I have two qualms with perusing my life as artist.
I. Art is, in itself, useless.
What makes art useful?
Useful art is timeless, assisting the human condition.
There are timely arts too, like political ones.
Unless made useful, my pursuit of the creative talent within me is selfish indulgence. Maybe I have that backwards.
Einstein claims that “creativity is intelligence having fun.”
II. Doctrines are valueless.
I haven’t any doctrine to tell the world (besides maybe live simply, choose ecology). I cannot instruct you to meditate, or jump off a cliff, or dance.
Release lives in experience. Art can ask your soul to dance. Kinetic flow. Relentless drive. Foggy bottoms. Mozart knew this.
Sigur Ros. Pink Floyd. David August. Crystal Castles.
A custom surfboard is useful art. Useful art complete with profound emotion and growth. There is something ultra-connecting in supporting the local artisans of adventure sports.
To make a video useful, the viewer must feel inspired to go and grow, rather than FOMO. Party videos inherently fail at this. If the point of partying is to exist now, then a video cannot possibly capture that. If the point of a party video is to show the world you were there, you are left with vanity. If the video is to creatively explain science, you have created useful art.
This is a breakdown of creative approaches.
I. Youthful innocence equipped with inspiration and ignorance to say ‘fuck you!’
II. Masterful knowledge, and learnings so as to break the rules known so well.
III. Simple disregard for society, so as to exist in one’s own world.
How To: “Impactful Creator”
The requirements of the artist
I. Creative ‘impulse” or idea. Either temporary or ongoing.
II. Recognition of the impulse as worthy. (introduce the subjectivity of art here)
III. A follow-through uncreatively: hard skills and many hours of quality.
1. With the third alone, you have an artisan. Artists must be artisans, but the distinction comes in the creativity.
2. With the second and third, or the first and third, you have finished projects that just don’t cut it. All relative.
3. Without the third, the finished project will most likely lack some aspects of quality. Subjectively dismiss-able.
Folks that chase surf are considered to have innate creative desire.
Can this be expanded across the realms of adventure sports?
Alex Knost loves analog.
The limitations of an analog system are healthy;
his access point to that elusive creative genius.
Julia’s Paradox: The formally trained artist’s dilemma. The institution says your work must be perfect. Indeed, so perfect that the young artist learns to be hypercritical to the point of paralysis.
“Nothing can be truly replicated.”
“Life is at the top of all things,
and belief at the bottom,
while creative impulse,
dwelling in the center,
informs all.” _Patti Smith
Emotion is why art.
Quetzalcoatl is love.