Never in a million years would I have thought I'd actually follow through on doing this: starting a blog, that is. My marketing agent (if you want to call him that - actually, my brother who emailed me a list of things I should do to promote my two books ([grunt] "Do this." Whatever...) suggested that I choose something to talk about regarding my poetry. And, really, there was just something about the idea of writing in a quasi-dynamic environment that mysteriously appealed to me.
Not that I don't like writing, because there's nothing further from the truth than that. I LOVE writing (I'm talking about creatively or at least substantively (journaling)). I do it nearly everyday.
But...I have always faced a dilemma when it came to promoting my own artwork. And my own business, for that matter...Which is probably what led to my ultimate decision to close it down late last July. But that's another story, for another time.
Today, I tell you why I started this blog. Yes, brace yourself! I will now reveal why I was compelled to take up doing a task that will probably consume the majority of my free time (maybe...) from now until, well, whenever I close this down. The answer is: I wanted to say something.
It's just that simple.
Originally, I contemplated loftier ideas on how to intellectualize what I do creatively, but I write poetry and some people don't get that. Some people, like a friend of mine said(and, yes, I still call her a "friend"), wouldn't be interested in what I had to offer. When I told her I was thinking about doing a blog on the role that literature played in reflecting our social consciousness, she resolutely gave me a firm head shake (to indicate her disapproval) -- by the way, did I tell you she is very resolute about convictions? Very flippantly, I informed her that this was why only cool people, like you, reader -- not her -- would be allowed to participate in my very important conversation on ideas, and ideals, and philosophy and art, and how it shapes and reflects our current society. It would be, I determined, a conversation held among the elitest of elite, the thinkers, the people who gathered at the coffee house and discussed politics, and business, and rational thinking, and yes, even romantic notions, like love, and poetry, and artistic tendencies. It did not bother me one bit that she wouldn't go to my blog, I assured her, because I "respected" her right to be a discriminating consumer with her time.
Okay, so, yeah, that sounded a little flippant, maybe a little egotistical, on my part, I suppose, but I viewed her comment as one similar to that of a person discussing why he or she would not purchase my knives (yes, I tried my hand at selling kitchen knives for a student internship in undergrad): they simply were not convinced that what I was offering was relevent to them. How selfish of her! How selfish of THEM! Surely they knew that I would never offer them anything that I, myself, would not want!
The reality, however, is that my friend's comment brought to light something that I, as an artist, struggle with daily. And I know that others have dealt with as well. It's an awkwardness, a "not-quite-fitting-in" that artists face and must overcome and settle within themselves that is at play here.
So the thought for today is this: Is art (the created), in its purest sense (as it is intended), for the consumer (the public), or for the artist (the creator)? Is "art" supposed to be cathartic for the artist, the one compelled to pen that play, or poem, or story, or produce that film -- even though it may not turn out to be a blockbuster at the movie theater? Or is it supposed to be seen by the whole world, in whatever sense the term "whole" applies? Was it created for the "whole" world, in the first place? Just thoughts...
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