I am always astounded when people ask what the point of art is. Astounded and understanding. I struggle daily with this question. Why art?
As someone who desires to live creatively, I wonder. Even though I hesitate to call myself an artist, that is what I want to be and I do think that desire is a large part of what makes us who we are. It is also what I spend most of my time doing. (I am using the terms artist and art loosely - music, writing, visual etc...) I wonder why this desire is embedded in me, drags me from one medium to another and sometimes makes me want to pull out my hair in frustration when I go through a patch of creative dryness. I do also think that my own fear of proclaiming myself an artist is this lack of understanding in what that might even mean and why that would even be important. My insecurities are palpable and yet I am passionate in defending the arts even when the activity is shrouded in mystery and reasons that seem far from concrete. I mean, doctors save lives, farmers grow food, merchants sell things, or save the world from chaos, accountants do things with math which is above reproach, scientists discover things and so on and so forth. All seem touchable, understandable. And in a sense this is all art of a kind. I certainly fear at times that artists are just the lazy bums of the world who want to sit around reiterating the beautiful things that other people are doing.
And yet.
All these things can be seen as meaningless as well. These are all survival, and I'm not knocking survival, but we all die sooner or later. Many of these things push past survival to the realm of living more abundantly. And there you find art.
Not that art is above and beyond anything else. But art helps us to live, just as doctors and farmers, lawyers and police officers do. Maybe the reason we are so quick to judge art is that many of these things also have beauty, have art. Science and farming, I know, are often used as inspirations for poems and pictures. But art helps us to step back from the day to day survival that we become so entranced with. More importantly art points us to the mysteries of existence, questions our securities.
When I start to doubt the legitimacy of art I also must remember that God created and I am certainly thankful that he did. (of course he also healed, provided food, judges, counts...)
Really, I just need to read Walking On Water again by Madeline L'Engle, or so many other books that have already explained much more eloquently than I just how needed, how useful art is.
I feel a little better now, though. A little more secure in what I feel drawn to do and be.
