WHAT IS ART?

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Today's posting is about art, and specifically, poetry.


I was moving down my track one day. Pushing my orange along. Smelling the pines, seeing the pines, some standing tall, some fallen. Then I saw her, doe eyed and thick thighed, saying “Hi”, and in her way of the day. Myself thick lipped and insecure, nothing to say today.

Those five lines were written by an inebriated acquaintance, extemporaneously and at a crowded bar. To my knowledge, he is not a writer. But as I was talking to the third person in our party, he took a notebook out of my hand and began writing. This was the result. And I was taken in by it.

At first, it was a little like gibberish. When I read it the first time, I laughed. I was so entertained, but then again, I was also, quite possibly, still a little drunk from the previous night. However, I thought the phrase “pushing my orange along” was hysterical, yet whimsical. I loved the phrase: “…saying “Hi”, and in her way of the day”. But after a few more reads, I started to see poetry in it. I began to see it as having a lyrical quality about it that resonated with me.

Most of it seems non sensical, but only if you are looking for something. If you are looking for meaning. There doesn’t have to be. I don’t even think there is any. But, in this I find whimsy, poetry, a sense of off handedness, and whether intended or not, a revelation about the writer.

I liked that he let the main character express his insecurity as a male. I found poetry in that. It was…well…oddly romantic. And then I realized that I had been seeing a painting in my mind the whole time, but I just hadn't been paying attention to it. I was just enjoying the words. But I will admit that a part of me was still thinking “WTF”?

And this is where the question of art comes in. There is always that debate about art and statements made or questions asked like “What is art?”, “What makes good art?” “Is something creative?” “Can you call this creative?” I love these debates. 

For me, anything that is original and reflects the truth that exists in someone is art. Because if something comes from an individual, then it, by its own nature is art. We truly are all snowflakes. No two are alike. So, anything that we express whether it is through writing, painting or if it’s through the way we dress, the hairstyles we choose, the way we speak, is all, inherently art.

What is the difference between an extemporaneous and inebriated seemingly jumble of sentences or a painstakingly written, re-written, edited, re-edited five sentences that took someone a month to right and in the end, still wasn’t happy with it? 

What if I had said that those five lines were written by E.E. Cummings? It has his style, rhythm, cadence…I actually had to ask the writer if he wrote it or if he had it memorized from his youth and just wrote it down because he was bored.

I am a well educated person that even has a degree in English, with a minor in Spanish Literature and Art History. So, I am not completely ignorant when it comes to the written word. I have read everything there is to read, and some of them in both English and Spanish. Poetry too.

Art and writing and creativity as a whole are subjects taken so seriously. And in my mind, a bit too seriously. If I can be made to feel, think or see something that is unexpected or new, then I am thankful for that.

And it doesn’t always have to be pleasant. I once stared for what seemed like hours at a Rauschenberg, feeling so uncomfortable that I had to walk away because I was becoming nauseous and breaking out into a cold sweat. I was actually having a psychosomatic reaction to this piece! And yet, it is considered art. Great art, in fact. It may have made me ill, but his work sells for millions.

So for me, the drunken gibberish told me a story, it painted me a picture, and it felt good. So why not share it?

This is what I came away with in the end:

I see a wide open spread of land far out in the country with a lane running through it. It is early morning and you can smell the scent of pine. I see a young man on one side, in a clearing, pushing a cart of some kind. He appears as though he may be taking its contents to the nearby farmer's market. As he does this, he watches a young woman across the way. She is hanging up laundry to dry. Her hair haphazardly pinned up on the top of her head, wisps of hair blowing in the wind. They are the only two people for miles and miles. She is barefooted and carefree, in a simple calico dress, while he is in overalls, wearing a hat and boots, all covered up, even with the sun shining brightly overhead. He hides behind that straw hat. He doesn’t want her to know how he watches her every day. But she knows.

Each day she looks over at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand and says “Hello” with a soft smile. And each day, he responds merely with a wave. And although this ritual might seem small and insignificant on the surface, there is more emotion and love than any onlooker could ever imagine.

She will never approach him. That is up to him. But she is patient. She has all the time in the world. And it makes her happy to know that one day, he will. 

That is the story I saw as I read it play out like a movie in my mind. But that’s me. It could just be a bunch of drunken gibberish that may or may not have meaning, but the author doesn’t even know what it is, let alone anyone who reads it. Maybe to him, the words just started coming out and sounded fun.

Maybe “she” isn’t even human, but an actual deer. She is “doe eyed” after all. Maybe he just thought it would be funny to write about someone pushing an orange. Or maybe, he wasn’t thinking at all. He had a pen and some paper and was bored by the conversation around him, so he just started writing something. Remember he was drunk and we were sitting in a very loud and crowded bar. So I really have no clue.

Clearly the verb tenses are way off and the punctuation is even worse. I have no idea what “thick thighed” means, but it rhymes with “eyed”, so I guess that works. And, the first sentence ends with the word “day”. As does the third. And the final sentence ends with “today”. Again, more rhyming.

But I am not a writer and I am certainly not a poet. Yet for some reason I was compelled to write about this. It kept popping up in my mind over and over after the first time I read it. I am one of those people that tends to see beauty and creativity where most people either do not see it or choose to not see it. But isn’t it more lovely to think that it was something more than nothing?