Category: Art

“Art is the highest expression of the human spirit” – Joyce Carol Oates

There are certain times when artistic expression is more important than we might otherwise think it is. We don’t pay much attention to what’s being produced, performed, or created when we go about our lives on the day-to-day. We work, watch television, read, go to bed.

However, now with so much time on our hands for many Americans, we get to really delve into the meaning behind where we get joy.

In 1970, Leonard Bernstein gave an address at the opening exercises of the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts: “…Dr. Norton said, ‘It is the artists of the world, the feelers and thinkers, who will ultimately save us, who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing, and shout the big dreams. Only the artists can turn the not-yet into reality.'”

“Philosophy of art, the study of the nature of art, including concepts such as interpretation, representation and expression, and form. It is closely related to aesthetics, the philosophical study of beauty and taste.”

Most of what we experience in the world is the after-effect of creation. It’s interpretation, it’s criticism, and it’s opinion. True creation is born of nothing but the imagination, and it fuels the next iteration of philosophical study.

Whether art can be defined as one thing or another is a question not agreed upon in philosophical studies. What we do know is that art has the ability to change lives, often for the better. It is thought-provoking and quite often innovative. 

The world is better for art, and art shines a light on the world that lets us see, even in the dark. 

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few months about what the arts world would look like following this pandemic. Art as business has become much more expansive, and inclusive, since the last time something of this scale occured.

During the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918, Broadway theaters remained open. This was during World War I, and the following year striking performers and stage hands would create the Actor’s Equity Union.

Dance, theatre, and performing arts, as well as cinemas, are currently suffering. Each business is trying to adapt.

Museums generally fair better as they are brick and mortar, physical objects. But funding is, and can always be, a challenge.

So there are online performances, virtual walkthroughs, Zoom talkbacks and Q&As, as well as virtual and remote options for engagement, even as the American arts industry stands to lose nearly $7 billion as a result of the coronavirus.

Now, I’m not an early adopter for tech by any stretch of the imagination. I’m still rocking my iPhone 7, have my 25″ Samsung TV I purchased (used) in 2007 at Best Buy (which is now used more as a computer monitor, but still), and was actually gifted both video game consoles I play in the past two Christmases.

But, I believe there’s an opportunity for changing the way we think about the virtual space. It’s happening already. This shutdown has forced us into considering new habits.

But simply putting it online or broadcasting a performance isn’t enough. In that space you’re still competing for viewership, only now you have the whole of the internet to compete with, rather than other local arts groups.

“What a bad idea…”

“Good idea, bad idea: Good idea – playing cops and robbers in the park. Bad idea – playing cops and robbers in the bank.”

“Sometimes even hearing a bad idea is a great way to get a good idea.”

There is a lot of stigma surrounding the bad idea. However, my contention is that there is no such thing. An idea can neither be good or bad because it is simply a thought. It is our own self-revisionist qualities that prevent us from accepting ideas as merely ideas.

Yes, some ideas are marketable, while others are not. Some can be brought into reality, and others, for better or worse, can not. Some are executed extremely well, while others – many others – are simply not.

But the idea remains an idea. It’s a neutral thing. It’s what we – the creators – do with them that matters.