Art Feeds The Hungry

If we look at the way that art is generally perceived in our culture we see that it is the first discipline whose funding is cut in schools, it is relegated to museums into which the great majority of people never enter, and that the word “artist” is never far from the word “struggling”. However, if we begin with the fact that there is a very great need for beauty in the world, we come to much different conclusions about the place art and artists occupy in society.

There is a lie that says that whatever opportunities exist for artists are sought after by thousands begging and pleading, trying to get recognition. It is based on the empty supposition that society is doing the artist a favor by appreciating his or her work. It pits artists against one another, teaching them to see art as competition.

Artists should think of themselves as allies. There is such a ravenous, begging, pleading want of beauty in this world that all artists are all needed desperately. We are needed like doctors, teachers, and parents. We are the ones who can supply the world’s want of beauty. And this want is not fleeting – it is an eternal desire. Throughout history there have been artists who have succeeded in providing a voice for the deepest, rarely-articulated longings of the soul. When that desire is touched upon, when it is fulfilled even a little bit, people are grateful in ways that guide whole lives. Their inner notions are reflected by the world they live in. Seeing their deep feelings expressed, they are no longer alone. They are reminded of the deep and compelling things of life. The power to touch hearts is a great power.

It is important that we reverse the hideous and ridiculous lies that so cruelly surround the arts. There are several. One says that art is connected only tenuously to everyday life. It is “extra.” It is “enrichment.” Is it enrichment share ideas about the meaning of life? Another lie says that artists are doomed to lives of struggle and worthlessness because art is not actually “useful”. Art revolutionizes the definition of usefulness by working for the spirit – not the belly. Art proves its usefulness not at the bank, but in the heart and mind. A third lie says that art is incomprehensible to the layperson and therefore she or he is not interested in it. Art is the language of the heart! It gives voice to the one thing we all share!

These lies are not only cruel to artists. They are cruel to everyone who believes them because they would mask the robust and life-giving nature of creativity and imagination. Weep for the ones who have been tricked into thinking they have no need for the poetry of life. If they think that they must have never felt it. This deceit is cruel to all of us because it has created a rift between “everyday life” and our imaginations. All the while what we need most is a life deeply infused with imagination and creativity. We need to see that those things are real.

The sad fact is that we feel largely ok without them because we don’t know they are missing. Underneath the blasé veneer of ok’ness the people of the world are weeping, starving, shaking with pain for lack of what? Not lack of money - not lack of food – but lack of tenderness, strength, courage, forgiveness, imagination. As artists we need to recognize just how deeply we are needed. We have the power to heal.

The world does not need cold, intellectual art. The world needs warm art of all kinds. Expressions of all the good qualities. Artists, as scouts on the frontier of the soul, need to then explain their findings, soft-heartedly, generously giving their gifts to the world. In this way artists can see their powerful place. It is time for us to be humble. The need is so great that without humility we can’t perceive it. Our power to touch and uplift comes from our ability to share the beauty that we know. If I am the most inspired artist in the world, but can’t, for the life of me, find the patience to explain it to others, my genius is wasted. It falls to the ground, left to be discovered by a few who may understand it. This is the mindset that perpetuates the fallacy that art is incomprehensible to the common man.

There will always be the expansion of new ideas. And as the new languages of artists arrive through the imagination they will be linked to the world only by the imagination. They may be difficult and challenging to understand. But to leave it there is the breakdown of communication. If new ideas are good enough to be worth pursuing then they must be attractive to others. This is the point we must demonstrate. Inasmuch as the we, the artists demonstrate the fact that the arts are humankind’s way of communicating its deep self, people should be waiting impatiently for the new painting to be shown, the new poem to be read. We must demonstrate the utility of the arts. And we must be damn good at what we do! We must give all to communicate the depth and breadth of what we are. What more inspiring and honorable course than to take up the job of demonstrating the creative, productive, and uplifting powers of our great imagination?

Powerful communication of things for which there is no language – this is the task set before an artist. The work is immense. And the work only becomes possible when artists perceive the world’s need of them. Artists need to be heroes. They need to sit deeply with whatever inspiration visits them – whatever expansive world of ideas is theirs – and realize that this spiritual, mental food is needed on the dinner plates of mankind. There must be a revolution of communication. We must learn to treasure our ideas. Our heart’s convictions, our best expressions of justice, hope, compassion, and all the virtues, are the food for which the world waits in hunger.