everybody is an artist, part 2
You think I'm kidding? Nope. Every human being, most chimpanzees and well, and any
elephant who catches on to painting is an artist. Probably also the bower bird, the magpie, other birds, certainly the wasp (oh yes, they are brilliant artists and work collectively), who else?
Let me tell you about the birds and the bees. Bees like my paintings. Probably for reasons other than aesthetic ones but who knows? A certain species of bird loved a sort of lawn decoration I made a while back when I owned a
mobile home in New Hampshire.
Every last human being has the capability of depicting a scene in a realistic way and make it look like what is being depicted. Well, then, you might ask, why then don't we see everyone doing some sort of fine art? Lack of confidence. They don't think they can do it. So they don't.
That can be quickly overcome, however, if the individual just keeps at it. In our societies, just about all of them collectively throughout the entire world and into history itself, the individual is kept down by a societal blanket of dissuasion. I mean it. You have no idea what the human being is capable of. And not just art, but also in all fields and disciplines, such as agriculture, industry -- even retailing! Even though retail seems sometimes like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
The business of retailing, for example, is actually, if done properly, a great art in which the merchandiser introduces to the clientele a constant stream of incredibly creative and imaginary items, swelling inventories to vastly unique and outstanding products. This doesn't happen in the contemporary world principally because the average human being is simply dissuaded from ever attempting to do so.
In short, you really have no idea what you're capable of. No idea of what the human being can do. So when it comes to art, well, of course, no one knows this hidden artist in each person walking the globe. I know somewhat about it, though, because of my station as a traveler and observer, and the studies I have been able to make of the individual at large in the world.
A lot of the problems in human society would simply dissolve away if people developed into their true capabilities. Having said that, sure, I can tell you with confidence that, yes, everyone, actually, is an artist. Maybe not great, but who said anything about that? What really matters is the originality that each separate personality could bring to the diversity if they had enough confidence to do so.
In fact, that's really the secret, if they only realized it, of the great artists throughout history: they thought they could do it and they did it, even if most of them had to endure privations to get there.
Copyright (c) 2005 by Paul A. L. Hall. All rights reserved.
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