work, now. ‘Pod of Engineers’. Thank you for this gift 😛
Truth be told, engineering CAN be a creative profession. Admittedly, it’s not quite the same storytelling, but (and I’m sure Masati can attest to this as well) when designing new software solutions, a certain amount of lateral thinking is required. Ditto for engineering hardware, communications methodology etc. Like I said, though, you do get the odd one who is so wrapped up in the applied science of engineering that they find art nothing but a pointless waste of time.
As the engineering profession gets younger, however, I believe these attitudes will change. We had an interesting psychoanalytic course last week, where it transpired that most of the older engineers tended towards being forceful, non-nonsense attitudes while the younger engineers tended towards a softer approach to work and life.
Of course, that’s all generalisation. Engineers run the gamut as much as any other group of people. Hell, I’m pretty sure that I present about two or three personality types within that group on my own as it is!
Please don’t blame me if “pod of engineers” is well received by your work colleagues! ^_^
Sorry, I meant not well received…