ART

(a 3 – letter word)

The world’s a stage & every man a player – Bill Shakespyras. If actors are artists then we are all
artists. Some more so than others; & there are various kinds.

On the countless number of continuums that we could use metaphors to atalk about art like the one
where we spread artists along the line :
decorative ……………….challenging.
The decorator draws an intricate edging along the borders of a love letter bringing some extra beauty
into the world of the receiver. Another decorator hangs lovely rural scenes on the walls to make the
kitchen homely. An art collector puts an expensive wooden sculpture (Shona?) in the foyer of his
mansion & for good measure a granite form (Henry Moore?) in his garden under the florida palms
next to where the patio & entertainment area overlook the swimming pool.
If I had been an artist I would have wanted to be at the other end of the line. The one where you
challenge accepted & habitual ways of looking at the world. I would like to take people on a journey
through difficult terrain into unchartered waters. Great artists have done that. But they are very few.
How do they do it? That’s the problem.

An individual observes the world through the window of his identity consisting of many components all
joined together in a single whole as if they were pieces of coloured glass held together by lead
sealing. Some major components are religion, tribal affiliation, social status, sexual role, etc. etc. We
invest a lot of ourselves in building the structure and then maintaining its cohesion. Serious damage
to any one of the lattices can make the whole window fall to pieces. Rearranging the coloured shards
is almost impossible and done only at large cost. Once we’ve joined the pieces together it is tempting
to keep them firmly in place ever after; from inertia alone. For the more timid the slightest challenge to
its rigidity is taken as life threatening. The fundamentalist mind set is like that. Not the reaction to
Andre Serrano’s ‘sss-x-riced’. Or threaten the tribla identification of a people & they might ethnically
cleanse you.

So it would seem impossible to change how a person views the world. On this model at least. Yet
great artists do sometimes help us, perhaps. A bit of wicked humour, a bit of trickery, a bit of shock?

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It should be noted that though in western culture notions about GOD & ART share a parallel history
(prior to the post –modern era at least) they share other things too. Both are 3-letter words. Further,
as students of arcane coincidences and devotees of trivial pursuit will be aware, both are imperfect
reflections of the animal kingdom as GOD is an anagram of dog and ART is an anagram of rat.