An art connoisseur speaking to an artist about his work at a busy gallery.
“I love your work. It’s so profound. It speaks to generations. You must be loaded! Let me introduce you to my friends, we may have some good work for you.”
“Commissions, sir? I do it a bit differently.”
“No, child! Think big. A line of commissions. Auctions. A powerful message. Make the news explode, turn you into a millionaire over the next few months. You get the picture a little late, it’s okay. You have no idea what I’m capable of at this moment!
This ability, this talent, it needs to be protected. Directed.
And you, so effortlessly channeling what we all see but do nothing about, into pieces that make me want to hug my grandmother. Heck, makes me feel like grams came back and gave me a hug!
We may have something good here. What do you mean you do commissions differently though?”
“Thank you for your kind words, sir, but I must refuse your generosity. Because I do not do this for my own self. I’m just a hobbyist. That piece you were looking at earlier is the direct result of watching my neighbor’s mother fall to a terminal illness.
This piece you stare at, well, I made this when I lost the job I hated last week. And that’s why, all my art is up here for display. I call it, ‘The Last Exit’.
So you see, sir, though I recognize my penchant for art, I’m no artist, nor worthy of an auction. I just feel like art makes me happy, and helps me achieve mental clarity. The commissions are just a bonus, and they’re all random – I don’t, or can’t do depictions.”
“You clearly have no idea how good your own art is!
How effortlessly you channel pain into art, it’s exquisite, and may I say, will sell remarkably well. We have an entire team to help you do this, and you’ll just need to channel some of your energy into a message that really reaches out to the people who need it!
Because just look at your art – it’s beautiful!”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Watching someone like me fall into hurt?
Over and over again.
Me, who so effortlessly blends it into my paint.
Me, who uses art as therapy.
As an escape into recovery.
Me, that sometimes bleeds it.
Yet, “it’s all about me”, isn’t it?
Though my art relates;
To those looking,
Or much more so, suffering.
To the rest, it’s just.. beautiful, isn’t it?
When they hurt me and a painting comes out, so they hurt me more.
Or when they hurt me in ways they’re hurting, to find artful pathways of healing through it.
When I hurt myself, and let it happen, because art succeeds where medicine fails, just to heal them, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?
When I look back at the canvases of my very lived human experience I filled in with meaning, not in ink, but in blood, it’s.. no longer beautiful, is it?
It’s just.. directions.
So you ask me what art is.. I believe art, is lived human experience, transformed into directions. And not in ink.. but in blood.
Art, is just subconsciously layered directions. Good art, is well meaning directions. And bad art, well, is propaganda at best.
But what’s beautiful, is that good art doesn’t fade away, but bad art is always, always exposed.
I do not need your protection, sir.”
Moment of silence. The day moves on.
What happened next, is to nobody’s surprise.
He took up the guy’s offer. Twenty million people saw ‘Are You Hungry?’ – a series of gut wrenching visual masterpieces depicting starving kids across different cultures, and it made the whole world cry.
Great campaigns, the artist became an overnight legend. They ran a bunch of auctions, the world saw his “work”, and the guy lived as a multi-millionaire. Retired rich, early, with the girl of his dreams.
The art stopped right after “The Last Exit” though.
Don’t ask me what happened to the starving kids.. nobody knows.
What’s important is that his art is still up for grabs, if you are willing to buy yourself a piece of history.
Until the next auction.
