Art as an Act of Rebellion
It was early when I started this. I go through frequent bouts of insomnia. Sleeplessness can be both a blessing and a curse. The Dawn sky is beautiful, the lack of sleep makes me feel hardly human.
This particular piece evolved out of the musings of my morning pages. In fact, it came out of the same entry as the day that I’m writing this (17/07).
I wrote about how much I dislike the new paint and sip phenomena, also given the cringy name of prosecco and Picasso. It’s on the ‘What happened to art and I
’ post. I’ve been pondering deeply on this over the last several days. This morning I had a flash of inspiration to explore the topic of art and I deeper. I want to run with it and see what it becomes. I hope that I am channelling such energy in a productive way as opposed to a destructive way.
I think I remember reading in The Artist’s Way (By Julia Cameron) that the act of art is a rebellion. I know I’ve read it somewhere. Upon sitting down to do my morning pages (a byproduct of The Artist’s Way) I’ve come to see the truth of such a statement. When I think about myself as an artist and a writer and how I present that to the world what I am doing truly is a rebellion. I feel that the further into the arts that you go the larger the rebellion becomes. I’ve always been a rebel, it’s in my nature. Not because it’s some cool, trendy statement desperately clinging onto my emo teenage years, but because without fail what’s considered normal never really worked for me. I am the square peg that can’t fit into the round hole no matter how hard you try to bash it in. I am the big sister who isn’t cool. I am the oldest daughter who doesn’t feel dutifully obliged to her family. I am the girlfriend who prefers a new journal to write in as opposed to going to a fancy restaurant. I am the vegetarian in a world where veganism is the alterative diet. I am the person who orders a pint of Coca-Cola in the pub. That’s me. You can guarantee that if it works for most people then it doesn’t work for me. That’s how it’s always been. I just can’t help myself. A born rebel and what a strained existence it can be.
Through this I’ve come to realise what an act of rebellion it is to put art out into the world. The life of an artist and a writer is an interesting one. For me personally in order to put my best foot forward I spend so much time in solitude that it crosses the line into profound loneliness quite a lot. To create from the heart, from the eternal creator within, I require vast gaps of time in what feels like a silent retreat that I don’t always want so that I can hear that quiet inner voice and give it the form of words or pictures. This morning I have no doubt that my boyfriend will be upset that I’ve got up not long after the witching hour, that I have no plans of coming back to bed, that I am now relentlessly pursuing the small quantity of gold that I’ve found and I’ve now got to find more while the trail is fresh. That can be a tough one to explain to someone who isn’t artistic. He puts up with a lot. I’m deeply thankful for his support. As an aside the path of the artist and the path of the spiritualist are very similar. I guess that’s why they’re often practised together. I think it would good for me to do a post on being spiritual. Being spiritual is also an act of rebellion.
(The very space where chaos is organised into a piece of writing or art. You’d be amazed at the things that have come from working here
Continuing on the theme of solitude and loneliness I find that other people, normally without meaning to, can push that agenda leaving you feeling totally cast out and even more lonely. How many writers find that their nearest and dearest just aren’t readers? How many partners read their other halves Substack posts just to be nice instead of out of sheer interest? The post before last was 9 minutes long to read according to the Substack algorithm. My boyfriend nearly spat his tea out when he saw that. I can’t blame him for it. The man simply isn’t a reader. The latter scenario is all too common to far too many writers. Most people’s idea of reading is the bombardment of information on social media and emails at their mind-numbing desk jobs. Substack is a community of writers made by writers for writers, it covers a huge number of us, but still the reach has that writerly limit to it due to the overall societal perception of reading being boring. It’s easy to not read when you consider reels, TikTok, etc. Most people now don’t even have the attention span for a 10 minute YouTube video.
On the painting front I find the dreaded paint and sips to be my bane. I did informal painting classes that I had to put on hold during January and I’m not ready to bring them back yet due to burning myself out artistically. While I did these painting evenings I kept everything as cheap as I could. An evening with me was £10 as opposed to the £30 roughly paid for a paint and sip with an alcoholic drink. It was centred around mindfulness and bringing people together. The truth is that I barely broke even doing it. None of that mattered too badly though when I consider the joy that it gave people, me included. That made it worth it. I had people come along who had no idea how good they were until they sat down and painted. I saw people’s unique styles find their way onto paper. I saw their interpretation of colour reflect their souls. I saw small everyday miracles unfold in those 90 minutes and people would go away happy. What more could an artist, a human in this strange and often fraught world, ask for? It was so worth it. It was so worth it, but it was a nightmare to get people through the door. The truth is that paint and sips are getting bigger and ultimately most people don’t care about the eternal creator within or their own innate artistic abilities. People are happy to pay more to do a paint by numbers in a pub with a cancerous substance thrown in, that’s just where most people are at, and I can’t do a thing in this world to change it. I don’t deny the viability of paint and sip events as a business model, they’re brilliant, but they do make it a nightmare for me in terms of what it means for the painting evening. Maybe I’ll offer a line of cocaine for people to come to my events…? I’m joking, by the way!
Art as we know it is diverse and has many forms. I dig deep into myself and my imagination for inspiration. Often what I paint and the initial visualisation that it started out as are entirely different. My visualisations are quite a bit more complex than the work I produce. One day the two will match up, but that’s part of my artistic journey. I do tend to research and practice my latest topic before doing anything official with it. Sometimes I hardly have anything to go on when I want to do something, and it becomes an exercise in pure imagination for the lack of a muse. Once in a blue moon I will turn to fanart for help. Fanart has been most helpful in helping me to start unblocking myself. Magic the Gathering is rich in fantasy art and is deeply complex, I thoroughly enjoy it. I personally enjoy copying a Pokémon or two as well. Fanart is an incredible way to experience art. I do, however, have a bug bear about the mass sale of such art. Since I left my job to pursue the life of an artist I have sold two pieces of art, both original. I see the frequent sale of fanart within my own community even. There’s a part of me who feels rather slighted that if one googles their favourite, for example, comic book hero and does a pretty painting of it in their chosen medium that it’s far more likely to sell than anything original that I do. I can’t fault fanart, there’s some stunning pieces out there. I’ll admit to owning a rather stunning watercolour and ink painting of Alakazam (a Pokémon for all uninitiated ones). The issue I have is that as an artist does it negate the point of digging deep into the imagination when I can search for a stock image of Pikachu and just paint that instead knowing that it would likely sell quite quickly?
(The Alakazam painting. I could do much better than tape it to the wall really…)
It’s not my will to look down on people who don’t read, attend paint and sip events and have much success selling their fanart. In writing this a point that I would like to get across is the difficulty that writers and artists face in a world of instant gratification, supposed shortcuts and quick fixes mis-sold as a solution when they’re not.
To stick to your guns, to carry on despite the odds, to endure the loneliness when it goes past the point of solitude, to live with the lack of recognition, to not see hardly any financial return at all, to bear it all with a middle finger to the world and carry on as you started is a huge act of rebellion. One where support often feels scarce, and ignorance seems wilful and overbearing. Do you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the universe. I could post short videos of cats to TikTok instead of writing, I could set up a paint and sip and I could sell fanart. I don’t want to. That’s not me to do any of that. I know exactly where the money spinners in art are to be found and I’m just not interested. I knew when I got into this that my tribe would be small in number and that I’d even in my own way rebel against art. To be an artist is a rebellion. To be an artist who rebels against art is an even bigger rebellion. A rebellion where I just can’t help myself. You could put me in a room full of rebels and I’d find a way to rebel against them without meaning to. Some people learn to rebel in light of their circumstances. Some people came here to rebel. I’m the latter. Right, I’ve got to go find something to inadvertently rebel against. Toodles!!!!