Art and Life

I am a creator. That is fundamental to who I am. I have been blocked to various degrees for a long time now. I have often thought that if I'm not writing, that if my art-of-choice isn't working, its because I'm not trying hard enough. Same thing with academia. It doesn't just work on its own, I have to make it work. I have to force it. Same thing with relationships. Same thing with pretty much everything else. And yet, according to one of my favorite artists, Charles Rennie Mackintosh:

"Art is the flower. Life is the green leaf."

Does a flower have to force itself to bloom, or does it bloom because it is in its nature to do so, because it is profoundly joyful to express one's own true nature?

But what if the plant is sick? What if it lacks water or nutrients, is infested with bacteria or aphids? I like this metaphor of the artist, that by taking care of one's own leaves, roots, branches, the blossom appears of its own volition. It becomes effortless. So then the question becomes, what does this plant need to grow?

Freedom.

Joy.

Love.

Laughter.

Surprises.

Adventure.

Nature.

God.

Family.

Music.

Warm bread.

Dancing.

Watching a lone hawk circle over a grassy marsh.

I think that academia may have a lot of blocked creatives in it. We want to make art, but because we are afraid (and granted, we have reason to be afraid, as we live in a culture that despises art, that chains and enslaves it to profit motives) we go where they talk about art, but do not make it. The hallowed halls. We get stuck within spitting distance of the thing we love. We learn to critique and study art, rather than make it. We become our own worst enemies. We enact the fate of artistic endeavors in late capitalism on a microcosmic and individualized scale. To tell our inner child to sit up straight, stop wasting time, get down to business. To repress, to systematize, to chain, to expose our own artistic selves to the glaring light of intellectual scrutiny. To study the shape of a flower long enough that we can make convincing replicas in silk or plastic or wax, since a real flower needs space, sunlight, soil, water, love, all things which are hard to cultivate, which take time and cannot be forced or rushed.

There is, however, a Source. And to know and draw on that Source is, I imagine, profoundly joyous. But the Source makes demands. It is terrifying. It is not safe. It thunders and lightnings and rains and snows. It wilts our plants or drowns them, but sometimes it gives them just what they need. Far better than silk flowers that never change, that cannot die because they have never lived.