Me Too

 Dance and music are waiting on a day that begins with fog but became light before 7:30--only several weeks ago it was still dark when my alarm went off. It's a milky light that woke me this morning and almost makes me grateful for the illuminated crane. So much for red skies at night, although perhaps pink doesn’t count. 

Last evening brought a pink so vibrant it should qualify, with a pale pink that colored the underbellies of clouds. I snapped and snapped but none of the colors came true to what I saw. Still I had to keep trying to catch them so I could show the radiance and beauty of what I saw, online.

Devices prove that photography is an art that requires precise instruments and painstaking technique. Having an eye for it is only the beginning. The rest is work. But we live in an age when we all are artists, if we choose. And choose we do, over and over again, swamping the internet with our exercises in creativity--paintings, photographs, pieces of writing. 

This should be a fine thing, and just might be in theory. The screen and keyboard have been transformed into tiny computers that accompany us wherever we go with larger ones dominating our time when we’re at home. We all have the same instruments that lets us make what we think of as art and we all exhibit it on our own private galleries through social media. The process is effortless and there’s the problem. The old cliche, “This could have been done by my four-year-old” is true now. Most of the pieces seen online are instinctive and reflexive--think it, see it, brush it and there it is--instant art.

Because this is what we see every time we go online, we become used to a standard of work that relies solely on a quick inspiration. Swamped with unedited writing, hastily snapped shots, smeared daubs of color, we’ve created a kind of artistic democracy where everything is “liked.” It’s the equivalent of a doting parent saying “Good job.”

Unfortunately we’re losing the ability to recognize art that’s been accomplished with craftsmanship and care. Any old sentence will do, just slap it out and carry on. Any image captured by a convenient camera is good enough--it’s pretty, isn’t it? And if Rothko could become renowned for painting squares of color, why can't we?

Art was never fostered by democratic principles. It’s grounded upon education of both the artist and the audience--not with MFAs but through the knowledge that comes from being surrounded by work that's burnished and thoughtful. 

I’ve been reading Geoff Dyer’s latest book, The Last Days of Roger Federer, a collection of his pandemic writing. Like many books that have been published lately, this is a kind of journal, and like many books written by Geoff Dyer, it seems to meander while always making provocative observations and solid points. What separates this from other pandemic-spawned volumes is the depth of Dyer’s well-furnished mind and the disciplined theme that runs through his essays. These pieces aren’t blog posts, a matter of whatever was on his mind that he tossed out while having his morning coffee. Although he encompasses subjects as disparate as Nietzche and Burning Man, he focuses his thoughts on a single topic, one he examines with the brilliance and rapid turns of thought that come from a kaleidoscopic intellect. His writing is based on a lifetime of reading and learning, not from an hour of putting unconsidered sentences on a page. 

The extension of “Anyone’s an artist” leads to “No one is an artist.” Doing things for pleasure without effort isn’t art. It’s therapy.