The Nature of the Beast

Art is cruel, art is kind, art will come up to you and slap you in the face then tell you you are a god. Do you want an easy way out? Don't do art. Do you want to be challenged to your foundations and then challenged again on the new premises you have formed? Then choose art. Do you want to look into your soul, your heart, your psyche? Then do art. If you fear your own shadow, don't do art, or do it and learn not to fear but to explore it. Watch it grow in the evening and disappear only to show up the next day.

Art is a mirror in a fun house and you are looking into it hard but the second you think you know what you see the mirror changes and you morph into something else, don't look too hard, or, look sideways and you may catch a glimpse of what is real.

Art is mercury. Break the thermometer of society's rules and let the mercury flow out. It looks solid enough but try and capture it and it will split and break into new channels then rejoin again.

Art can capture reality, then reality changes, focus changes. You can see clearly or in soft focus or not at all. Art will teach you that every thing, every one is connected but you can also choose to show that they are not. If you miss the connection though, you will be looking only partly and miss the forest for the trees, the myriad of colors in the sunset, the texture of the air. Yes, you can choose not to take the challenge, you can choose to see only partly and you will get from A to B, Life to Death, but you might miss C, the process, the shear splendor of "being-ness".

Art is pen and pencil, paint and stone and chisel and brush and canvas, movement and voice, gesture and sound and word, but mostly it is a way of seeing. You can keep your eyes shut but you will still hear it come knocking and you can choose to answer or not. It could be a lion at the door or not and you may be consumed but like the phoenix you will rise again and again because you have begun a journey that is never ending, you have become aware.