A while back I received a text message from a friend of mine which read, “Just because nobody understands you, does not mean that you are an artist”.
I was highly amused at the time but the message slipped my mind until this past week when a colleague and I were discussing who, amongst the artists we know, are where in the world and what they are up to, and I began to wonder why so much of society considers artist as strange or misunderstood.
Admittedly, being labelled in this way can sometimes be attributed to peculiar behaviour (even by artist standards).
Take Tom * for example, who born on Dec 25 came to the conclusion that he was a descendent of Jesus Christ, acquired 12 disciples and started a cult. The role of his disciples was to stand around a large table and paint a variety of colours and shapes on paper or canvas , to which Tom* would later add a few charcoaled figures in strange dream like poses á la Chagall and sign his name at the bottom of the works , which had largely been created by his disciples.
Things soon got out of hand though when Tom* decided to wander around the farm he lived on, in the nude and is purported to have done some strange things with people he should not have been doing strange things with!
Not all of us are Toms however and what would be considered peculiar by the majority of society usually has a very straightforward explanation.
I was recently complaining to a fellow artist and friend that my biggest irritation at the moment, is having to change my clothes half a dozen times a day. I have never become disciplined enough to wear an apron when I paint and apart from being seldom able to find it amongst my canvases , I can’t stand the tie thingy at the back of my neck. I therefore have a range of outfits that I refer to as my “paint clothes”. They are items that have become laden with paint over the years, worn thin from being covered in solvents and often comprise a particularly messy corner, on which I have repeatedly wiped my brushes.
I therefore change in and out of them as my day unfolds and I have to run errands, shop or do a school lift.
My colleague suggested that I take the arty look along to carry out my chores and my school lifts . She explained that it would be a great marketing tool, in that people would be curious as to what I was painting or why I chose to wear such original attire.
I, however, strongly suspect that the local community will soon be whispering amongst themselves that I am peculiar and have little pride in my appearance.
It is perhaps enough already that I am considered reclusive, asocial and have issues with commitment, however, if looked at realistically, it is often what my work requires.
American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man has genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and ill provider”.
Art requires commitment, hard work and often intense concentration for long periods at a time. Creating a work of art requires focus from the very start of the formation of an idea through to the completion of the work that the idea finally gives rise to. It is very difficult to constantly have ones focus interrupted by phone calls, visitors and social gatherings.
I am quite certain that it is through this same commitment to our work that we become considered “strange”.
Perhaps now, having justified my “strangeness’, I might try out my art attire at the mall, at least unlike *Tom, I am not yet compelled to go naked!
*name changed for obvious reasons
