Creativity 101: children, art school and Miranda July

Life is like an onion. How true, how true.
Creativity is like an onion, only more so.

There's a layer (children's drawings, "child-like" awareness, outsider art?) where
everything if fresh, raw, direct.

There's a big fat layer of "art school" or "you're talented!" where that first creative impulse
was (mis)directed toward "things people like to look at" (i.e. portraits, landscapes, etc.)
Not that there's anything wrong with representation. What's "wrong" (if anything) is that a sort of generic creativity kicks in... people (paint) what looks like a "painting" to them. That process is not particularly creative, it's more social. They want to paint things that people around them
identify as paintings.





Another layer of this is the "viral cool" version of that. If the individual described above is
your classic nerd in watercolor class (pictured as a suburban mom in say "Art School Confidential") this person is your "cool" artist. They are full of contemporary themes and content -- ecology, anti-war, graffiti, Internet worship, gaming, tattoos, anti-establishment, etc. SOMETIMES this kind of inspiration (when married with a stubborn "inner brat" for instance) can yield personal work that transcends the contradictory desire of its creator to be both cutting edge (identifiable as cutting edge is oxymoronic) and original. In other words, if the creator is "cool" enough they could do almost anything, work that might even be "uncool".


A good example of this is Miranda July. Her persona is "queer" (not in a sexual sense)... the weird girl in the back of the room... a modern Emily Dickinson. However, she's putting on that she's uncool. Anyone with "performance art" on their resume is cool (now she's got it all novels, films, etc.) She's faux-uncool, and it MAY be genuine, like a smart outsider artist, we might be getting access to that "raw" childlike creativitity. But then, probably lots of people by now are copying her--are they getting to that level of creativity? Probably not.

Planet of Corruption (Liberal Elite)

I know what you're thinking.






I'm going to rant about Republicans not believing in global warming and greedy capitalist war-mongers, yadda yadda. No, I'm not. What I want to talk about is how, more and more, I am of the opinion that (1) we live in an age of corrupted arts, and (2) I am on the outside of that corruption.
It would be small of me to call it corruption merely because people disagree with me. What I am uncertain of (and I could probably research this) is how constant is the feeling among "the creatives" that they live in an environment that is officially hostile to their positions. Certainly since the beatniks (followed by the hippies, the peace movement, the anti-war movements, etc.) there have been a sizeable number of creatives who felt that McCarthyism was the defining moment of America. They were targeted for their beliefs (in freedom, equality, etc.) by a white male oppressive (fascistic) establishment that was out to crush them. Many artists (and I use this word freely) continue to function "as if" there is an establishment (now Republicans, Christians, et al) out to crush their freedom, supress their voice, etc. Slowly over the last 50+ years this "minority"* became the majority voice in all the arts--literature, painting, movies, and theater. There is passion in being the downtrodden, the underdog, and the new majority voice has been disinclined to give it up. They still act outraged when there is the least suggestion that they've gone too far in their criticism of our country, government, or in praise of our enemies. They still have the mentality that they should "march on Washington" to get what they want, even as the balance has tipped in their favor.
"They" (like minded liberals) pretty much control the editorial departments of most newspapers, most "hip" Internet sites (like Slate), most of the weekly news magazines (Time, Newsweek) and most importantly they have a tight grip on education from kindergarten through PhD programs (the strength may increase as you go up the scale). If it weren't for the evangelical Christians (and the military) the libertarian-corporate right (Wall Street Journal) would have collapsed into a tiny minority.
OK, stop me.
What I wanted to talk about was the arts. The arts are largely a product of Academia in cahoots (if you will) with the liberal (moneyed) elite. [ I suppose there is still a moneyed conservative elite buying Impressionist paintings, but they are philosophically unimportant.] The liberal elite pretty much believe the same things: global warming not junk science, peace not war, socialism not capitalism, globalism not Americanism, organic not agribusiness, etc.
There are mild disagreements on timetables and such, but the THRUST of the belief system is intact, more intact because this elite still see themselves as an oppressed minority voice, marching for peace, if you will. Only now art, writing and movies are all (more or less) part of their tool set for overcoming their oppression.

As such, the contrarian writer or artist barely has a chance. He or she in order to "make it" has to get the approval of this powerful group of people who still see their most important job as promoting their agenda (peace, love, climate stabilization).

Art (and Writing) for Art (and Writing's) Sake

I'm thinking about this now that I'm getting rejections for both my novels (agents and publishers) and paintings (galleries and shows). I'm going to set aside for the sake of argument that my "stuff" isn't that good. It might not be. But what I'm thinking about isn't so much what is good and bad, but the market.
Yes, the market.
We live in a market economy. The arts, however haughty or insulated from it (mostly via the Academy), do direct themselves to getting "out there" and out there (we'll discuss the Internet in a moment) used to mean for writing, publishing, and for paintings, representation by a gallery and ultimately sales to collectors.

Segue for a moment to poetry. Do poets "have a market"? I imagine they do, though the self financed chap book has had more time to upgrade its image from vanity publishing for some time. The conceit is that the "masses" aren't really interested in poetry so, given we live in the Dark Ages, the poets have to support each other, i.e. publish each other, read each other. True, one would be hard pressed to find a poet who made a fulltime living out of poetry, though they may exist. I mean ones that ARE NOT teachers or somehow employed by educational institutions. So poetry is on life support.

John Updike recently opined about the future of "literary" fiction. Is it going the way of poetry, he asked. He elaborated that going the way of poetry meant that this kind of more (difficult) fiction would be read (in the future, even near future) primarily the the ones who WRITE it as well as students assigned it in their classes.

Let's assume for the moment this is true, at least a true trend. One can see in the New York Times Book Review, that slowly non-fiction has become dominant judged by the number of books reviewed. Fiction, at least fiction of the highbrow sort that the NYT would review is not in demand like it used to be, even recently in the postwar years of Updike, Roth, Cheever and Carver. People still read fiction (even on paper) but the "genres" take up the massive amount of readership. In Japan, the fiction lists are being crowded out by a new type of literature even simpler still--novels text-messaged on cell phones, eventually collected and printed as novels. People like them.

Back to markets. Markets are what people buy. Let's review.
Images:
Screen -- television, broadcast is "free" (though McLuhan said they price is your attention)
-- cable is purchased.
--computer -- mostly "free" (except porn and downloaded movies and some game sites)
"Wall art" -- how many people buy original art? Not decorator art?
--posters and inexpensive art
--what is the market for "walls"? How is it fulfilled?

To Be Continued

Why Write (PART II)

Why Write?

They say "writers write." This is cute, but not enough. Especially today, inundated as we are in so-called "information." The biggest "issues" I see are:

1. "Fine" literature has become the domain of the Academy. The Academy (Universities, MFA programs, non-profit Literary organizations) have a viewpoint. Despite the oft-repeated "we want to hear from unrepresented voices (ie. diversity)" the Academy has a political-social agenda. They KNOW who the bad guys are and they've rounded up the usual suspects (old white men, Republicans, capitalists, industrialists, military, Christians if fervent, etc.) They might entertain the notion that they open-minded but the most honest will admit that we live in too "scary" (a popular word) a time to allow any diversity of opinion AS IT RELATES to the causes of the problems confronting us (essentially the same list). "Diverse" means a voice from South Africa that "supports" a favorite agenda item (women's rights, global warming, the voraciousness of capitalism, etc.).

2. The Academy is the validator of the writers of our time. Even the "outsider" writer (see the Wall Street Journal article on Donald Ray Pollack's "Knockemstiff" 2/9/08) is allowed in provided he is knighted by the academy. That is he kowtows TO the academy by (of all things) quitting his "real" dayjob (the one that authenticates him) and going into an MFA program. I'm not saying they wouldn't like him if he didn't, but the means by which he was discovered had all to do with the MFA program at Ohio State University. Outsiders are consumed and in a sense digested in this manner. Perhaps Mr. Pollack can keep his outsider voice if he makes sure any outsider viewpoints that might creep into his work are clearly the words of "characters" like the technique Philip Roth used in "The Human Stain".)

3. MORE LATER


FROM EARLIER WHY WRITE I:





I would stop writing if... my inner monologue would quiet down.

I would stop writing if... I thought there were a lot of good writers out there.

I would stop writing if... I thought the next generation of writers had managed to wriggle out from under the (inevitably) politically correct pedagogy of MFA programs.

I would stop writing if... I thought Hollywood "got it"--that is, that young 'hip' writers, working in highly paid vaguely cooperative batches can produce solid fiction.

I would stop writing if... I didn't think "the media" was invading that part of the brain that needs a bit of quietude in order to make (better) decisions

I would stop writing if... I didn't have anything to say

I would stop writing if... I had so many "good books" piled up to read instead of digging for things that have been bypassed by the "National Public Radio" consciousness**

I would stop writing if...

Talkin' 'bout my (LAZY) generation!

I can't for the life of me figure out why (excluding enclaves of Christians, etc.) "my generation" is so largely liberal. I can't figure out why they would "go" for a candidate like Obama. I can only posit that there is a great deal of laziness involved. First of all, I'm OK with Obama's race, his middle name and even his lack of experience. Fine. But I suspect the reason so many (white) liberals are (soooo) excited about him is that they like to "solve" their own discomfort with large sweeping gestures that preferably do not require (hard) reading (like history) and involve large groups of cheering people (i.e. Woodstockian gatherings). Obama is perfect for this. If you "love" him there's a good chance you don't know (or care) that much about his positions. He's for "change" and, heck, what's wrong with change? He's a leftist? Well, he believes in Jesus an gun rights, so I can trot those qualities out to show he ain't a nutcase. And who said he was? I'm only saying he's primarily a SYMBOLIC candidate (we'll get to Hillary later) and my generation LOVES symbolism (especially in lieu of hard work). "Loving" Obama makes the average white voter cleansed of their race's sins, past and present, of racism, institutional racism, invisible racism, cultural racism, etc. Reborn if you will. As a Woodstockian "movement" you get to ride the happy train (wave signs, etc.) without doing too much more than that. OK, so maybe you're an organizer for Obama. Fine. As a SYMBOLIC candidate who might become a SYMBOLIC president, we (my lazy generation) are throwing hope (which is cheap) at problems (which are complicated). We HOPE that a SYMBOLIC president will (OK not magically) but symbolically move to the world off its current stalemate (hating America, growing disaffection of the second and third worlds).
We're HOPING that our Great Black Hope will show our enemies that we (1) hate Bush and all he stands for; (2) are willing to entertain radically different notions of our place in the world; (3) will understand the people of color better; and (4) not defend dated American notions of free trade, democracy, etc. Our new concerns will be global warming, "positive" globalization, "sharing" power, consensus, understanding and diplomacy, especially with the countries our silly old Texan called the "axis of evil." We're done with that silliness. We know that even if we are attacked (by freelance terrorists, say) we know it's not the whole world or a specific country attacking us, but a group of bad guys that can be rounded up and brought to justice without Guantanamo and without waterboarding, etc. Try it. Hit us, see how little we do!
Our lack of response will be SYMBOLIC, like our president.

Conundrum

I feel lazy and energetic. Hyper and wanting to sleep. Charged up and exhausted.
"Genius" and failed dilettante. Undiscovered genius and madman masturbating.
Old and young. Sexy and a fading flower. Healthy and sick. God-loving and god-hating.
Fervent believer and atheist.

(more later)