TEXT OF LIGHT Review

Text of Light: Ulrich Krieger, Lee Ranaldo, Alan Licht, and Tim Barnes 

TEXT OF LIGHT

On Saturday, September 22, 2012 I headed out to Barnavelder Movement Arts Complex in the sketchy part of downtown Houston to see a performance by Text Of Light, an avant-garde improvisational ensemble that performs music accompanying, and in conversation with, the films of Stan Brakhage, and other experimental American filmmakers of the mid-20th century.

If that sounds like an artsy-fartsy music nerd's wet dream to you, then you'd be correct.  The drone-filled sound collage created by these musicians is an awesome force, drowning out one's thoughts  and taking one's consciousness for a wild ride on the leading edge of cacophony.  The odd aspect of all this is the amount of restraint, of care in execution, that these musicians bring to the performance.  It is chaotic, atonal, drone-soaked and difficult listening at times, but above all it is always tasteful.  These are not hacks squealing away on their instruments trying to be artsy and loud.  These musicians are all seasoned veterans, capable of judicious restraint when it is needed, and tight cohesion throughout.

The intimate performance was made possible by a collaboration between two different Houston organizations, both devoted to the cutting edge.  Aurora Picture Show is a long-standing cog in Houston's arts scene, airing art films from around the world, providing Houstonians the access to cinema's fringe that is unavailable anywhere else.  The other organization is Nameless Sound, devoted to contemporary music and music education.  They have brought some of the most varied and edgy sounds to Houston for over 10 years.  It makes perfect sense to combine their forces to bring Houston a group like Text of Light, who themselves are an amalgam of film and music.  Barnavelder provided the performance space.

The event was a very casual affair, with the members of the group mingling among the patrons before the performance, as well as interacting with them afterwards.  I managed to talk shop after with everyone but Alan Licht, and thanked them all for making the trip to Houston, not generally known as an avant-garde group's destination.  Drummer/percussionist Tim Barnes and I talked about his varied instruments, especially a set of gamelan-style mini gongs that looked to be handmade.  Free improvisational percussion is one of the most difficult things to do well, and Mr. Barnes was amazing.

Saxophonist/electronics man Ulrich Krieger was also very cool, sharing his process and describing how, over time, he has refined his "toolkit" of electronics.  He was open and engaging, and a treat to talk to for a music nerd such as myself.

The biggest thrill of the night was meeting living legend (and one of my top musical idols) Lee Ranaldo.  Lee's other group, Sonic Youth, is my all-time favorite musical act, and I have loved his free form guitar skronk abilities ever since I listened to "Mote" off the Goo album, specifically the 5 minute long noise outro of that song.  I had never heard melody and dissonance put together in such a way.  It remains and all time favorite of mine.  Lee is well known for being a great guy and being open to talking to his fans, but I was still shaking  a bit with nerves as I approached him.  I stood by, not wanting to interrupt a conversation he was having with another fan but he looked at me, smiled, and said "Hello," first!  I introduced myself, told him I was a huge fan for so long, thanked him for the great show and the amazing sounds he makes, and shook his hand.  I then asked him, if it was not too much trouble, to sign my 10" vinyl of "100%," which also contains my favorite Lee song "Genetic."  Ever gracious, he signed it and he asked me about my art, and where online he could check it out, as I had told him I was a visual artist.  Amazing!  He could tell I was giddy and nervous (I almost forgot my own name) and he laughed and said "It was great to meet you Roberto."  CLOUD 9, PEOPLE!!!!

I made my way out to my parked car in a bit of hero-worship daze.  Not only did I get to see a performance by an amazing group of musicians but I got to meet and converse with a man I had idolized  since I was 16 years old.  I do not know if anyone else had as great an experience as I did, but I don't care!  I drove home enjoying a celebratory cigar and reliving the whole night, with the sounds of Text of Light bouncing around in my skull.  It was the best $15 I ever spent. 

Below is a performance by Text of Light from 2 years ago, to give you an idea of what I love. 

RXTT

2012

The Life Of An Artist

Why does anyone choose to be a professional artist? It is a nearly thankless endeavor, and a solitary nightmare. The rewards are in the creation itself. It is a hard thing to explain, unless one experiences it. To be an artist in America these days is to either be ignored completely and relegated to a substrata just above menial laborer, or to become a walking cartoon, oversimplified and underdeveloped, dancing the little artsy jig to entertain the bored and idle rich.

If not yet established and known, an artist is forced to ham it up, to create a persona that screams “artist” and yet that is refined enough to appeal to the wealthy patrons, who are the only people these days who really spend any money on art. Regular people spend money on decorations for sure, but spending $200 at Ikea to decorate a room is a lot different from spending $800 on a single painting, which is why the world of Fine Art is a lofty one, at least from the point of view of the major supporters. One has to make an impression on these people, people for whom superficial impressions are their very existence. However, most artists are mercurial, self-guided people to whom superficiality is a chore.

The public is fickle, and it wants it's next flavor-of-the-month now. This used to consist of finding and supporting an artist whose work was innovative, fresh, exciting. Now it more and more seems to consist of finding an artist who is an interesting personality, or who has a bizarre back-story, or who comes from the lowest of means, yet who looks and acts and carries themselves in a way fitting with the posh company that is the customer base.

In nearly any endeavor, it is important to present yourself in a manner which will benefit you and allow for others to trust you enough to give you their money. This is just a part of life. To be a doctor you must look the part as well as have the necessary education. To be a cop you have to walk differently than regular people, as if you are always enforcing the law. To be an artist, you need to be able to socialize and converse with people whose educations and refinement are of the highest order. This can be a hard thing to pull off for an artist whose life is spent absorbed in his art. Many artists have issues with social situations which is why they put themselves in their work, and ask that that be judged that way. However, to socially please customers is part of the requirement, even if it kills a little part of you.

You see, the art-buying public is not just buying artworks. They are also buying a connection.
There are many stories of how an artist's gallery will sell a work of theirs under the stipulation that the artist go to the purchaser's home and discuss the work and themselves with the buyer. Some people are just curious and want to know more about you, while others are using you to entertain their friends at a dinner party with conversation. It can make an artist feel like a tool, just as easily as it can make an artist feel appreciated.

Many are purchasing the work of a new artist either with the hopes of owning what could become very valuable in the future, or to gain the cache that comes from being among the perceived elite who are savvy enough to buy valuable things early, before the teeming masses get their mitts on it. An artist truly has little choice as to who purchases their work, and why. The only option available is to not sell the work, which is financially unthinkable for many artists who live off of one or two large sales a year, if they are lucky.

Once the work is sold the artist has to live with the fact that it may go up in a place of honor in someone's home, or it may just get stacked in a closet somewhere. It may be displayed in a horrible frame. It may be destroyed by accident or negligence. It may never see the light of day again. For an artist who has put part of himself in his work, this is a terrible thing to have to live with, but it must be accepted if one wants to continue. The life of an artist seems to be one of endless heartbreak.

Even if an artist gains quick fame the expectations just rise up afterwards. It is never enough to continue in a given vein, not for the art world. They want to see you expaqnd and grow and challenge yourself. These are all code words for "we do not want to see the same thing twice." The art world does not take the time to truly appreciate an artist's work, before it is seeking different work. This gives a premium to an artist like Damien Hirsch who just comes up with a new wacky idea every year and "surprises" the art world with it. It does not, however, allow for an artist to develop his voice slowly, through trial and error. It must be great the first time and every time thereafter.

There are many reasons why one rarely reads about happy, well-adjusted, fulfilled artists. Even the great Picasso was tormented and alone much of the time. It takes balls to choose such a life.

RXTT
January 2012

ART FOR TODAY - Part 1 (an attempt at seeing where Art is, and where it needs to be)

The history of the visual image as a means of communication may predate even spoken language. It is easy to imagine some proto-human scratching marks on the ground to communicate with his fellow primates. From such rudimentary beginnings it is just a matter of time before humans as skilled as the artists who painted at Lascaux, or Chauvet are using marks and color and line to not only share information, but to supplicate the world around them for a good hunt, or to bemoan the death of a loved one.

Images are powerful things. It is no mere coincidence that much of the modern human brain is devoted to the processing of visually received stimuli. Our eyes are our best developed sense organ. Because of this, our images have grown ever more sophisticated as the full extent of our visual power is utilized. The growth appears to be exponential, mirroring much of human development. This growth can be charted like much of history by following the high water marks.

BIG IDEAS come into the world of the visual image when society needs them. The outdated imagery that was supplanted by the development of three-point perspective in paintings existed for millenia before. Flat, two dimensional imagery, in which size was indicative of status as opposed to a true measure, and which represented ideas as opposed to visible reality was the norm for most of the world's visual artists. This was true in the cultures of Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Europe, Africa, etc., and speaks of the aims of the visual image in those cultures.
I am not referring strictly to the content of the artworks, to the subject matter. I speak instead of the means available to the visual artists to make their point as those points relate to the culture at large. Let's look at ancient Egyptian art for example.
　
In Egypt's Old and New Kingdoms the use of visual art was mainly to serve the Pharaoh, the Temples, and the wealthy by spreading propaganda. Whether this was religious propaganda or political propaganda is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the art was straightforward, simple enough for even illiterates to understand the message being imparted. The images were in grids, demarcating a rigid stasis. Egyptians believed their leaders were gods on Earth. They believed in the endless cycle of life, mirroring the Nile river's yearly floods, in which everything plays it's proper part, and the people are but miniscule pawns in a much larger story being played out by the elites. In a desert the only constants are the magnificent terror of the Sun and the durability of stone. Everything else is in flux. Death can come on the back of a locust swarm or the mouth of alligators. Disease is a curse and death is a time of judgment. Life must have seemed so hard to ancient Egyptians. It was so brutal and short that their whole culture became one of worshiping death, or at least the state of being called “dead.”

Could this be why their art is so rigid? Egyptian visual art which survives shows actions, events, places, personages, and tells a narrative story, which can also be read allegorically. It does not place any importance in portraying motion, or the passage of time. It focuses instead on the action, and what that action means. The images do not care about relative size, and are so stylized and formatted as to make it impossible to differentiate between the carved figures. This problem is solved by the use of the cartouche. These are symbols that name the important figures in the artwork, such as pharaohs, gods, etc. The lower classes are portrayed by their jobs, not by anything individual. The artworks themselves were constructed to last for eternity, since whatever one was buried with would be what they enjoyed in their afterlife. Stone carving thus becomes the critical art form for the times. It allowed people of power to inscribe the walls of their death chambers with every possible thing they could ever desire in the afterlife.

These are means to an end. The Egyptians truly believed that birth determined one's life and that the individual will was but an afterthought, in many ways mirroring the modern Indian culture and caste system. Life was just a way-station which would present a person with the challenges, and the person's decisions concerning these challenges would then be judged upon one's death. Of course the art also showed you how to react to the challenges of life, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Egypt flourished for millenia with few challenges to this art ideal.

Much of the ancient world worked this very same way. The art served the ruling classes whims, allowing the mass illiterate poor to share in the legends and myths of their culture without having to actually read the source material. Art then served the purpose of pure narrative and allegorical communication from one group of elites to another group of subjects.

As society changes the purposes of art change as well. What used to be something only the aristocracy or royalty could indulge in now became accessible to the just plain wealthy. The houses of the wealthy became the showpiece for their new found appreciation of art, usually centered around portraits of themselves and their relatives which granted the subject a grandeur and power through it's very existence. Art became personal. It was not long before a new middle class of people was created. These people, not wealthy nor poor, but with enough money to afford some of the nicer things and the education to appreciate them, were the ones that opened a floodgate.

The visual image gained wider and wider exposure. Because of the new audience, the art changed as well. Images became appreciated more for their ability to describe and show the real world than for their symbolic and propaganda uses. Since in art everything builds upon everything else, the early reasons for art still exist and will always exist. They are only supplanted like an onion skin atop an onion skin by new demands placed on art. It all builds a framework of visual reference. Regular people were now exposed to more visual imagery than ever before and therefore the sophistication of the audience grew and grew.

The Old Masters managed to combine everything art is about and still explore new paths, new ways to make their art suit their purposes. The discovery of three-point perspective shone a light upon all the previous images. Those with proper perspective are obvious to the eye, to anyone's eye, for perspective allows to the tricks one's eye plays to be used for the full effect of the painting. After a while, any artist not working with proper perspective, or at least faking it as well he could, was considered “naive,” a backhanded compliment which essentially means, “your art is good for someone who knows nothing about art.” This becomes the main driver behind the visual image for centuries. Each new generation perfecting the techniques and ideas that allow for the art required by the times.

Artists are always at the vanguard of culture. Sometimes it is an idea that drives them to new places and sometimes it is a new media. Around 150 years ago the first tube paints were being sold, as the industrial revolution modernized and streamlined the means of production the world over. No longer did artists have to painstakingly prepare and manufacture their pigments and paints, or hire a crew of assistants to do so. The artists was freed to take his canvas and turn art from an indoor endeavor to an outdoor pleasure. Nature again became the main inspiration. These artists could go out into the world with their easel and paints and create artwork of immediacy. A preliminary sketch of a painting which used to take weeks could be done in hours, and many painters began to appreciate the beauty inherent in artwork that sought not to minutely recreate the nature before them, but instead to capture in colored paint, the way light played upon the world.

This was a very big conceptual leap forward. It was pushed along by the science of the times as well. People used to believe everything was what it was innately. A red jacket was a red jacket. A white egg was a white egg. Science showed that, as far as optics are concerned, common sense is useless. A red jacket receives white light, absorbs every color wavelength except red, and bounces red back at our eyes. Our brains then say, “this jacket is red. Paint it red.” Painters early on realized that the nature of the light greatly affects the nature of the color of an object. Morning light would make a red jacket appear violet, whereas overcast light would make the red appear toned with grey or black. Color is created in the eye. Someone like Monet would paint fast, loose, to catch that one specific light effect he sought to recreate in the viewer's eye. Painters were literally trying to paint light.

As the society progresses it absorbs the lessons of artists, and accepts them as truths. Society is stupid that way. Instead of understanding that everything works in a continuum and that nothing end and nothing begins and that one idea does not replace another, society dumps old ideas as fast as new ideas come. These new ideas are then treated as the new dogma. Society is stupid and slow and ignorant and will always need art to show the way to new thought. The problem lies in that society gets more and more rigid and therefore more and more resistant to the changes brought about or implied in artist's work.

These artworks were among many chosen 70 years ago by the National Socialist Party of Germany as being decadent and obscene. They were not decadent nor obscene because of puerile content, or nudity or offensive imagery. These artworks were dangerous to that totalitarian regime, just as dangerous as art remains today for totalitarian governments worldwide, because of the IDEAS.

Ideas in art are pulled by the artists from the meta-structure of humanity's total consciousness. Artists draw material and inspiration from places they do not even register. The entire world feeds their minds. An artists of any type is like a tuning fork. A tuning fork can be made to vibrate by another tuning fork being struck and brought near it. They do not have to touch. One fork vibrates the air and the air then vibrates the previously inert tuning fork. Now imagine an artist, a creative person, whose entire day is composed of endlessly varied stimuli affecting him or her in ways so subtle they may not be apparent for decades. Subtle, yes, but powerfully affecting nonetheless.

As the world turned industrial, and life moved from the pasture to the chaos of urban city living, certain artists felt the pull towards a complete dismissal of representation. They sought truth and beauty in the relationships of colors, lines, shapes, hues and tones. They did not seek to represent anything at all. To them, abstraction was a perfectly natural response to a world ever more constrained, ever more visually cluttered. A day's walk in any city would flood the mind with more visual imagery than a year spent on one's country farm. Imagine what that would do to someone extra-sensitive to stimuli of any sort. It only makes sense that artists sought to escape into pure abstraction.

Abstraction may seem to negate all the rules art had come to be built upon, but it is, in fact, just the end result of the path those rules laid out. Painting involves using colored material to create an image. The relationship in a still-life between a vase, let's say, and a tablecloth is one of color. Color, and how it is placed, defines boundaries, depth, texture, and light, as well as serving allegorically as a symbol. Pure abstraction engages a viewer through the same means as a representative image. The goal is different thought. Representative imagery needs to evoke the actual structure of the world. Abstraction seeks to create a new world to be judged by the aesthetics of the art of painting itself. In an era where anyone can create a near perfect representational image (photography) painting needed to create a sense of it's own value apart from pure documentation.

Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, etc., were all attempts to create art that allowed the artists to define art itself, or at least test the boundaries. They set their own rules, or tried to, but these rules were still only workable in direct reference to the boundaries they sought to replace These boundaries are the boundaries demarcated by culture and society itself. The past 200 years have seen the Industrial Revolution change not only art but the viewers of art and the artists as well.

Currently, we are in the midst of another whirlwind change in society, and therefore in humanity. The ability to have the vast sum of human knowledge and endeavor accessible from anywhere on the planet has affected artists greatly. If you think the Industrial Revolution brought chaos and infinite new experience, you will not be ready for what our cyber world is bringing us. If done right, this tool will increase the sophistication of everyone with access to it. Every image ever seen in a museum is available to be viewed through technology. Some artists are using the web itself as an art form, and others are turning into Luddites, afraid of being replaced as image makers by computers, or worse yet, regular people. All this is causing a new change in art.

Art can no longer be just representational, or abstract, or low-brow. Art needs to point the way to the future, good or ill. It needs to change itself to show the way to humanity. What is needed is a new Meta-structure for art. Artists have seemingly exhausted every combination of media, size, shape, color, etc., available for a two dimensional visual image. What has only been tried a few times, by artists such as M.C. Esher, is to create imagery, a new art essentially, which does not depend on the “normal” human points of spatial reference.

RXTT
January 2012

(Originally published at Open To Interpret)

The Human Face

One of the things I find most perplexing about ancient, pre-historic art is the lack of portraiture. We take portraits for granted, sometimes relegating them to the Fine Art backwaters, along with genre painting, still-life, etc. Potraits may be commonplace, but it seems that ancient man did not share this with us. The daring artists, probably shamans, who ventured into the secret magic places and left us images of wildlife, hunts, plants, and deities, also left behind images of themselves. Most of these images are not what we would call Portraits.

Did ancient humans not have a need to create images of each other? Once society developed enough to create cultures and permanent settlements humans began to craft individual portraits. Until then, the focus may have been more on a magical aspect of art. Instead of being decoration for beauty's sake, art was maybe the most powerful tool in the shaman's bag of tricks. With sympathetic magic a painting of a succesful hunt would help to bring about an actual succesful hunt. In a world living with these ideas, a specific portrait of someone might indeed be seen as stealing their very soul, much like people who are first exposed to photography have reacted throughout the world. I wonder what changed in humanity to allow for the creation of portraits. The one below is from around 150 BC, and is a portrait created for the funerary rituals of a noblewoman.

It does seem to be that once the switch was made in humanity, the portrait became ubiquitous. To have a portrait of oneself was a sign of opulence, of modernity. The detailed studyof the human face, and the ability to portray that in paint, granted the powerful with a new tool. They could use portraits as propaganda. Whether this meant crafting a relief sculpture of the Ceasar for their coinage, which everyone would see and admire causing them to associate their ruler with their money, or whether it was a painting commissioned to commemorate a coronation, instantly granting it's subject the grandeur of royalty, the portrait was subservient to the whims of man.

Formal portraits have lost their power in an age of quick reproduction. Photography allowed the masses to obtain lasting images of themselves and their loved ones. Portrait paintings became out of fashion, while portrait photography exploded. Ancient man would see our world today and marvel in fear at our reckless use of images. As a species we create and display more portraits every day than could be imagined by our ancestors. We just call it "advertising."


While some may think this would be the death of the art portrait, I find it to be beneficial in a very specific way. By taking the requirement of exact reproduction away, photography leaves space for painters who can use their art to convey something deeper than mere surface. When the Outer is fully examined, it is the Inner which truly informs. Ancient man did not seek to portray an individual human. He sought to portray an idealization of a human for the benefit of all. Modern painters seek to paint the inner truth of their subjects, thereby granting them some semblance of immortality. The focus of portraits has shifted many times in the past and will shift again. That is a given. However, the past history of portraits does not necessarily point to their future. There is still endless room for innovation and creativity. That is the challenge to the modern artist, for the obsession with the human face continues unabated.

RXTT

(originally published at http://www.montroseartsociety.com)

How To Go See Art: Gallery Visit 101

Art needs viewers. Art, of any sort, is dead until someone experiences it. This is true for music and literature, but it is very certainly true of the visual arts. For someone who has an eye for art, and who wants to see new works regularly, going to galleries is the best way for you to go. The art world is constantly swimming with new exhibitions and gallery shows, all of which hold opening receptions of some sort. It is these events that I want to talk about.
When an artist or a group of artists shows their work somewhere, and holds a reception/opening/event to bring people there, their hope is for an audience to show up, look at their work, and hopefully appreciate it enough to want to purchase it. For many this process is very intimidating. It should not be. I am here to help.

What should you expect from an art opening?

Let's take, for example, a group show held at a local gallery. Most art openings are free-form events, intended to allow the public to come and go as they please. There is no pressure to be there “on time,” unless it is so specified in the announcement/invitation. There is no cover charge. There may be a cash bar or there may be complimentary refreshments served. The artist(s) and/or a gallery employee are usually there, ready to introduce themselves, as well as discuss any questions you may have about their work. This type of interaction is a welcome thing for most artists, as we rarely have the opportunity to interact with the consumers of art. It is completely cool to go up to the artist and introduce yourself, and comment on their art, or ask any questions.

Think of an art show as a communication format. The artists want to communicate with you through their art and through their words. The viewing public is also given the chance to communicate what the work is or is not to them, and if they love it, to purchase said work. Aside from that, there is a communication that happens between the patrons themselves. Art is intended to move the heart and/or mind. You are there to see if this art does this. At the very least, you will be entertained. Not bad for FREE.

What is expected of you at an art opening?

First of all, your very presence. As stated before, art does not live in a vacuum. It is your eyes and minds (and in many cases, all your senses) that are asked to participate. Of course, your preparation can aid in this, but it is not mandatory. You do not need to know the latest art movements, or any art movements at all, to enjoy an artwork or an art show. That does not mean that preparation will not come in handy, but that is up to you. What you really need is an open mind, uncluttered by the bullshit of the day. This is ideal, but we all know life does not often allow for the ideal. The beauty of art is that it will communicate what it can, to whom it can.
This is the beauty of living with art. You can look at it regularly in different light, in different states of mind, in different emotional situations, and get fresh insight. At a gallery show, this must obviously be limited, but that is part of the process. You cannot just hop into an art gallery, look at everything in a quick overview, and then leave right away. Not if you expect to actually create a mental dialogue with the art being shown. It takes a bit of time. First impressions are only enough for superficial matters. Art is deeper than that, otherwise it is just decoration.
Therefore, go to the gallery, walk in, take a casual stroll through and look at each work of art. Note what impression it makes on you and move on to the next. Keep your ears open for anything you may find interesting, such as who the artist is, and if she happens to be discussing her work. Sometimes the artist will give a small speech/statement discussing their latest work, or the direction they are heading in. Listen to them. See how this applies to the art you have looked at.

Go around again. Take a second look at everything. See how your impressions have changed or remained the same. No one will bother you for staying too long. No one will bother you for only staying 15 minutes. However, you must give the art a chance to speak to you, and this cannot be accomplished with a cursory glance at everything and a quick exit. There is usually some form of literature provided, either by the gallery or by the artist themselves. This is a good place to learn more about the artist and their work. There is likely to be some sort of sign-in sheet where you can provide your email and receive updates from either the artist or the gallery.

How do you find time for art shows?

The joy of an art show is that you can access it at your own pace. You can use a visit to an art gallery opening as a precursor to a night out, as a great conversation starter among friends. You can swing by an opening after dinner on a Friday or Saturday night, and enjoy a drink while walking off some of dinner and feeding your mind a bit. Some people frequent art shows regularly, and use them as their socializing routine. Like-minded people enjoying art can be a very fun pastime. You can also hit several openings/shows in sequence and explore the full gamut of what is being offered on any given day. Hell, if you need a small break waiting for the traffic to die down after work, go to the art show! Kill an hour looking at art and then head home with a full mind. Even if the art turns out to be horrible, at the least you have something new to grouse about!

So many people are curious about art, and the art world itself. Yet, the very nature of it makes the art world appear to be an elitist situation, where only the informed and worldly and educated snobs of the world are welcome. This is really not the way it is, just the way it is portrayed in mass media. Most art openings are such casual affairs, and your presence means a lot to those showing work. Remember, if you like something, and can afford it, go ahead and buy something. Sometimes prints are available, or smaller works at a reduced price. The goal is for the art to communicate to someone enough that they wish to own it, and live with it. That someone could very well be you. If you have no money, feel free to enjoy the art anyways. Exposure is the goal of every professional artist, and while one person may not purchase something, their favorable comments about the art or artist can provoke others to buy work, or to come to the next art show. Share what you find. Talk about what you like or do not like. That makes you a part of the art world, and just as important a part as the artists and gallery owners. Go forth, and do so with confidence. The art world is waiting for your input and participation.

RXTT
2011

(originally published at http://montroseartsociety.com/ )

Life Sucks

Many might say that it is just a depressive state talking, or that pessimism is to blame, but I sincerely feel sometimes that Life is not worth living. This is not in a suicidal kind of manner, but in that the effort that must be put into what we call Life, seems to be more than what is attained. Is anything worth it? From my point of view it seems that even those we call successes in Life are hiding something that, were it to be openly known, would cause us to lose some of our envy.

Jim Morrison once sang “no one here gets out alive.” No one gets out of Life alive, that is true, but I think Jim had a separate meaning to this. I think he understood that Life will kill you, kill your soul, your inner divinity, much earlier than actual Death. Maybe this is why he sought Death with such fervor. He wanted Death to come while he was still ALIVE.

Life is a crock of shit. Some of us work very, very hard every day of our lives only to see it accomplishes nothing. Some people do no work whatsoever, yet seem to coast through Life, at least to outside eyes. Those same people also have problems and terrors unimaginable to most of us regular people. Can you imagine how fucking horrible something must be to keep Bill Gates awake at night? Maybe the thought that even with his billions of dollars, he cannot stave off Death, whether it were some poor starving person, or his own. There exists no human without fear.

Working sucks. The poor saps that tell the world they love their work are saying so because THEY HAVE TO. Otherwise they would go insane. People use the excuse of “loving” their work to mask the huge amount of themselves they have had to sacrifice for their job. Is the most successful person in the room the one that has worked 14-hour days, 7 days a week, to the exclusion of friends, family, or even their own health, and amassed a fortune he has no time or inclination to truly enjoy? Or is it the person who has managed to maintain a long union and raised a family, glossing over the countless pains, sorrows, and hindrances a family brings? Is it the man who has told the world to FUCK OFF and dropped from society's radar, only to find out that he was truly as worthless and unnecessary as he felt before? Is success in life measured in dollars, or in happiness? He who has the most toys when he dies wins? That is pretty fucking stupid. Is success measured by achievement? Does self-satisfaction count as happiness? Why do those that are happy within themselves have to tolerate a world constantly trying to tell them why they should not be happy, or jealous of them to the extent of sabotaging said happiness?

Looking at the knowledge we have accumulated over the tiny speck of time we have been crawling about this planet, there seems to be very little to indicate that Life is worth living. Much of our human belief structure is based on the very idea that Life is a fucking hell of it's own, and that Death brings respite and peace. Is that not fucking ridiculous? We slave at life, studying, working, learning, obeying, eating and shitting, and our reward is to be at peace upon death? FUCK! Talk about a goddamn waste of time. Especially since these same belief structures also tell us that ending our own life, for whatever reason, no matter how dire or necessary, will actually keep us away from the peace supposedly attained in death. This basically guarantees that we have to all suffer as long as possible before we get our “just rewards.” Nice little Catch 22.

Some believe that heaven or hell are right here on Earth, in our heads let's say, and that it is up to us to choose to live in one or the other. This would be true if indeed we were isolated entities, free from the massive levels of suck that the surrounding human horde is always ready to subject us to. Anyone who has had their day/week/year/life ruined by the bullshit actions of someone else can lay righteous claim to the untruth of this idea. Even the hermits in our past were dependent on others for sustenance. It is nearly impossible to rid oneself of the stink of other humans. If it sucks to you that some days your husband is an ass and ruins your mood, can you imagine what it is like for a fucking hermit, who only has sparse contact with others, to have his life ruined by some asshole? It must be substantially worse.

What is the answer? Is Life worth it? The joys in life, the happy times, the peaceful moments and experiences, are just as transient as the shitty ones. The problem is that they are far, far rarer. The lucky among us can count something every day that feels like a blessing, while counting dozens of times that same day that someone hurt them, or annoyed them, or reminded them of shit that sucks. People get accused of living in a delusional state, of ignoring others problems. It is as if the accusers feel that those doing the ignoring are lacking in hurt and sorrow and pain. Could it be that people ignore the plight of others, not because they do not care and are callous assholes, but because they are already so chock full of pain and hurt and sorrow that to take on someone else's, even for one minute, would break them? That seems like the more likely scenario.

What ways have humans found to battle this horror called Life? I have discussed religion above, but there are other ways. Some are seen as “evil” or “bad” by many. Others are seen as “wholesome” or “noble.” The list is a long one: sex, drugs, marriage, decadence, family, love, sin, piety, etc. People are asked to support something like marriage, for it seemingly guarantees love and companionship, things which should make shitty-ass Life bearable. The horrors of divorce, of love-less marriages, or child abuse, of neglect are all pushed to exist and continue, because marriage makes life WORTH IT somehow. For those that have had this be the case, more power to you. But, like what I said before about people who overly praise their jobs, if you have to overemphasize the benefits you are likely just trying to make yourself believe it. Something such as a drug habit, however, is seen as a horror, whole and complete, with no benefit whatsoever. Yet most of the nation enjoys a bit of drug after work, sometimes in the company of your very same coworkers. They call this “Happy Hour.” Odd that this “happy” hour takes place just after leaving work and just before going home. Happy Hour is book-ended by hours of shitty job time, and hours of shitty home time for most people who enjoy such an event. Who am I to say they cannot? Who are you to say someone cannot go home and do a drug that allows them to cope with their existence? Even if it is just to fucking forget that tomorrow you gotta go and do the exact same thing all over again?

Schools can teach us science, and art, and literature, and useful skills, but school does not teach us how to be happy. This is either because they do not want us to be happy, (a likely scenario seeing as how this country's schools seem to churn out drones for whom happiness exists in what a paycheck can buy) or because they cannot teach us how to be happy. They do not know. The teachers, the educators and masters who write the textbooks do not know how to be happy. We are taught how to be content, how to be satisfied, how to feel successful, but not how to be happy. Our American forefathers knew that life is not happy. They guaranteed us the right to pursue happiness. One can pursue an ideal, but perfection does not exist long in our chaotic universe. Entropy is a horrible bitch-goddess. Happiness is a perfection of sorts, which is why it comes so suddenly and leaves so swiftly, leaving little in it's wake to signify it had been there. When happiness leaves,it does not leave behind happy residue. It completely vanishes. Something else instantly takes it's place. Happiness is as ephemeral as the human soul.

I know that if all that can be attained in life is contentment, or self-satisfaction, then people are being done a great disservice when taught that they should seek happiness in all things. It keeps us childlike, ignorant, stupid, wanting the pleasure of happiness without preparing us for the inevitable horrors that truly make up day to day Life. Maybe they do this because so many of us are too sensitive, and if we were taught the truth from the bat many of us would opt out, like so many misunderstood teenagers do every year. There is always some inane campaign to try and reduce teen suicide, to try and ferret out it's “warning signs,” so that “help” can be given. Virtually nothing is done to actually address the shit in the world that makes a teenager feel that life is not worth living. Is this because no one cares, or because there is nothing that can actually be done? I tend to think no one cares.

When I say no one cares I do not mean to say that people individually or collectively cannot care about something or someone. I mean that most of us, even the best of us, can only focus on so much, and the best of us are usually asked to carry great burdens, so that it is just not possible to truly care about people as much as they deserve to be cared about. The shit fuckers out there, and there are a ton of them, actively do not care about anyone. Lee Ving of FEAR once said a great truth on stage. He said “we want everyone to share in everything there is to go around, except what's coming to us.” This sounds cold, but my opinion is that most people don't even go that far. They are more along the lines of “I want what's coming to me, and fuck it if no one else gets any.” That is how we live as a country. That is how the American business treats the world. We would be better off if they followed Lee Ving's adage.

Are we responsible only for our own happiness? Are we responsible for everyone around us? Many wise sages have thought about this. The guy they call Jesus essentially said that to be truly happy one must focus on helping those who need it. Giving is it's own reward. Everything he taught goes against the me-first mentality that pervades this supposedly Christian nation. The least among us are the ones that need the most. This is an obvious truth, but it is so easily forgotten by those seeking self-happiness. The plight of our fellow man is a worthy cause to help, as long as we personally do not suffer or lack anything in the process. That is what it seems people believe Jesus was about, at least if you judge them based on actions. The teachings of Jesus are just not compatible with capitalism, so the modern American warps them and allows his selfishness and greed to consume him.

The dude they call Buddha got even simpler. He narrowed everything down to suffering. He saw the world is shit. He saw the horrors of Life, after an early existence of pure idyll. The Buddha said that all is suffering, and that all suffering comes from desire. Desire makes us do things we would otherwise not do. It makes us hate. It makes us lust. It makes us neglect the world around us in our obsessive quest to get whatever we desire. Desire does not promise anything. It more often disappoints. People suffer when they do not get what they desire, and they suffer when they get what they desire. This is a cycle that can be broken, according to the Buddha, but it requires the complete removal of desire from one's mind. In today's world, and in the USA in particular, a man who wants nothing, is a loser. A woman who desires nothing except to experience the day that has been set before her by the Universe is wasting her life. The main goal seems to be to get so rich that you can have whatever you desire. Instead of denying desire, instead of eliminating suffering by decreasing desire, we are putting desire up on so high a pedestal that it is the only goal worth striving for! How fucked up is that? The Buddha would shit his fucking robes man.

Other sages, such as the latest fella, Mohammed, advocate a devout life of religious worship and devotion. They do not advocate this as a guide to happiness. They do so as a way to enlightenment, and to a feeling of oneness with the Universe/God/whatever. This is their ultimate goal. It is a noble one, much like the Buddha's and the Christ's. Yet, even this is warped into fanaticism and hate and everything ugly about humanity. (Maybe Life sucks because humans exist? That's another topic. - RXTT) If only people would remember that religions are created in the most turbulent of times, when life is cheap, and death is ever-present. Their teachings are mostly about how to cope with SHIT. How not to go completely insane at all the fucking nonsensical horrors that Life is populated with.

It seems these and other sages all understood that what was needed was a way for lowly humans to cope with their existence. What is crazy is that the Buddha/Jesus/Mohammed/Abraham were not even trying to get people HAPPY. They were just trying to get them to understand they could be content despite Life. It seems many people have forgotten this. Even religious food edicts and dogma were ways to aid people who were so jacked up they needed actual wholesale instruction so as not to die. Halal meat, Kosher preparations, etc. Did all this make Life worth living? Maybe for some. Certainly for others, such as the Philistines who were wholesale slaughtered by the ancient Hebrews, or the many who were brutalized and murdered at the hands of the Roman Catholic Christian Inquisition, or those who suffer and die at the hands of militant Islam regimes today, Jesus, Abraham, and Mohammed made Life even shittier and more horrible than it already was.

How are we to deal with this? Are the small thrills afforded by random bouts of happiness/joy enough to compensate for the hours of tedious torture Life entails? Is it enough to just be content, to just be glad to be alive? If being alive can be described as being it's own reward, why does the reward so often feel like a punishment? I once thought being alive and suffering through everything would be worth it even if all I had were my records and books to keep my mind occupied. That was not enough though. I could not enjoy what I had taken in without someone to share it with. I think life can be worth it if you get to be in Love. Even once. Real, true, deep Love. Love is joy as much as it is pain, but it makes life worth living. At least that is how I feel at this point in space-time. Maybe in my future I will think that creation, the act of creation, whether in art, work, or in actually making a new human, is what makes life bearable. It seems to me that those that create, whether it is for mass consumption or for personal delight, whether in business or in a relationship, are the ones that seem happy.

Happiness seems to exist in those who have created something new for the Universe to get a handle on. I once read humans/sentient beings described as the way the Universe has found to study itself. Maybe happiness is just a human construct, but it seems to flow from creation. An utter failure in nearly every aspect of his life, Vincent Van Gogh found his happiness creating images in oil paint. He had every reason to wallow in misery and failure but he painted to feel that joy, that happiness, that quality of existence that is everyone's goal in Life. Even through insanity and isolation he created images which brought so much pleasure to the world in the century and a half since his death. Had he only known. He died penniless, alone, sick, and miserable. Life sure knows how to suck.

-RXTT-
12/06/2011