Why I make art; To be.

Why the art that is made?

Humans have been making art for some time and continue to do so. But why? Where did this all begin? What purposes begun this apart from the reasons we know that sustain it?

From the backdrop of the last entry, and amidst so much more that wasn’t necessarily articulated within it, it has been difficult for me to get out there with art on one hand, and even more difficult to get the art itself out there, on the other.

Sometimes you need a rational cerebral, smart sounding reason for doing something. At least that is one of the measures I employ when I need to make a decision, notwithstanding that I am the most indecisive person I know. While most times I’m too chicken to do what I need to, other times I’ll just do what I want and what is comfortable- be chicken.

Sometimes to decide and hype myself up about something, I have to find a justification and convince myself its not just a prevarication. Any explanation that is more, “Why; than Why not” or more “Why not; than Why” depending on the circumstances and arising need, but also rich in substance and objectively inviting in presentation, will help settle the score.

For example, I would go out with a renegade if he asked me, depending on the renegade and where he asked me out of course. Mostly because I imagine our lives and stories would from that moment on be intertwined into the mature type of lovey- dovey, ” A walk to remember” power story with Switchfoot songs playing in the background, and their “Learning to breathe” lyrics thematically positing as the literary backdrop for of all the events that would unfold thereafter. After that is  envisaged in my mind’s eye as a pleasing unravelling of events, I’d then find a smart way of affirming the rationality of all those thoughts by applying something like the Darwinian handicap principle.

We give boys our numbers and agree to go on dates with them because our species must survive; alas tis a necessary biological endeavor, premised and conditional on the satisfaction of convincing requirements for our survival; and by our I mean, my babies and myself. Yeah, that escalated quickly, but I mean Darwin begun and ended the summary of our existence with its purpose as survival, by natural or sexual selection. So yeah, right from the ground to that level of escalation I tell you. No where else to waste time yo.

According to the aforementioned principle, females will initially look for direct indications of survival-promoting traits such as strength, intelligence or health and prefer corresponding mates. But they are confronted with the problem that the signals with which an individual advertises his qualities can be fraudulent. Because signals without a cost are subject to abuse, those that are difficult to produce will consequently become more common. In other words, women will prefer men who really take risks, survive unhealthy behaviors or stage elaborate demonstrations also known as the renegades. By the same token, men will prefer women who show traits that are difficult to produce – such as smooth skin, a symmetric physical form or full hair. As the 21st Century is our friend, the latter can be satisfied after the former is met and therefore me meeting that renegade is completely normal and justifiable.

Now, it has been a whole other brain wrecking story concerning the justifications of me out there with my art, let alone my art out there. With all that’s coming at you from the other side when it comes to yourself and then the art, its so hard to swim against that current and be as fast as those that by their make, fit with its direction. I’ve had to sit down and ask myself, “Why I make art at all” even before I came to “Why the art I made” in particular.

So here’s some of what I came up with;

Outside of myself, when looking for the answers to this question, I found Darwin’s assertions that make some kind of sense. Darwin asserted that in the course of evolution, only those traits that promote survival will prevail in the long run. Thus, in principle only physical traits and behaviors should exist that are useful, i.e. promote survival and/ or reproduction. And thus it was initially a mystery why some marked biological traits are not only useless but convey the impression that their whole purpose is to endanger the survival of the individuals or to waste scarce resources, like with art. In humans a surprising number of wasteful and/or risky traits and behaviors can be observed that have no direct utility but serve to verify the authenticity of a quality signal. With art humans perceive luxury and lavishness as pleasurable, create objects made of expensive, rare or hard-to-work materials or ornament objects even when this impairs or even negates their usefulness. Therefore, still in application of the handicap principle, it explains why in selecting mates some features are preferred that are costly and risky – i.e. art is a handicap that serves as a guarantee for the honesty of the signal from a potential wooer to wooee. We make art because it is a handicap that makes us attractive.

There is also the extended phenotype argument that the genetic qualities of a potential mate can initially be deduced not only from all perceptible traits on the surface of the body, from hair, eyes, teeth, but also from the voice and the elegance or power expressed through movements. Furthermore, the striving for beauty comprises everything that can be associated with a person, i.e. objects such as tools, musical instruments, weapons, clothing and dwellings. These things too must not only be effective, but attractive as well i.e art is made because being artsy and loving art is attractive, thus more wooing and eventually the survival of our species.

These were some of the more convincing reasons I found when I sought to find answers. However these reasons and the others out there don’t resonate as strongly as the one that I found inside myself. That reason is enough for me to justify why I make art, and therefore why I should keep making art, and even the art I create in particular.

Recently with a friend, we discussed the blessing and curse of perception. That sight that is perception may come through many different forms; knowledge, language, abilities of deduction or understanding and indeed all these in turn build conviction and belief. However, what is perceived and not forgotten is that which is felt. It maybe repressed and twisted, replaced with alternates but never forgotten. All this information therefore is stored within us, replaying in our minds that are eager to make sense out of it because that’s the crux of the issue- everything has meaning.

We are burdened with that knowledge because we will not resist seeking it out even if we wanted or even needed to. If we did, we would feel like an essential party of us is dying; like the most real parts of us are starved of purpose, even though our physical frames subsisted. We would be about life alive and breathing but carrying within our deepest parts the most agonizing form of perpetuated death. We would will it go all numb inside us un the despairing declarations of the antonymic- maybe nothing has meaning? Maybe all that is before me is all that should be and all there is? Life and its circumstances would cause us to painfully plant ourselves in one mindset and perspective only to cause doubt and have us excruciatingly yanks all we are by the roots out of that soil in search of another; all because we can not unknow what we know. We cannot unsee that everything around us has meaning. We cannot unfeel what we have felt.

Without art therefore, I would be an existential wreck thrice more villainous than the Joker I reckon. Art is the way I breathe amidst all of this suffocation. Art is the means by which I process and deal and vent. It is a means among others that exist for so many other people, for me to be. I am psychologically, emotionally and even physically well and whole when this channel is unobstructed. Through it, I vicariously exist in the contentment that I can and should perceive and connect with all the meaning around and inside me, for myself and for others, like me and otherwise. I am well aware of the very minimum at least of why this is; my personality, the circumstances of my upbringing and the influences that have taught me to see the world this way, the way God ordained this all and the way God made me. This is the foremost reason I make and love art and why after and through everything, I keep at it how I can and to the extent I can. This is the reason that surfaces when the point of art is drowned in confusion.

I feel every artist had their reason for making art that’s completely scientifically justifiable and objectively rational, but hella personal as well. All you need to do is look at their lives and you’d be able to figure some of it. Prince, David Bowie, Beethoven, Enid Blyton, John Lennon and Maya Angelou, King Solomon and his father David. The scientific becomes personal.

I agree that it is indeed all some sort of survival artists, are trying to achieve.

But it’s definitely more than just survival for survival’s sake.

It’s something so much deeper than survival.

It’s existence.

Art and it’s story is about existence.

Yes, survival as part of existence, but existence irrespective of whether we survive or not.

I don’t make art to survive. I make art to be.