Art, The Fight for Originality
It has come to my attention that people are complaining more than usual. What about you may ask? Why, art of course. Be it poetry, drawings or my nemesis writing. They say everything has been done, that nothing is original any more. I guess I can agree, however there is a way of looking at the glass half full. The problem is that there are so many of us that want to get our work out there, that want to make an impression on the world for whatever reason. I am not saying that any artist is miss-guided or conceded. We are just motivated to prove ourselves and our usefulness to the world (or maybe just to our parents). However this drive has come at a cost, we have become afraid. We are afraid of somebody steeling our work, of not getting the right message out, afraid of failing short. So what dastardly effect does this have? Seclusion. Let's face it the concept of the secluded artist is a bit of a cliche. But that doesn't make it any less true. We draw from ourselves and try to ignore outside stimulus. Though no matter how fresh and new a piece looks it can always be compared, sometimes rather closely, to a previous work. And this is were our problem lies. In perception. There used to be a time when artists fed-off each other. Were a story spawned a picture, a picture a song, a song a legend and a legend a story again. It's this cyclical pattern that we have been avoiding that may bring a rebirth to art as we know it. Who knows, this very comment may have been made a hundred times before and a hundred times again. However, it is necessary now, and probably will be again. I don't claim to be a wise man, just a man. Yet, if my experience has taught me anything it is that we need to band together. Art has become too commercialized, too over produced. Though the heart goes in, the soul is not there. I can only hope that we can move past this and back to the community of rejects that we started out as. Be bold, be daring, be yourself and look to other works for inspiration. If they find your work to be plagiarism rather than a honor than they do not understand what it is to be an artist. Life does not imitate art, art is begot from the muse which is the filter we see the light of life through. Only by agnoliging the muse and therefore the world and all of its stimuli can we have a true appreciation for our own art and works of others. So take in all the world has to offer and give back to the chorus that is the song of humanity.
