futile ventures -- optimal results

Alchemy as a physical practice is questionable from a couple of perspectives, both practical and motivational. While modern science shows elements can transmute, this usually involves the release of huge amounts of energy. Our sun is transmuting at this moment, but this isn’t a business for the medieval backroom laboratory, and the part about becoming ultra rich is a fantasy for the extremely poor in any society, but to sacrifice participation in the world just to one day be able to buy your way out of it sounds like a great waste of effort.

Alchemy as a metaphor, on the other hand, can be quite useful, especially in these times when so much of our world needs transmuting, the search for some process that converts dark political undercurrent into cooperative enlightenment and individual autonomy, for instance. Modern media may not hold the answer, and actually tends to add to the problem. Something happened to change the culture post world war, mid-century last, and it spirals down to now. The advent of television enabled mass manipulation by commercial interests in everybody’s living room, and the lowest common denominator began to dictate how we saw ourselves. About the same time the extremely wealthy began to treat art as a plaything, a trophy of wealth itself, just a pampered and predictable house pet on a leash. The sitcoms were stocked with demeaning stereotypes, and art got stupid too.

Now I’m not saying a monochromatic panel by Ellsworth Kelly isn’t the pinnacle of a particular moment in the cascading evolution of contemporary sensibilities, but pretending this square of fabric is worth millions of dollars is just a way to steal art from the public, and to distort the notion of art, itself, substituting instead a zombie horde of replicating smears and splotches. These 'emblems of arrival' can easily be sold to the upward aspirations of new money crashing in from all corners, sucking the planet dry. That’s some pretty base bullshit. Converting the sneering disdain of the ultra elites into any value still held by the part of humanity that produces more than they consume, day by day, is beyond our biggest atom smasher, and way too large a task for art’s credentialed gurus -- best start over.

Just this weekend, rain or shine, area artists paint outdoors in this town, a few hours to depict just what they see, and, oddly enough, just what the person looking over their shoulder sees too. They’ll have a party that evening to compare what each artist has captured to what regular citizens have seen before and gotten used to, take for granted. For many, it’s an eye-opening experience, ready for the sun to come up on the same streets, but noticing more than the day before. Quaint it may seems to the super rich and their retinues, invested in the myth of runway art, each season some brilliant yet derivative hot new thing -- tiresome, sure it is, but what they think doesn’t count, not anymore, not when compared with the experience of actual art in a hometown, opening clogged perceptual pathways and broadcasting its friendly affirmation all year round. If art could do something like this for an individual, for a community, the abstract notion of alchemy might not sound so impossible.

anonymous art -- other side of the tracks

Kentucky has always had cultural aspirations. I myself grew up in Florence, an upstart bedroom community with no city center, just housing tracts invading corn fields, and only recently I was having lunch in an open-air cafe in Paris, under cover on the platform of a refurbished train depot next to the tracks. It was raining just slightly, so pleasant, and along came a train. Two diesel engines were laboring, it turned out to be a very long train. I’m never disappointed to be stopped at a railroad crossing so long as I’m near the front, because trains are festooned with graffiti that sears my eyeballs at about forty-five mph whizzing by. Individual designs are almost always typographical, and I can sometimes see letters, but I’ve never been able to make out a single word, it’s not important.

The skill level can be uneven but most are ingenious, each in a unique cohesive style that locks every part into a tight zany cartouche, maybe three or four a car -- they don’t paint over. Mostly it’s about the color. Colors from spray cans slingshot against each other, odd compliments and metallics pop, with flourishes so visually intelligent you’d like to meet the artist and pay homage, maybe share a smoke. Who does this art, and why? Sometimes mind-blowing, please stop the train, this person applied some thought, probably worked it out beforehand, and it must have taken a couple of hours to put it up, all the while sneaking past train yard security. Do they stand back to admire it before never seeing it again, watching it roll away across the country -- my tag, my slice of genius, my anonymous declaration of existence? I’m pretty sure they don’t get paid, and fairly certain they are subject to arrest. It’s a pure, exciting form of art.

At the other end of the universe, a so-called graffiti artist has claimed the title of most expensivist recently alive artist, an insolent ignoramus with a spray can in a hip pocket always ready to commit vandalism on other people’s property, Jean-Michel Basquait. Something wrong here. I’m sure the radically wealthy, residing far above ground in major urban centers, must know more about art than folks around here, down at ground level. Even so, I’ll suggest that if Jean-Michel Basquait’s paintings were done the size of notebook paper, the resident psychologist would be consulted, and they’d have concern. In any case, I wouldn’t want to see his stuff on a boxcar, and most certainly not in the house, although I’m sure it’s fine for the ultra-wealthy, a fitting reward. Personally, I've lost what art means, to them, and I’m starting not to care. You can sit with a coffee and watch the art roll by, in Paris. 

cars and art -- punctuating mechanical evolution

In esquire magazine, back in1965, Tom Wolfe called the automobile, particularly the customized and personalized west coast version, america’s only true art form. The qualities he documented weren’t about safety, or comfort, or drivability. Back then there were four domestic car companies, each producing several makes, and they all put out new models every year -- it was glorious. About august of each year they’d start dropping hints about major style changes coming up for the new year, exotic paint jobs, fins and chrome, but underneath it was the same old bedsprings on wheels they’d been making since before the war. The windows rattled after a year, the seats came apart in two, and the steering column would crush your chest in a head-on, but those weren’t concerns at the time. Safety and efficiency didn’t stand much chance against young women in bikinis posing next to rocket cars, headlights galore and horsepower.

Influence from the outside finally changed things. The Japanese, along with others, brought a new set of values, efficiency, economy, dependability, all such as that. After about a decade people began to see the difference, and now all cars drive better and last longer. Average folks aren’t stupid after all, but in a crowd can be manipulated, forced to choose among limited options, and finally diminished in spirit and even physically maimed for the benefit of the few. Turns out those same few also pick the art. Right out in public they juggle millions, swapping sanctified ‘signature’ art back and forth. It’s a form so pointless and devoid of meaning that the bottom ninety five percent don’t see anything there at all, and let them get away with it, evading legitimate taxes and acting like they’re smart. Still, can’t fault fellow americans. All the abstract art up in motel lobbies and corporate board rooms seems to lend a kind of legitimacy, but as art it’s mute, has nothing to say, and after a while no one expects more.

All this begins to change when people become aware of other options. One day an organization forms to paint murals in the town, and local art begins to be recognized in businesses, in restaurants and such. Before long someone organizes a public painting event or a studio tour, and the community responds. When people begin to realize there’s more to individual identity and self expression than driving a snazzy car or drinking a certain brand of beer, visual art becomes the preferred way to make the house speak for its owner, mood and attitude, a silent reminder of who you are when friends drop by -- and even when home alone.

Eventually the detroit aesthetic favoring all that extra iron, the byzantine grillwork and the star trek inspired dash, just went away. The major domestic auto makers changed their business model, and began providing a more worthy value to their customers. Similarly, once a common citizen sees enough original art to awaken their own dormant ability to find and recognize meaning and substance, some of the miasma of our long commercial stupor lightens and big soup cans can be seen by light of day. Opening that door, finding solace and commonality in works of art, grants the individual a new arena for self-discovery and expression, of self-regard and autonomy. Paintings from the neighborhood, and perhaps a little beyond, are literally worth more than all the ultra expensive stuff on the news and featured in national magazines, and won’t cost near as much. Times are changing, and finding a sense of self in our current cultural free-for-all, and nailing it down with a few pieces of art, is becoming a more common strategy. This isn’t science fiction anymore.

collecting vs owning -- consciousness tech

What’s real? That’s something we really don’t know because all we have are our perceptions, and they’re pretty malleable, easily altered by preconceptions and individual prejudices. Not only that, memory turns out to be selective and morphs with time, and in this soup of sensation we call daily life mostly we’d just like a little agreement from others around, some verification of what we see. All we want is some truth, a version we at least recognize, and it isn’t always easy.

Comprehension of the world is some function of past experience, a compilation and sorting out, but basically limited by everything we’ve seen and felt so far. The senses are fresh and wide open when we arrive, but it’s all input with no way to discern even where we are. We cry a lot. Slowly, by putting stuff in our mouth, bumping our toes and being scratched by grandpa’s beard, we begin to make sense of the mess. Human history is quick to point out there are more than a few ways to do this, and we’re likely to begin with the template available at the time from our clan, tribe, or nationality. Did spectral demons from another dimension preside from the top of pyramids during blood ceremonies in mexico before the conquest? Did Jesus demand that heretics be burned at the stake, can humans shape-change into different animals, do ancestors influence our lives -- some have thought so and that’s the world they saw, and the world they lived in.

It’s a pretty mechanical business. We’re hard wired to run almost any software available, and accept any reality we’re given. There are few ports for individual entry, and not many opportunities to alter or rewrite, so we wind up prisoners of our own histories, limited to only see and comprehend what we’ve seen before. Where are the levers found, who has keys to the control room -- there’s got to be some way out of here. A word of caution: if you desire to broaden your perceptual net and add depth and texture to your daily reality, don’t go scrolling on the internet. It won’t be helpful, since to a large extent it's a large part of the problem.

Consider art instead, a solid-state psychic generator for your wall. Art is a hand-hold on a slippery cliff-face, a paddle for our drifting canoe, the practical device that little by little cleanses the eyes and renews the ability to process the wealth of visual information, and the range of possibilities, that continually comes our way. On the first level, the artist’s optimum effort for the week it took to make it represents a unique and singular gesture in our tech-driven, drive-thru culture. Over time, the work of art becomes the only enduring presence as everything else, clothes, furniture, and cars, morph and change. Beyond that, if the artist requires you to supply what’s been left unsaid, each time it’s seen your attention will be triggered, becoming more alert and receptive, and eventually you’ll find yourself noticing more generally, the color of the evening sky, the fountain in the park.

If this sounds farfetched, don’t take my word, just follow my suggestion. Spend an afternoon with some original landscape paintings by committed artists, bound to be available locally, and then take a drive in the country. Luckily for the device dependent media-savvy urbanite, the effect will be even more pronounced. The detail and texture of visual experience will be substantially enhanced, almost startling, as when crimped antennae begin to unfold. What’s real will always be open to question, but art in the house helps us see and process more of what shows.

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Your aunt’s old silver tomato slice server has a collector value, I saw the estimate on TV. Anything, it seems, can have a collector value so long as the supply is limited, and its scarcity has been certified. Nothing wrong with collecting, but valuing art by how much someone else might be willing to pay for it can yield pretty ugly. A serious person instead buys the art their older selves would like to own, and spends pro-rated for all those years.