Creative Community: gold mine (part 3 of 3)
In the last post, I said that artists are all hunting for something new and that the most profitable way for us to conduct the hunt is to engage in an open-minded dialog about creative possibility until one of us happens to think of something no one has done before. It’s a process that you can compare to mass prospecting for gold. By day, we each start poking around our own patch of the mountain, but that evening we retire to the frontier saloon and compare notes on what we tried and where we tried it.
Creative Community: Why create? (part 2 of 3)
Where do the great artists come from? In my previous post on this question, I ended by suggesting that participating in artistic communities generates a creative feedback through the circles of artists that creates a great one. I mentioned John Lennon and Picasso. In other words, I guess I am saying that great artists are, to some degree, a by-product of the creative environment. Look, I can’t prove this at all.
Creative Community: What have I accomplished? (part 1 of 3)
Are great artists born, made or something else? I haven’t read a lot of their biographies, but I have seen a lot of the big artist and writer movies. They always seem to be members of a creative circle. Those creative circles are undoubtedly part of other creative circles that link to other creative circles that radiate out from the nodes of greatness, evenutally, to every artist on Earth. Hopefully.
On merit: a clarion call for honest aesthetics
America’s Next Top Model contestant Bianca Golden this week discussed the ways in which losing the America’s Next Top Model contest might ultimately make her a better model. Better model, I thought, Isn’t 95% of your job just flaunting the gifts God gave you? What do you actually have to do? A lot of others reacted the same way to her quote, no doubt. We don’t think much of Beauty as a talent.
Radical Boy Manifesto: Art must go for the gut
The artist has one target: the gut. Art serves the good of humanity when it undermines the false dichotomy of reason or instinct. The question of following reason or instinct is moot. Reason fails. Instinct fails. Wisdom fails. The challenge of History is trusting to progress. The best way to demonstrate one’s faith in progress is by doing the work. Some people apply their energy toward defining progress. Some people apply their energy toward creating the tools of progress.
Radical Boy Manifesto: Instinct fails
We are our own worst enemies. Our instinct misguides us. It begins at a very young age. We believe, for example, as children, that we want everything that every other child has. We want all the food we can eat. We want to do everything there is to do. We want our parent’s total attention. This is what we believe. It is false. In fact, if our parents were to permit us to follow our instinct, we would turn into spoiled and (worse) misguided children with no capacity for discerning what we really need and want from our internal imperatives to grab everything shiny, tasty and sexy.
Right to protest — maybe we have it good here?
–Hey so, what’s with the mermaid? She’s not a mermaid. She’s a person dressed up as a mermaid. –Oh… Umm… OK… what’s with the person dressed up as a mermaid? She’s a wildlife protector. –Oh. Umm… So… what’s with the mermaid? It’s a little bit of theater to go with the protest. Never hurts. Let me explain. A little while back Hayden Panettiere did a protest with some of her surfer friends to prevent the needless annual slaughter of dolphins outside of Japan.
THE TEASER FREEZER: I must be missing something: Bush's people are on the right track?
- This is sort of surreal. I semi-agree with Bush and Co. So, right now, The Philadelphia Unemployment Project is trying to organize Countrywide Home Loan borrowers to demand loan modifications such that their introductory interest rate becomes a fixed-rate through the life of the loan. That it’s a modification as opposed to a refinance is important, because then the borrower doesn’t have to get a bunch of new fees loaded onto them.
Radical Boy Manifesto: Identity is Folly
The Artist looks inward as much as the artist looks outward. In fact, many of us explore the inner world much more than the outer world. The Artist must distinguish himself from those who do art. People who ‘do art’ do it for a hobby, for therapy, for interest. They don’t commit to it. It’s a part of their life. It is not their life. That’s okay, but committing to Art is not so much about whether or not the Artist views himself as a professional so much as it is about seeing Art as his vocation.
Radical Boy Manifesto: Wisdom has failed
People can grow no wiser. I’ve come to this conclusion. There’s no rational conclusion about life, living or the pursuit of anything that can’t be contradicted reasonably. Reason has limits. The heart of the problem with reason is this: it only works as far as its assumptions will carry it. You can’t begin with reason. You have to begin with some observation, the accuracy of which will always be suspect, and go from there.