Art is fantastic and the fantastic is reality

Talk to me long enough, and you’ll find out I’m a shameless quirky weird geek. Perhaps my only saving grace (and one that gives me social skills beyond my odd little click of associates) is that I know this, and I mercilessly poke fun of myself whilst I do the same for the world around me.  I delight in the world’s seeming oddities, and spare nothing (not even my sense of dignity and pride) to bring out a laugh or spark some form of delight with others through writing, debate, voiceover or illustration.  Because I adore the strange and the odd, I can’t help but smile at an interesting animal,  imitate a strange voice or accent, or be inspired by a mountain vista or drink in the sound of ocean waves lapping on the shore.

Being a lover of all things fantastic, I like to say I dwell in other worlds whenever I can. And yet, that is a bit of a fallacy. When I say that it’s not really other worlds I live in. It’s more like that I delight in the idea of the heightened experiences that this world has brought me. When I create, I’m really taking from our world and combining it with other aspects of it I love.

In fact, reality is my muse. It’s the fertile ground that must be planted and nurtured to obtain ripe fantastical fruit. The roots themselves do not seem fantastic however. The roots of fantasy and creativity are actually sturdy, earthy, and rock solid things. Although some branches can grow amazingly fast. mostly they take slow years to grow and nurture.  Wait long enough though and they will grow true. And that truth will serve you well when you seek the bounty of your creative garden.

This aspect of creativity should never be ignored. If one shuts themselves in too long from the world outside, the roots of one’s creativity will rot as our ideas swim in an increasingly tainted dirty fishbowl of muddied lifeless creations. Creativity will become unmoored from that which makes it unique to the individual. The uniqueness is that person’s experience to the world’s environment and its living creatures.

Our experience as humans are what we as artists need to grow and flourish. As such, we need to be in some fashion a gregarious lot. We need to consistently commune with the world around us to replenish our creative reserves. This process can be with other artists, family or friends, or even animals, be the birds or wolves or the family pet.  

The environment itself can also communicate to those who listen. A forest can whisper dreams to the dreamless.  A mountain can provide majesty and awe to the most jaded spirit.  The oceans can whistle in wind and wave to the faint of heart. But not if we don’t take advantage of what the world has to offer!  If we don’t experience the world, we cannot share our experiences with others through our art in a meaningful way. At best we become rote, and our art descends to a listless craft of recycling our old thoughts and dreams. Dreams that no longer apply to us and become stale and lifeless.

Thus what we have seen and absorbed will make us better artists. Our experiences and observations cause us to feel, and when we feel, we emote and then broadcast these experiences through whatever the medium(s) of expression we use.
Indeed, I have found, simply by virtue of living as long as I have that I am a better actor then I was when I was younger, despite my lack of formal training in between. Why is this? Because I have lived longer and been through more. I have been young, in love, and now I am older and understand both sides of that coin. I have loved people deeply, and I have also felt burning hatred. I have felt profound rage at people and societies ills, but also had moments of kindness that have been visited upon me and I have been fortunate to give others. I have seen friends and uncles and my parents die suddenly and watched them fade into nothingness from terrible diseases of the body and mind. I have been jealous of the old when I was young and now envy the young now that i am older. I feel mortality creeping up upon me everyday.

I have been through hailstorms and tornadoes and seen rainbows in the moonlight. I have felt the mists of waterfalls, and felt the hot sun scorch my brow. I have had frostbite, my teeth broken, torn ligaments, lung damage from a flu.  I’ve cried for death and laughed until I cried. Even as I say this, it isn’t from pride or despair or pity. This is in many ways a standard story. It’s a human story, and in many ways, the story of life.  My story is your story.  It may be different in the details, but the narrative is much the same. This engenders a connection, a relationship that you and I can share and take joy and solace in.

Furthermore, as artists (who are some of the most supreme observers of the world and our inner selves),  how can we not be changed by these events that have traveled through our souls? How can we not reflect and take these small sagas and not share them with others in some form?

As creatives, this is what we are made for. We are made to share what we are and have seen with others, and in so doing we fervently hope that these other people see us as reflected in themselves.

True, we may ply our art it in different mediums. Through voice and song, through paint, pastel  and pencil, or dance and storied letters. Our genres may differ. One person may write of southern debutantes, another of detectives, another of wars, and still another of wizards and unicorns.
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And yet, it’s all in a way a disguise, a brilliant gauze to dazzle and obscure the fact that we’re all trying to convey through all of this a part of ourselves, our distilled experience through the filters of media and genre. At our most basic, we are looking for approval, and love in a sense. A place to belong and a place to share. A familial tribe of like souls to delight in, for the artistic children that reside in all of us.

So get our there, see the world, be part of it! And share it all with your fellow tribe of human beings.
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