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The Artist Is Not Afraid
I saw this post on being a good artist versus being a good human being by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brown_betty contrasted by liviapenn in the comments of an entry by Elizabeth Bear in which she explained what her job is and is not as an artist.
And it brought up, for me, some of the issues that I have not only with other people's philosophies of writing and social responsibility, but my own issues in that concern.
I think I tend to agree withbrown_betty that art is not so great a thing that it overrides one's responsibility to be a good human being. Art is, in and of itself, a luxury. Especially writing novels, which is my chosen art form.
If you're lucky enough to have the time and resources to write a novel (whether or not it ever sees other human eyes), you're benefitting from all the people who don't have those resources.
You can't forget from whence your art and your ability to do that art comes. You can't forget that we are not living in a meritocracy. I wish we were. I badly wish that it all came down to success being equal to talent and drive. It doesn't.
The good fail, the mediocre publish ad nauseum and take home wads of cash for it. That's the world. Even worse, the pampered get to go to school and learn to write (even better if they're taught that the world belongs to them and that they can do anything they want), and the not so pampered get to hope they don't starve today.
And that's why you can't set art so high on your list of priorities that you end up making things worse, especially when you're one of those people who demonstrably benefits from the unfairness of it all. I'm one of those people for certain.
Because people don't deserve to suffer for your art. People shouldn't have to pay up just so you can do whatever you want and call it art.
These things you have came out of someone else's skin. Remember that above all else. What you have was not free, whether or not you paid the tab.
I'm reminded of the controversy last year over Aliza Shvarts' project (an utter fake) in which she supposedly induced miscarriages to use in a piece of art and smeared the blood all over and video taped herself miscarrying.
And it occurs to me that whatever her art was meant to do, it didn't get to do. Yes, it sparked intense debate and challenged people to - but so does waterboarding, and that ain't art either. As a piece of art, regardless of what one thinks of it's merits or meaning, it failed utterly. It unraveled itself.
That's what happens when you try to make art so grandiose and infalliable a concept that you set aside even morality and respect and dignity and concerns for the sufferings of others. Art ceases to be art when it is not put in it's proper place. It unravels, it becomes weaponized.
You cannot worship art as some kind of god and believe that it is such a high calling that anything you do in it's name is excusable. Because it's not. In fact, saying that there is anything in this world that can justify every single situation seems rather wrong headed to me. Even God, a thing that I do personally believe in, does not seem sufficient to me to justify murder, rape, and genocide, but people have used it for that purpose.
And just as a god who commands its followers to savage their neighbors ceases to be a good god, so does art that harms others cease to be art.
I will confess that I'm frustrated with people who's moral compasses seem to have no true north, who say that everything is so complicated and shades-of-gray that you can make anything right, justify anything if you just call it "art" and say you have a duty.
I'll be the first to confess that, yes, there are some situations in life where there is no clear right and wrong and everything is blurred and confused and akin to a Gordian knot. I'll admit that there are shades of gray. But you only get shades of gray if, at some point, there's a black and a white.
There is good, there is evil. Sometimes, things really are simple. Needless complexity is just as wrong as oversimplification. Ask people in other fields (engineering, programming, etc) about that.
There was a quote from someone on my f-list (I can't remember specifically who, so please claim your quote!) that said that sometimes it was brave to take away the happy ending, but sometimes it was just as brave to allow one. And I thought this was the wisest statement about writing I'd ever heard. Damn, I wish I could remember who said that so I could quote it exactly.
Because that was an "ah ha!" for me.
Showing nothing but evil and darkness and sadness is just as silly as showing nothing but good and beauty and happiness. Yeah, the artist should keep their eyes open, but if you do that you really will see some beauty amongst the ugliness.
Tragedy is not always inherently better than comedy. Saying that the world is a bitch and then you die is just as useless a philosophy as saying everything is sunshine and roses. Pessimism and optimism are only as useful as the common sense and open eyes that accompany them.
Art is a good thing. Art benefits us as a species. Everything from the pictures on cave walls to symphonies to novels to clay pots - they all do us good in creating them and in experiencing them as an audience.
It allows us to lay hands on the things we might never touch (SF/F literature in particular lets us do this). Art lets us become a little bigger than ourselves. It allows connections to be made where they might never be otherwise. Art can make us brave, smart, strong, wise, loving, open, beautiful when we are none of those things.
Art can be such a force for good. Even something as simple as a beautiful mural on a wall in a neighborhood that was otherwise ugly can lift spirits, can help that neighborhood believe that recovery is possible, that beautiful things are possible. Sometimes art is the nail in the shoe of the horse in the army that wins the war. It is that small thing that snowballs into something better. Sometimes art can push just the right buttons in our souls.
Art is a worthwhile endeavor, but it cannot undo it's own good in its creation or it ceases to be art at all.
As an artist, if I were to define my job?
My job as an artist and a human being is, above all else, to do no harm - and to acknowledge harm where it has been done. My job is not to fail better, my job is to do better. Because failing better? Well, that's like being a murderer who goes in front of a parole board and says, "I'm so very sorry for being in prison. Next time, I will do my best not to get caught." Failing better misses the point. Your failure costs someone else dearly. Saying you'll fail better is like saying you'll slap them a little less next time. You're still slapping them. Failure is only possible when success is possible - which makes the "fail better" philosophy seem a little backwards to my mind.
My job as an artist is to know the difference between being bold and being reckless. My job is to make my art worth it. My job is to make sure that if it's coming out of somebody's skin, the skin is mine.
My job is to keep my eyes open, and to make sure that when there are problems, that I make sure I check myself first. My job is to show truth where I can, and to make sure that I can actually see that truth rather than guessing at it.
My job is to be that little kid that takes every statement you make and asks "why?" until you run out of retorts.
My job is not to be neutral, but to be true. My job is not to subjugate the audience, myself, or anything else to mere philosophy. My job is to never be so afraid that I can't admit when I'm dead wrong. My job is to make sure I'm not getting in the way of my own art.
My job as an artist is not to hand out discomfort for discomfort's sake. Not to make the audience squirm merely because I can, or feel that a squirming audience is a better accomplishment than a smiling one. My job is to remember that discomfort seems a lot loftier of a goal when you're the one dealing it out. My job as an artist is not to be a sadist.
My job as an artist, in the end, is to do my little bit to make this world a little bit better, a little higher on the scale of gray shades, than I found it. Sometimes that requires beauty, sometimes truth, sometimes even comfort or a happy ending.
Sometimes you need sunshine, sometimes you need rain. Sometimes you need both at the same time. But saying that it's only real art when it's all gloom and doom and unhappy circumstances isn't all that more valid.
Like I said at the beginning, art is a luxury. It's an extra thing. You don't need it survive. It's not food, shelter, clothing, water, sleep. So if it's not doing people good, if it's not helping us - and by us, I mean the entire species - out, why have it at all?
brown_betty contrasted by liviapenn in the comments of an entry by Elizabeth Bear in which she explained what her job is and is not as an artist.And it brought up, for me, some of the issues that I have not only with other people's philosophies of writing and social responsibility, but my own issues in that concern.
I think I tend to agree with
brown_betty that art is not so great a thing that it overrides one's responsibility to be a good human being. Art is, in and of itself, a luxury. Especially writing novels, which is my chosen art form. If you're lucky enough to have the time and resources to write a novel (whether or not it ever sees other human eyes), you're benefitting from all the people who don't have those resources.
You can't forget from whence your art and your ability to do that art comes. You can't forget that we are not living in a meritocracy. I wish we were. I badly wish that it all came down to success being equal to talent and drive. It doesn't.
The good fail, the mediocre publish ad nauseum and take home wads of cash for it. That's the world. Even worse, the pampered get to go to school and learn to write (even better if they're taught that the world belongs to them and that they can do anything they want), and the not so pampered get to hope they don't starve today.
And that's why you can't set art so high on your list of priorities that you end up making things worse, especially when you're one of those people who demonstrably benefits from the unfairness of it all. I'm one of those people for certain.
Because people don't deserve to suffer for your art. People shouldn't have to pay up just so you can do whatever you want and call it art.
These things you have came out of someone else's skin. Remember that above all else. What you have was not free, whether or not you paid the tab.
I'm reminded of the controversy last year over Aliza Shvarts' project (an utter fake) in which she supposedly induced miscarriages to use in a piece of art and smeared the blood all over and video taped herself miscarrying.
And it occurs to me that whatever her art was meant to do, it didn't get to do. Yes, it sparked intense debate and challenged people to - but so does waterboarding, and that ain't art either. As a piece of art, regardless of what one thinks of it's merits or meaning, it failed utterly. It unraveled itself.
That's what happens when you try to make art so grandiose and infalliable a concept that you set aside even morality and respect and dignity and concerns for the sufferings of others. Art ceases to be art when it is not put in it's proper place. It unravels, it becomes weaponized.
You cannot worship art as some kind of god and believe that it is such a high calling that anything you do in it's name is excusable. Because it's not. In fact, saying that there is anything in this world that can justify every single situation seems rather wrong headed to me. Even God, a thing that I do personally believe in, does not seem sufficient to me to justify murder, rape, and genocide, but people have used it for that purpose.
And just as a god who commands its followers to savage their neighbors ceases to be a good god, so does art that harms others cease to be art.
I will confess that I'm frustrated with people who's moral compasses seem to have no true north, who say that everything is so complicated and shades-of-gray that you can make anything right, justify anything if you just call it "art" and say you have a duty.
I'll be the first to confess that, yes, there are some situations in life where there is no clear right and wrong and everything is blurred and confused and akin to a Gordian knot. I'll admit that there are shades of gray. But you only get shades of gray if, at some point, there's a black and a white.
There is good, there is evil. Sometimes, things really are simple. Needless complexity is just as wrong as oversimplification. Ask people in other fields (engineering, programming, etc) about that.
There was a quote from someone on my f-list (I can't remember specifically who, so please claim your quote!) that said that sometimes it was brave to take away the happy ending, but sometimes it was just as brave to allow one. And I thought this was the wisest statement about writing I'd ever heard. Damn, I wish I could remember who said that so I could quote it exactly.
Because that was an "ah ha!" for me.
Showing nothing but evil and darkness and sadness is just as silly as showing nothing but good and beauty and happiness. Yeah, the artist should keep their eyes open, but if you do that you really will see some beauty amongst the ugliness.
Tragedy is not always inherently better than comedy. Saying that the world is a bitch and then you die is just as useless a philosophy as saying everything is sunshine and roses. Pessimism and optimism are only as useful as the common sense and open eyes that accompany them.
Art is a good thing. Art benefits us as a species. Everything from the pictures on cave walls to symphonies to novels to clay pots - they all do us good in creating them and in experiencing them as an audience.
It allows us to lay hands on the things we might never touch (SF/F literature in particular lets us do this). Art lets us become a little bigger than ourselves. It allows connections to be made where they might never be otherwise. Art can make us brave, smart, strong, wise, loving, open, beautiful when we are none of those things.
Art can be such a force for good. Even something as simple as a beautiful mural on a wall in a neighborhood that was otherwise ugly can lift spirits, can help that neighborhood believe that recovery is possible, that beautiful things are possible. Sometimes art is the nail in the shoe of the horse in the army that wins the war. It is that small thing that snowballs into something better. Sometimes art can push just the right buttons in our souls.
Art is a worthwhile endeavor, but it cannot undo it's own good in its creation or it ceases to be art at all.
As an artist, if I were to define my job?
My job as an artist and a human being is, above all else, to do no harm - and to acknowledge harm where it has been done. My job is not to fail better, my job is to do better. Because failing better? Well, that's like being a murderer who goes in front of a parole board and says, "I'm so very sorry for being in prison. Next time, I will do my best not to get caught." Failing better misses the point. Your failure costs someone else dearly. Saying you'll fail better is like saying you'll slap them a little less next time. You're still slapping them. Failure is only possible when success is possible - which makes the "fail better" philosophy seem a little backwards to my mind.
My job as an artist is to know the difference between being bold and being reckless. My job is to make my art worth it. My job is to make sure that if it's coming out of somebody's skin, the skin is mine.
My job is to keep my eyes open, and to make sure that when there are problems, that I make sure I check myself first. My job is to show truth where I can, and to make sure that I can actually see that truth rather than guessing at it.
My job is to be that little kid that takes every statement you make and asks "why?" until you run out of retorts.
My job is not to be neutral, but to be true. My job is not to subjugate the audience, myself, or anything else to mere philosophy. My job is to never be so afraid that I can't admit when I'm dead wrong. My job is to make sure I'm not getting in the way of my own art.
My job as an artist is not to hand out discomfort for discomfort's sake. Not to make the audience squirm merely because I can, or feel that a squirming audience is a better accomplishment than a smiling one. My job is to remember that discomfort seems a lot loftier of a goal when you're the one dealing it out. My job as an artist is not to be a sadist.
My job as an artist, in the end, is to do my little bit to make this world a little bit better, a little higher on the scale of gray shades, than I found it. Sometimes that requires beauty, sometimes truth, sometimes even comfort or a happy ending.
Sometimes you need sunshine, sometimes you need rain. Sometimes you need both at the same time. But saying that it's only real art when it's all gloom and doom and unhappy circumstances isn't all that more valid.
Like I said at the beginning, art is a luxury. It's an extra thing. You don't need it survive. It's not food, shelter, clothing, water, sleep. So if it's not doing people good, if it's not helping us - and by us, I mean the entire species - out, why have it at all?
no subject
And yet, when I suggested that it's wrong for writers and artists to tell other writers and artists what they should and should not create, that they are placing too many external restrictions on the freedom of expression of others, I get blasted for that as well. Perhaps the criticisms of my concerns over these attempts at peer-pressure restrictions came from different corners of the artistic realm than the criticism over my calls for social responsibility, but taken together, the two incidents seem to betray an inconsistency of thought and attitude.
I truly believe one can reveal truths, even make readers or viewers squirm, without blatantly setting out to offend certain groups of readers or viewers. A true artist should be able to walk that line between somewhat disturbing and downright offensive. Anything over that line becomes cheap tricks, a mutated perversion of art relying on shock and disgust to get attention, rather than using true substance to make a point.
Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that artists should indeed have a moral compass, but in a free society, that moral compass should probably be internal rather than external. Unfortunately, you can't allow for broad creative freedoms without also allowing for the potential creation of offensive materials. And as has been pointed out to me more than once, more often than not, someone, somewhere will more than likely find something offensive about a work of art, whether it be visual or textual. As the old saying goes, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.
By the way, in my humble opinion, art doesn't always have to have a deeper message beyond what the art actually portrays. It can contain such messages, and often does, but art for art's sake is just as valid as art for some higher purpose. To say otherwise is to ignore a multitude of masterpieces by diverse artists that did not necessarily set out to radically changed the world, but simply set out to make the world a slightly better place to live in. Perhaps that does change the world, but by subtle means rather than in-your-face ones.
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I agree wholeheartedly that the compass should be internal rather than external. I also think that artists should always check their compasses against others', to see if maybe theirs needs tweaking. I think I've stretched the compass metaphor as far as I can. :)
It can contain such messages, and often does, but art for art's sake is just as valid as art for some higher purpose.
Yeah, but I'd argue that art for art's sake cannot, by my own definition, be harmful. Because if it starts doing harm, then it was never for art's sake. Shvarts' little stunt was not art, because it was not done for art's sake. It was done for politics, for attention, for celebrity, for ego. But none of that was done for the sake of art.
I'm not one who necessarily needs a higher message, either. Sometimes a pretty picture or a lovely song is enough in and of itself - but I do think it's necessary for an artist to always examine themselves to make sure that their idea of beauty isn't making them into ugly human beings.
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Oh, that's very nice.
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And I'm glad that you found my post worthy of being linked. :)
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