Art is a Language

There is a small change in the angle of the light and that smell which is so difficult to characterize. The temperature pitched briefly before the ice storm this weekend, and though the temperature has done that dozens of times over the course of the last two months, this time it was different. The air felt less oppressive somehow and even the later cold was moist and not quite as biting as it had been. The white-gray of the clouds deepened to a dark gray-blue and the pastel tones of winter suddenly dropped out of the sky. I’d think I was crazy for noticing, but the geese agree with me—most of them have taken wing to head back toward Canadian homes and you can see water at the local hot springs again.   

The first breaths of spring are a welcome sensation at the end of a northern winter, but while it normally makes me ecstatic, this year it feels like small comfort. I have surgery in a few days and this annoys me greatly because it means I will have to pause learning how to mix the particular colors of the spring-dawn sky to recover from it. I spent yesterday looking at professional watercolors online because I am already at the point where the quality of my materials is limiting what I can and can’t do. On some level, I know I should wait to make any such purchase until after I find out how much this surgery (and the accompanying follow-up procedure) is going to cost. I mentioned my shopping late last night while talking to my father and brother, expecting the usually lecture about being financially responsible and the usual ‘wait till your birthday’ response.

“Art is costly,” my father nodded, “not much you can do about that.”

That surprised me because, coming from my father, this is a kind of permission. He said a similar thing when my car needed fixing, and when my old computer died. It’s a phrase he reserves for costs he deems as important enough to go into debt for...

I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me. My father has become an appreciator of art recently, spending time in local art museums in Minneapolis and even going so far as to make donations and purchase a year round gallery ticket membership and subscribe to their magazine. He attends new gallery openings and visits whenever they make even small changes to their collections. He has also taken to reading many of the art blogs I read (blogs like Colossal and Visual News) and suddenly, he is not concerned at my “collecting hobbies” so long as those hobbies are art related in some way shape or form.

“It’s all just different expressions of your creativity,” he told me one day, “artists don’t do just one thing.”

That’s something he learned from reading the artist statements, and it has gone a long way toward helping him understand why I do the things I do…

I have a "studio" where my dining room should be. On that small IKEA table I dig my hands into the myriad crafts and methods which make my growth as an artist. Over the years since I was old enough to claim a designated space in my family’s household, I have tried my hands at many things: charcoal, acrylics, colored pencils, copic markers, origami, polymer, manga, beading, pastels, pottery, sewing, wire wrapping, scrapbooking, macramé, calligraphy, and most recently, watercolors. And that doesn’t even include the things I’ve done outside my studio: photography, acting, choir, cardistry, illusion, prose, poetry, interior design, and graphics art. I am reasonably competent at everything I’ve worked in, though there are a few standouts and things that I’ve gone back to repeatedly while others have more or less fallen by the wayside with time.

I used to get ribbed by my family for having too many interests. My father in particular, who always leaned toward thinking of me as a writer, used to gently nudge me toward “sticking with something long enough to get really good at it”. But now that he’s seen the value of mixing medias and mixing art forms, he knows that the kind of creative play I engage in and the jack-of-all-trades approach to learning art is valuable in its own right— at least as much as any of the classical master paths are.

As for me, well…I also dreamed of finding my perfect art, once upon a time. I had this notion that when I finally found the thing I was the best at, I would uncover my destiny. I fantasized that I would be the next Monet, the next Diana Fitzgerald, the next J.K. Rowling, and so on. But there came a point where I realized that my desire to do so was not born of my own heart but of the expectations of others. How many teachers and friends and family members and strangers have asked me “Wow, do you know how much you could sell that for?” or “Wow, if you keep doing that you could end up famous!” when looking at my creations. As if fame or fortune makes it any more important of a thing to do. Even my father’s “stick with it until you get really good at it” ties the value of my creative actions to being at the pinnacle of talent in some narrow area of expertise. “Why do it if there’s no payoff?” Is the subtly implied message when we buy into such questions and well-meaning suggestions.

But art isn’t about payoffs.  

It’s about speaking the things inside of us. When the traditional method of speaking is not enough to communicate that, when normal conversation fails us, we have no choice but to seek out new methods of speaking ourselves. Art is born from that effort.

My goal is not to paint a perfect pear. I do not ultimately care how expertly the paint is put down on the page, nor how much you are willing to pay for it, nor how many people say my name because of it. If you look at that painting and see only a pear, I have failed.

I am not mixing paints on my tray today because I want you to see a sky. I want you to see this sky: this pre-spring blue-gray of the day when the geese left and my lungs grew light and I was the only one who noticed. And I fully realize that a bit of pigment in plastic well can’t do that alone—it’s one part of the puzzle, one technique in the tool box—and that is why I am never satisfied with only one thing.

My father understands this now. He also understands that better paints make better grays, and more grays, to choose from. And he knows that while better paints are expensive, they are also necessary. So before he hangs up the call, he asks.

“Will you still have enough to make it through the month after you buy them?” and when the answer is yes he still continues, “Well, if you need anything, call me.”

And it isn’t the offer of funds which warms my heart but the recognition that it is valid and okay for my paints to be as important to me as my car or my computer or my other “essential” things…even if we are both well aware that I may use them for a few months and store them again for several years until they become necessary in some future project. He recognizes that my art explorations are an acceptable financial priority.

It is moments like this when I realize that I am very lucky to have been born to this man.