We are Human and we are Artists.
We are of the Earth and return to dust, born of Water, cast about by the spirit Winds, and walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death lit only by daily Fires scattered among the Ruins of Chaos. We desire Light amidst the Darkness to establish Order from Chaos. We want to rise up, accomplish much, and Have something different. Which requires that we Be something different. Which requires that we Become something different. Which requires positive Change.
We are Artists and have been given to Believe that if we live our lives in the Artistic Endeavor through the Creative Pursuit, we will attain our ultimate and final Unique Potential which is the reason to Be and the reason to Become. Therefore we shall Create. We must Create to achieve our Unique Potential. We are driven to Create.
But what of Talent? Thinking of the biblical Parable of the Talents, we should avoid burying our one or two or five or ten Talents. To not use the talents we have been given? To Not Do? Oh, the horror! Could we even live with ourselves, never mind others with us? We pay the Price of Sacrifice to create or the Price of Regret to not create. To the biblical adherents, we are then guilty of failing to increase our Talents. There is something inferred here about the Accumulation of Wealth and Worth through Producing. As servants of the absent Master, we may incur His wrath when he returns after having given us those apportioned Talents.
Maybe I won't ever call my artifacts "Masterpieces" to maintain an appropriate position and posture of humbleness. Maybe if I call them "Talent-pieces", I can assuage some guilt. And maybe it is true that I have been given only one small Talent while others have been given many. What am I to do with that one? Bury it and endure the consequence?
And so the Daily Walk continues. It's like pushing a heavy bag of gold coins uphill in the dark in the similitude of Dante's Inferno. But I hope for inspiration and strength from above and outside myself. Illumination along the way. A clear head illumined with the right thinking. I fear the green of envy in my Hoarding consumerism and the red fires of hellish judgment for falling short in so many things along the Spendthrift way. I need focus for my Life's Energy to direct my hands and feet to trod the path and work the works in so short a time that is left. I am out of breath in only the thought. So I am Living the Moment at Idle Acres. Methinks I am leaking gold coin along the way to accumulating Wealth and Fortune. It is a transient farce.
"Now canst thou, Son, behold the transient farce, Of goods that are committed unto Fortune, For which the human race each other buffet; For all the gold that is beneath the moon, Or ever has been, of these weary souls, Could never make a single one repose. 'Master', I said to him, 'now tell me also, What is this Fortune which thou speakest of, That has the world's goods so within its clutches?'" Dante's Inferno Canto VII, lines 61-69
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From Dante's Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise
Wealth and Fortune - The Transient Farce - Study 01 Souvenir of Dore
Copyright James E. Martin 2012
Art is the human Act of Creation. As humans, we Endeavor through our efforts and wish to have Control for their direction. We desire to have a Voice and speak our World View. We desire to Live Forever. We desire to Overcome our average and ordinary limitations. We desire to avoid living and dying into Obscurity as if we had never been. We are tempted perhaps to lead and have followers. To Build something special. Oh, the many Temptations and Desires that lead us astray from our Endeavors!
The Creative Pursuit and the Artistic Endeavor involve the design and the making of a never-before Artifact springing forth from the unique life experience, observation, insight, heart, mind, soul, and hand of the Artist in a moment of Time. No other soul can truly replicate it because the Artist is THE source of the artifact's creation. It's the grand ah-ha in the eureka moment of inspiration. It's the grand ha-ha in the divine comedy. Beware the comparison and the contrast!
It is a type of assertion that "We can be as gods" or even that "We can be God". We can create from nothing. We make Light from Darkness. Our Light is separate from the Darkness and our Light will keep Darkness away. It's the eating of the fruit from the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We see what others cannot see and hear what others cannot hear. We walk among the invalids. We are the Genesis.
And who are we that reply against God in this audacious Artistic Endeavor? No small matter then that two of the ten Biblical commandments are "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of any thing that
is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or that
is in the water under the earth." Warnings and admonitions indeed! How auspicious then that the Artist might say to the Maker, "Why hast thou made me thus?" as the hand of the potter upon the clay.
As mortal humans, none of us escapes crossing the deathly threshold between Time and Eternity. The work of Art may persevere after our earthly stay is finished and it can no longer be replicated or edited by our hand. Are the artifacts of Art a way to cheat Death by leaving a part of ourselves behind? We can still influence and inspire others through our Works even after we no longer remain in the flesh? We can be as gods and have a semblance of immortality and truth. People will still talk about us and think about us. We can escape Ignominy. Few knew who Van Gogh was in his day. Look and see his works now. It's a kind of worship with pilgrimage to his haunts.
What of the natural man and the spiritual man? What sayest we in these roles? We are guilty of creating images and likenesses of things seen in heaven and earth. That's fairly self-evident. The natural man wars against the spiritual man. Yikes. Perhaps in different degrees among us. Perhaps in different flavors between us. But Yikes.
Each moment we lay hand to brush to paint to canvas, we create. We speak our Voice. We wrestle with principalities and powers. We wrestle with things unseen as yet. We dream dreams. We wrestle with natural and divine things. We
suffer slings and arrows. We take arms against a sea of troubles. We attempt to oppose and end them through our creation. We would like to end the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. And perhaps, there is something in us that declares we may someday be capable of a masterpiece. To express Self. Now are those consummations devoutly to be wished?
If we choose not to lay paint to canvas, we are destined to live and die in Obscurity and Darkness. It's as if we never were. Our personal Darkness will be on the face of the deep. The creation will be without form and void of our Creative Pursuit and Artistic Endeavors.
This Daily Walk is an auspicious and audacious Journey through the natural and spiritual realms. Artists are driven in a unique manner. So I commit to tread lightly but deliberately. And prepare for the coming Judgment.
Today is the Leap Day of the Leap Year. An extra day apportioned in the plan to catch up the clocks for Timekeeping. Given time, can we paint our future, I ask?
