Incubus, the only band for which I would voluntarily carry the offspring of all of its members, quoted in their most recent biography, Colin Wilson’s (The Occult) assertion that art "... rescues us from our self chosen triviality, to which we are so prone. It is like a deep organ note that makes my hair stir and a shiver run through me. I 'pull back' from life, like a camera taking a long shot with a wide angle lens. I quite simply become aware of more reality than before." … I know it’s a quote of a quote and that can get confusing but stay with me kids.
I don’t know what the dictionary definition of art currently is, but I thoroughly believe that that’s what it should be. Art is a tonic for the ennui and narcissism symptomatic of the combination of routine (e.g. the aforesaid tooth brushing and consumption of sugar fortified cereal) and cultural excess we bathe in everyday. We get so focused on getting to work early to stay at work late to earn money to pay for gasoline to fill the tank to get to work early, that we forget who we are and why we really respond to the beep-beep of our alarm clock every morning. Reflection is our way out of routine, and no process is more saturated with reflection than that of art.
I wake up at dawn one Friday to photograph the sky at sunrise when the air, still cool from the night before, smells like grass and slumber and sound of my thoughts through the stillness remind me why I’m alive. My room is filled with books and dusty magazines from years gone by and dog-eared notes graffitied with doodles in the margins and I’ve become a hoarder of all things random yet sentimental for potential collage. My life is richer for it because it reminds me that my life means more than the capacity to pay for petrol.
The moments spent with scissors, camera, pen and ink remind me of how existent reality is and was and will be. And the first post on this blog, the beginning of this communal art endeavour has taught me how genuine reality is and how exciting it can be to forget oneself and revel in the symbiosis that is art.
I’m thinking that today we all work on forgetting, even for a minute, what we do, and consider who we are and who we’re meant to be. Let us be artists.
If you don’t know who Incubus is… shame on you because they’re lovely.
Mail-me-E-mail-me-Blog-me back,
Peace and ummm something that rhymes with peace,
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