The Artist’s Fortitude By MT White Compulsion Part 2

 The Artist’s Fortitude

By MT White

Compulsion Part 2

When you watch YouTube videos with the same editing style, or go to the park and see couple after couple taking the same style photo, or look through Instagram and see the same caption with a girl raising her hands while looking at the sunset on the beach, or read book after book with the same clichéd characters and plots, or even notice that everyone is wearing the same style clothing with little variety, or even look at a calendar of paintings or dog photos at the grocery store, you realize they are just as canned as the canned beans on the grocery shelves. Replicas of replicas. The easy access to the creative technical tools just shows the lockstep mentality and lack of originality the masses possess. It has probably always been this way—that’s why artists were so heralded in the past: They had the exclusive vision and means to present a heightened vision. Now, everyone has the means but their lack of vision is apparent. For the artist of modern times, it presents itself to us in a myriad of ways daily, overwhelming us, while we get lost in the muddle of it all.

Maybe.

For the artist, especially the one trying to bring something new, something provoking, it can all be disheartening because today, it’s hard to escape. But an artist’s role is to break from this. Show a different path, even if it just leads to a path of replicators to follow. Because it’s not the tools but the eye or the mind of the artist that sees something…different, that others may not see, or rather makes obvious what was always there but was not articulated. This doesn’t mean the artist must always do something “new” or “fresh”. In fact, they may do something very old or ingrained but do it so well, it demands notice (In this respect, Akira Kurosawa referred to himself as an “artisan” not an “artist”). New can become old and hackneyed quickly. But after time, the old and hackneyed become new. Not an original observation but still. An artist’s job is to jolt, bring a new angle to a common view. Make the unseen seen or make the seen glow even brighter.

This takes fortitude. Especially today.

But this isn’t a book on aesthetics or cultural criticism. I’ve written about both respective subjects elsewhere.

And while it is most certainly not a motivational or “self-help” book, it is also not purely a negative book, meant to discourage. With an overflow of fluff, there is certainly a temptation to be the negative inverse of such. Being “real” or “telling it like it is” can be its own form of falsehood. Overreacting with negativity to counterbalance the positivity glut is just an exercise in being contrary. It results in an overcompensation of cynical sentiment, a need to be vulgar, denying any hope that may be present. While sometimes funny and maybe even sometimes necessary, it can drift into anachronism quickly, a corruption of ideas, responding to its corrupted opposite.

No, this book is just to let you know that however isolating you may feel, you are not entirely isolated…I guess?

I’m writing this in the Japanese Zuihitsu essay style, where I just follow “where the brush leads”, probably taking a cue from Junichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, his landmark essay on Japanese aesthetics.

But it was the Russian Solzhenitsyn who started me writing this. 

Reading his quote about the artist’s fortitude, in no uncertain terms, INSPIRED me. It triggered a flood of ideas, passages, and thoughts, especially as I walked around a State Park with my family, seeing couple after couple take the same photo with the mountains as backdrop. I spent that time in excitement, eager anticipation, of the potential book that awaited. 

But even I had doubts by the end of the day. I sent an email to a friend mentioning it, then dismissing it as a narcissistic distraction. I mean, who am I? I’m not famous or “successful” as an artist. There are certainly plenty of books about the art life out there. 

But the idea would not go away.

I’m compelled to write this.

Compulsion is a powerful force.

Underground artist Robert Williams said he did not paint out of enjoyment but compulsion. I share the sentiment.

So, here I am writing, despite the fact I have a novel I’ve been meaning to start and other life concerns.

Such is the way of the artist.

Even though it may not be my primary source of income, and though I may not look the part, I can confidently say I’m an artist. I’ve been called such both admiringly and pejoratively by others, but more importantly, I know it. When did I start as an artist? Childhood? Wandering the backyard, envisioning stories and adventures? My teen years? When I taught myself to draw, making or attempting to make comics and movies with friends? Adulthood? When I wrote movie screenplays—almost got a couple in production!—pivoting to novel writing? I can’t put a precise stamp on it. I’ve always had the creative impulse. The one consistent thread throughout my life. 

Do I love it or enjoy it? No, not necessarily. At times, I hate it. But I can’t NOT do it. I feel compelled to create.

And if you are reading this, maybe you feel the same.

Maybe you’ve experienced the rare creative ecstasy that comes with completing a novel, painting, poem, film, sculpture or song, and that more common discouragement when it seems everything appears to be working against you.

After all, it is easy for the artistic mandate to get perverted. Artists, for the most part, hold a low position, at least in American society. “Art” is such a commonly derided term in its true sense (THINK terms like “artsy-fartsy” or someone being excoriated for having “artistic pretensions”) but it is also an overused term. This or that can be “art”. There are terms like “martial arts” to describe (mostly) Asian fighting styles (a word invented for English—it is not used in Asian languages). 

There’s the “art of” this or the “art of” that. There’s no shortage of marketing or motivational books encouraging you to practice “your art” whether it be advertising or animal husbandry. 

The word “art” is so overused, that it makes the definition of “art” incredibly murky.

And I’m not here to answer that question. Many others have done or attempted to define art. Leo Tolstoy himself wrote a book tract entitled What is Art? He can confidently answer the question better than I can. I’ll just say, there is certainly an art to doing many tasks, where doing something well (whether it be cleaning your house, making a cup of coffee, having a conversation etc.), though probably transient, can cause an at times a transcendent sense of fulfillment. And I’m not here to demean that in any way. I’m talking creative arts as vocation—even if part-time. I can’t put my finger on it, but I know this type of art when I see it.

However, I can confidently say, if you are an advertising executive or work in some corporate, mercantile field other than the arts, and you are reading this to improve at your respective profession, like some read books on creativity to help them get ahead in their careers…this book is not for you.

But if you are in a corporate or business field, or working any old job, just trying to make ends meet, provide for your family, but are an artist outside your current employment, then by all means, continue. I sympathize. I haven’t BEEN there. I am there.

So maybe that’s why I feel the compulsion to write this?

Maybe I, above all, need to read it.

But the reason doesn’t matter.

I write because I have to.