starving outlets -- in through the backdoor

I’ve been writing out of my own experience but not directly about myself. I imagine a constituency of like-minded folks who have realized how arbitrary reality can really be, and it’s been leading more than a few to an interest in art. For example, everyday people can be curious about ‘starving artists outlets’ -- “is it actually art just because it’s done by hand,” and “do the artists actually starve,” interesting questions really, typical of first glimmerings. The answers are, no, it isn’t art because its sole purpose is to acquire some of your money, and, yes, because they pay very low wages in Mexico where much of it is made, the ‘artists’ do not live well. 

By and large not considered great art, stop by ‘starving artists’ sometime and look anyway. All ten versions of the flowers in a blue vase are slightly different. The salesman will, in fact, put two of the same painting up next to itself so the client can decide which, right or left, they want to take home. This is because some of the minimal wage workers actually have talent and their flowers are a bit more convincing, their colors less muddy, and occasionally they may even insert a little joke that neither their supervisor, nor the salesman, nor the customer will ever see. Once saw a lit cigarette left on the edge of a sideboard supporting a generic bowl of fruit that only the artist and I even knew was there -- in that moment, we smiled at each other. Hola, a fellow painter.

Actually there is a path from that kind of art to the real thing, and if you can identify the differences among ten versions of the same painting you’ve stepped out on it. It has to do with looking and seeing, simple as that. Better art has more to say and it’s up to you, the viewer, to see it. Education, it turns out, may not be your friend in this regard. If you were taught, and accepted, that Jackson Pollock was a revolutionary genius who with a slinging and a spattering made all painting since the renaissance obsolete, you might have a problem with the simply looking and seeing part. Admiring a Pollock painting takes a bit of faith that the average person may not give up that easily, a rarified taste reserved for those who see the world through thick lenses of literary rationales and justifications. Modern art has been built on those.

Seeing what’s actually there, in a painting, in the newspaper, happening in real time, is a challenge we all face each time we open our eyes. Learning to see just what each artist has accomplished can be extremely liberating, and can generalize across the board, to politics, to advertising, even to seeing the sunset, smelling a rose, and noticing the world around you.