ART IS THE THING THAT ARTISTS DO
– WHEN IS IT MEANINGFUL?

“Whenever you are creating beauty around you,
you are restoring your own soul”
– Alice Walker

Art is what we call…the thing an artist does. It is not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the … eye of the beholder. It is in the soul of the artist. –unknown author

Ever since I set foot in art school and ever so often thereafter, I was criticized for making “pretty” art. I seriously attempted to please my lecturers with deep and dark outpourings which never seemed to satisfy any of them. Problem is, I will be the very last optimist standing. I do believe that my work sometimes has a specific spiritual quality in spite of the feel-good aspect thereof. Fortunately, I have been around long enough not to worry about it anymore. I simply enjoy art.

Probably my favourite book ever, is “The Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert. (She is also the author of “Eat, Pray, Love”.) She really inspires me and she writes, as if specifically for me:  “I want to make something perfectly clear here: I do not deny the reality of suffering – not yours, not mine, not humanity’s in general. It is simply that I refuse to fetishize it. I certainly refuse to deliberately seek out suffering in the name of artistic authenticity. As Wendell Berry warned, ‘ to attribute to the Muse a special fondness for pain is to come too close to desiring and cultivating pain’ “.

In the chapter with the wonderful title “Stubborn Gladness” she says: “All I can tell you for certain is that my entire life has been shaped by an early decision to reject the cult of artistic martyrdom, and instead to place my trust in the crazy notion that my work loves me as much as I love it – that it wants to play with me as much as I want to play with it – and that this source of love and play is boundless.”

All of the above said, I do not deny the value of art as a vehicle for change. As far back as pre-revolution France some of the greatest social wrongs have been brought to the attention of thinking people as a result of art. There is no denying of the role of art in the awareness of people during the time of Apartheid.

Don’t let anyone ever convince you that what you are doing, is not “meaningful” art. What makes art meaningful? The satisfaction derived from it. Whether you choose to change the world or teach ladies to do little water colours around your kitchen table, and it makes your heart sing, then, of course it is meaningful. I have been accused of “Kitchen Art” – I have, for very many years, taught art to adult ladies as well as the occasional gentleman – if then not in my kitchen, surely a few metres away around my dining room table. Some of them became highly accomplished artists. (I am not too shabby as a teacher!) Others acquired enough skill to do very pleasant little works which adorns their houses as well as that of their friends, and they produce beautiful birthday cards. This is, by now stretch of the imagination, meaningless. To the contrary: it is a beautiful hobby which can be enjoyed into old age. It beats, every time, sitting around doing nothing and complaining.

Thanks to sites like KRAFT EMPORIUM, there is also a market for handmade birthday cards and the like.

And even if you, like Vincent van Gogh, never sell anything ever, see what Babette has to say:

“So you will be poor now all your life, Babette?”
“Poor?” said Babette. She smiled as if to herself.
“No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, is never poor. We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing.”
– BABETTE’S FEAST – Isak Dinesen

I rest my case. Anybody who has ever created something with their hands, backed by their minds, will know about the deep satisfaction that comes from that. It does not matter whether you paint, sculpt, write poetry or stories, throw a pot, make a beautiful garden, present a well cooked meal set on a pretty table, bottle jam or pickles or chutney, bake a cake…. The list goes on and on. Have you ever painted a wall in your house or your front door, stood back and with the greatest satisfaction, said to yourself: now that is a job bloody well done! Come on, share your front door ideas with me on KRAFT EMPORIUM – my front door is in great need of a fresh coat of paint. I am contemplating bottle green and ox blood red with golden designs on them, but one of you may have a better idea! Or make a rag dol or bottle some jam, label it beautifully and sell it on KRAFT EMPORIUM. No artist with self respect should ever buy a label or a birthday or Christmas card, or ANY card!

In these very troubled times, I know that for me and my artist friends, and I am convinced many other people, art making is the saving grace. It is the means to keep my sanity and keep my head and my hands occupied in a meaningful way. Some of my artistic efforts will never be viewed by anyone – in fact, some were torn to pieces right after completion, or before! Wonderful stuff also emerged: I did some abstract work that can be described in no other terms than “happy accidents”. But how very happy are they! I also selected old photographs of trips and did a journal of a road trip. It was all so very satisfying and kept my mind occupied, away from the terrors of this pandemic that we are living in. The quote above my desk in my studio got new meaning:

“Painting is not an aesthetic operation: it is a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange, hostile world and us, a way of seizing the power by giving form to our terrors as well as our desires.”  -Pablo Picasso

Happy Accident:  An A1 size abstract that could not stand on its own and therefore became a pen drawing on a coloured background.