Art as Life
This morning - this early, early morning - I sat in the Burgh Lobby and listened to Stephen King's On Writing, on audio CD. It's a wonderful description of his early years, his first publishing experiences, and some hints he directs towards writers regarding the craft.
At one point in his dialogue, King relates the following:
"Life isn't a support system for Art. It's the other way around."
This struck me (at that moment) as a keen and intelligent statement, especially relevant for my life. Far too often have I felt the need to write just to write; then what comes out of that writing doesn't truly matter, as long as I write. And other times I have felt that I should build a life that allows me to write, and then once I have that system in place, to write my brains out - because after all, if I keep writing, eventually my work will turn into gold, and my pen will shine brighter than the sun.
After I heard that statement (along with the story of King and his alcohol and drug problem) my heart stirred faintly, and somewhere inside me, I heard an echo of those words - as if I knew that all along, but were unwilling to admit it. Our Art, whatever it may be - but that Art as a symbol of our being, is not what puts food on our table, and is not a hobby for us to toy around with, like we would action figures or dolls, nor is it something to step back and rest on like movies or even books. Our Art is what defines who we are, and how we feel society should express itself, or how society is already expressing itself (if we feel the need to notify our readers of that, as part of our Art). Our Art is Ideal - it is not what we do day to day, second after second, but rather, it is what we want from life, and what we want to want from life.
You can spout off Wordsworth and Coleridge, who argue that Art is the common life and the common man - but if you read their work, you understand that although they meant to express the starkness of what they saw, they turned the men of their work into figures large and great - Ideal.
I couldn't really concentrate on anything I heard King say this morning after that point. The statement rang in my head for a few hours after I heard it, and yet it still tolls.
At one point in his dialogue, King relates the following:
"Life isn't a support system for Art. It's the other way around."
This struck me (at that moment) as a keen and intelligent statement, especially relevant for my life. Far too often have I felt the need to write just to write; then what comes out of that writing doesn't truly matter, as long as I write. And other times I have felt that I should build a life that allows me to write, and then once I have that system in place, to write my brains out - because after all, if I keep writing, eventually my work will turn into gold, and my pen will shine brighter than the sun.
After I heard that statement (along with the story of King and his alcohol and drug problem) my heart stirred faintly, and somewhere inside me, I heard an echo of those words - as if I knew that all along, but were unwilling to admit it. Our Art, whatever it may be - but that Art as a symbol of our being, is not what puts food on our table, and is not a hobby for us to toy around with, like we would action figures or dolls, nor is it something to step back and rest on like movies or even books. Our Art is what defines who we are, and how we feel society should express itself, or how society is already expressing itself (if we feel the need to notify our readers of that, as part of our Art). Our Art is Ideal - it is not what we do day to day, second after second, but rather, it is what we want from life, and what we want to want from life.
You can spout off Wordsworth and Coleridge, who argue that Art is the common life and the common man - but if you read their work, you understand that although they meant to express the starkness of what they saw, they turned the men of their work into figures large and great - Ideal.
I couldn't really concentrate on anything I heard King say this morning after that point. The statement rang in my head for a few hours after I heard it, and yet it still tolls.