Eyes
Wide Open
“To
be an artist it is not necessary to make a living from our creations. Nor is it
necessary to have work hanging in fine museums or the praise of critics. To be
an artist it is necessary to live with our eyes wide open, to breathe in the
colors of mountain and sky, to know the sound of leaves rustling, the smell of
snow, the texture of bark. To be an artist is to notice every beautiful and
tragic thing, to cry freely, to collect experience and shape it into forms that
others can share.”
Jan
Phillips
There
is a house a couple of blocks from me that has a stand of paper birches in the
front. Five trunks rise out of the ground in different direction, shaggy and
straight. When Liza and I walk by, I always squelch the urge to peel some of the
hanging bark off to see how it might be incorporated into a piece of art. That’s
the way artists think—"Wow! That’s cool! What could I do with it?” We tend
to embarrass our children by picking up odds and ends that other people have
thrown away.
My neighborhood has
alleys that run behind the houses where people put their discards and recycling
for pick-up. I confess that when I see something interesting, I take Liza home
and drive back to collect it. I’ve found some neat things that way. Just this
week, a neighbor, who is a master gardener, had put out for trash pick-up
several over-sized plastic containers that mature trees come in. I “liberated” two of them
to use for my container garden.
I have a couple of philosophies
that support this trash-pilfering lifestyle—one is that we live in a disposable
culture that no longer serves us. We throw away too much stuff. There used to
be repair shops for almost everything. If your toaster broke, you took it to a
shop, and they fixed it. Now, we put them on the curb and buy a new one that
has built-in obsolescence, so in three years, we’ll need to buy another one. Even
large-scale construction is done this way. I was told by a contractor that
apartment complexes, for instance, have made their major profit in about seven
years, so that’s how long they’re built to last. It makes no sense to me, but
it’s the mentality that drives capitalism.
The other philosophy has
more to do with the drive to create something out of nothing, to reuse,
repurpose, reinvent. I can’t afford to buy all new stuff, so I scavenge. Have
you ever been fossil hunting? You walk along staring at the ground, or at the
rock formations around you—sandstone is especially productive for fossils. And
when you spot one, you painstakingly pry it away from its million-year resting
place. Seashell collecting is like that too. They’re another form of
scavenging.
I remember when I was
told about my art, “you must have too much time on your hands,” and when my son
was told about his, “it makes too much of a mess for something that doesn’t
make money,” and when my tax accountant asked, “how much time to you spend on
this stuff?” All these dismissive attitudes make clear the notion that nothing is
worth the investment of time and effort unless it makes money. I find that sad;
also, staggeringly ignorant. Should we eliminate all video games since playing
them doesn’t make money? Or how about a “pick up” games of basketball? Or, as
is popular in my neighborhood now, bike riding. No cash there.
I pray that this attitude
changes in my lifetime. I’d love to see people simply enjoy themselves, be
creative, express joy, have fun, even if no money changes hands. After all, we’re
all artists at heart.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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