The Grand, Unified, “Arrogant” Theory of the Artistic Person
My previous Blog post about what I like about audrey kawasaki and what I think sucks about audrey kawasaki provoked me to record cumulatively what casual conversation through the years often brings out of me. This product—and, to pander to the cynical observer, we can call it a waste product—can be filed under ‘the theory of the artistic person.’
In the rasx() context, there are two general categories of so-called artistic people: you have the artist by inheritance and you have the artist forged by crisis. My next flippant remark is that, unless you are a trained professional, you need to stay away from the artist forged by crisis. The artist by inheritance gives better dinner parties—they have the best opportunity to be home trained.
The Artist by Inheritance
The easily identifiable artist by inheritance is the child of relatively wealthy (administratively functional) families. This child grows up around “creative people” in a very simple, straight-forward manner. Celebrities of my category include: Ravi Coltrane, Ben Stiller, Kara Walker and Sofia Coppola.
Remember we are talking about relativity here. Surely artists of inheritance have stories about a “crisis” but let’s move on to distinguish them in my next category:
The Artist Forged by Crisis
The easily identifiable artist forged by crisis is a person that effectively had to make a choice between dying for their broken home or doing something else that the proper authority figures would call “art.” Often they would merely postpone their death, to do this work—and then drop dead later. Success for these people literally means that doing art saves their life.
The celebrities of this category include: Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Gil Scott Heron, Jack Kerouac, Jim Morrison, Jean Michel Basquiat, Judy Garland (and her daughter) and you get the idea.
The celebrities of the category who survived (or were even saved alive) include: Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Frida Kahlo and too few others among the celebrities but there are millions among you! I respect what they have done but experience informs me to warn you again: unless you are a trained professional, you need to stay away from the artist forged by crisis.
Conclusion
When you really have to be an ‘artist’ (this word and the cultural systems connoted by this word are not recommended), you should prefer to be somewhere between these two general categories, leaning heavily on the inheritance. This means people need to stay away from you part time instead of full time.
There are very effective ways to inherit an artistic tradition other than being the child of Quincy Jones. The European fantasy we often take for granted, this notion that all Europeans descend intellectually from the Greeks, is a perfect example of getting artistically/creatively motivated through pretense.
Ironically, the suggestions have been and will be strong that my claim to my Old Kingdom African roots is another example of this pretense—but my Middle Earth is real, as the equator passes through the heart of Africa were the earliest humans were born and where the ancient Egyptians tell you they came from when you inquire at their mouth… For Tolkien, though, his Middle Earth is an excellent work of pure fiction. Peter Jackson’s trilogy is in my collection.
The entire concept of the artist is on similar shaky fictional ground—and this is why there is some element of historical truth behind a warlike culture’s disrespect for the so-called “artist.” In a world of war, the so-called artist with all the proper imperial trappings is a tool of propaganda and distraction. Most artists are wracked by crisis, the broken homes they escape from and the industrial production line they are building, many have no spare time to devote to comtemplating “bullshit” like this. But somehow you often catch them in moments of “mysterious” unhappiness and dissatisfaction. My white-liberal youth is filled with my sympathies for this tragic situation. My “cranky,” Black-ass adult self stays away with a different knowledge that took years to cultivate…
So, obviously one of my artist colleagues that knew me when I was younger, and, most tragically a “friend” with strong African features—a passionately self-described “artist”—will now distance themselves further from me. But for some “sick” reason my motivation is to keep writing “shit” like this rather than be stuck in some prison of a pretense looking for “artistic” freedom that is based on barbarian fiction and distracting vandalism. To me, this prison renders clear to me as what a real, Old-School “Native American” sees when they see a suburban lawn. The tradition of the “Native American” of “The Great Plains” says that entire Western half of the continental United States is my front yard. And here we have some “artist” trying to tell me in so many museum-destined words that an acre of tightly managed green turf surrounded by a cage of asphalt and concrete is a new frontier.
This note is for all debts public and private.
Afterword
Writing and talking like this in the context of the rasx() context is like bursting into a Rick James orgy scene and saying the cops are coming—and the cops do not want to have sex. It’s like telling Kirk Franklin that Jesus is coming and he’s telling everybody that Kirk’s music sucks. It’s like telling every real estate developer and investor in New York that the high rise building is no longer necessary due to recent advances in networking technology… Just letting you know that my person is well aware of some of the tragic consequences as a result of putting this in your face.