23

An artist is a maker, and we are all artists in some way. God is the first artist; God made something out of nothing. We follow, making something new from what is already there. That is human nature: to make, to create, to be artists. What we make ranges from, say, the miracle of Michelangelo’s David to patterns of sounds to wardrobe design to ink scratched on skin to anything, In the end, though, one way or another, we are all at least part time artists, and since before (perhaps long before) the Cave Paintings of 35,000 years ago there have been differences as to how it all should be judged and evaluated. Particularly is the modern art world, or at least a part of it, a puzzle.

 

What on earth is going on? Twisted pieces of metal, random swipes of paint, empty words, discordant noises, meaningless designs and structures, etc. Often guided by that popular modern cultural principle, “whatever is new is good and whatever is different is better”, much modern art (and much of our lives in general) appears to be entirely nonsense.

 

Yet we must be careful. Sometimes there is purpose, order, and pattern beneath it all. Sometimes it is not that the artist cannot do, but that we cannot see; not that the artist does not explain, but that we cannot understand. It may be that the artist tried but failed to accomplish something. It may be that we are just too limited or aesthetically dense to recognize what is there. Careful study could and sometimes does reveal beauty and order, purpose and meaning.  Sometimes, modern art really is art; sometimes it is not, and making judgments is risky. We are not in a comfortable position when we claim to be art critics.

 

However, though it may be difficult to make judgments about art, one may say something, in general, about artists and—ourselves, and that is that there are true artists and false artists, and although the observer may not always be able to tell the difference, the true artist says look at my work; the false artist says—loudly—look at me. And we are all artists to some degree.