Art, the Artist: It's not just for you, sorry!

I am making a series of comic strips for PBS to promote literacy, specifically in urban areas with great disparity. The coordinator offered to continue to pay me to make the comics even after my internship, if there is funding. I responded with an enthusiastic, "If there isn't any funding, I'll do it as a volunteer."

Truth is, at the end of the day, artists are not just thinkers, but activists. Try as one might, the artist is not the proverbial Athenian philosopher sitting on a rock for eternity. If your art is out there, you are making a difference.

Moreover, no matter how personal or self indulgent or even narcissistic you think your art is, the self centered nature of the piece is instantly evolved into "self AND community" or "self IN community" the moment you show it at a gallery, or get published and distributed, or perform, or even the second you post art onto your public art site. Because society is the muse of the artist, beauty is retroactive to pragmaticism. Parallax. Would Thomas Mann would eat me alive? I honestly don't think so.

So I started thinking about pragmaticism and the bureaucracy regarding creativity in society. It's at art schools, museums, even in the smallest galleries.

Specifically, regarding MY goals as an artist, socio-economic disparity can be assuaged by art and literature and literacy and creativity. No one, including bureaucrats, denies this. Then why is it creative charter schools that are closing the gaps in Hartford are being shut down? Why is there such a stir when Obama wants to pass anything involving art commission on a federal level? It's because we need more creatives going head first into the policy aspect of art in a functioning society. Artists need to work with the bureacrats to be heard. Notice I say "work with" and not "get passed"?

This is part of the reason I want to get into the bureaucracy of art and education. Making art for advocacy and activism is completely necessary because it promotes awareness. But I think we need more creatives in the law/policy aspect of things to mediate between bureaucrats and artists/activists. Someone who speaks both languages. I mean, imagine what this would do for anti-censorship in art? Imagine what this would do for creative programs in education administration? Imagine what this would do for commissions? And on a more individualistic level, imagine what knowledge in the administrative and political aspect of your cause would do for your art? Your pieces would be so much more meaningful. Afterall, Chaucer was a diplomat and John Butler Yeats was a lawyer.

And no time is better than NOW. A weak market calls for bold action. Calls for creativity.

Note that I am not saying that this is the responsibility of all artists. Everyone plays their part. Regardless of your part, keep in mind that beauty does not have to be destroyed by pragmaticism and pragmaticism does not have to be rendered useless with beauty. Instead let them exist side by side, as a paradox.

With that in mind, I have told some friends about some crazy new ways I may possibly want to take my career as an artist to the next level in the distant (distant, distant) future. Well, I don't think it's that crazy, but most of my friends seem to, which I think is a testament to how other people's crazy pales in comparison to mine.

For now, I am focusing on getting into grad school and these comic strips promoting literacy in urban areas. Because, remember, they DO make a difference

Hamptons and the coast

I really do prefer the East-coast coasts to the West-coast coasts. Perhaps it is because I grew up with Santa Monica Beach almost literally in my backyard and it is nothing new to me? Santa Monica Beach has the golden sands, palm trees, and the general bonhomie, but the Hamptons have the white sand, the greenery, and the assurance that the lifeguard was not hired because of how big her boobs are.




Everyone knows that I am a bonafide city boy. Yet, as I had recently told my friend Jenny, even I like to escape to the country for a little at a time in the summer. Emily Dickinson once wrote in a letter to I forget who, "how strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude" or something like that. I wonder why that is the case? Truth be told, I have been escaping to New York City almost every afternoon, even just to sit and study at a coffee shop, as of late. I do, however, like the New England foliage.