"Art: life and living"

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts, and or demonstrating an art.  It implies a mastery of any sort of craft. It is interesting to realize that in the understanding of an artist comes the influence of culture; societies’ take on what is “cool”, and what is not,  otherwise known as aesthetics.

 
 For example, ancient Greece never recognized painters and sculptors as artists. They were considered somewhere between freemen and slaves. The Italians believed that an artist was someone able to do a work better than others were. In that culture, the importance was skilled excellence rather than the activity field. I guess if all Ugandans were Italians we would have very vocal insights on what Ugandan politicians are skilled at. I’m just putting that out there.

There are so many definitions of an artist; you do not even need a dictionary by the way. I am sure even before you read this; you had your own take on the matter. So before I try to get into your head and define who I think an artist is or could be or, let me let you think about it just once more.

This is what I think.

As a child born and raised in Uganda, whenever someone said “artist” my mind went straight to the painters and anyone who messed around with colors. My infant mind suggested a connection of art with colors. and colors with painters and their kin. I guess it is the whole kid gig of drawing paper and the Crayola pencils for every class in school. You just had to color something in Math, English and Art class. I hereby hold the Ugandan education system responsible for my myopic view of this English word in a way, but mostly, the fact that I was a child.  In my continued growth, every newspaper article featured a musician as an “artist”, the unfailing identity marker being the dreads, chains, shades and raspy voice memo; so that with everyone I passed in town that fit that description, I would be pointing with child-like wonder saying, “Look mum and dad, an artist.”

My understanding of the word was never drastically concretized until I reached that teenage phase of self-discovery and contemporaneous self loathing- the“who am I” stage. The time of teenage angst and confusion.  It is that stage of wanting to be something sophisticated and different but mostly failing miserably at it. It is that necessary and dreadful stage where you wear the braces and blue eye shadow and listen to all the rock music because your hormones are telling you “weird” is a sort of artistry. It is like there is a persona that kicks in with puberty that is like, “Hey Kid, welcome to this new stage in life. My job is to make you the best weirdo you can be.” There should be some sort of therapy or hormoone replacement strategy to sell some new inclination for teenagers. On the other hand, it could have just been me with the struggles of life and increased journaling tendencies. 

In the end, it really got old for me. What if I wanted to do what I was told and be good at it even though I failed most of the time? It gets senile being the same mediocre everyone doesn’t mind you being. What gets really different and sophisticated is excellence. I mean in this day and age, there’s so much you get away with as a person, let alone as a teenager. For me, that was my way to be different. It just sucks that at that time, the easiest way is to give into the muddle of emotions in rebellion against the sanctity of normality. Anyway, that’s the goody-two-shoes stuff that I am somewhat made of and my infantile understanding of the word art. Yeah, I could have been a smarter kid.

The point is I struggled with the Italian-like mindset that is present in our culture today, or  a bit too salient in my own mindset. For whatever reason, I always felt the only way to be good at something, was to be the best at it- to be excellent. I then realized how vain that endeavor was because it’s very rare for you to be truly excellent at everything holistically connected to life and living. I realize the point is in trying to be excellent and having a steady progress towards it. What I mean is, while Paganini could arguably be the best violinist that ever lived, in reality there can always be someone greater. In the end, while Paganini is considered the most excellent violinist, because of the probability. He suddenly isn’t.

If being an artist is similar to being good at a craft or skill, they why can’t living be a sort of craft or skill. Before you criticize, indulge the hypothesis that “living is an art that we can become good at.” I realize that human existence is a form of artistry.  Living can be defined as the craft of being the best human you can be. Life and living to me is the expression of humanity. It is a very intense form of artistry. It is piercingly candor in its ugliness and ambivalent beauty because; life is life. Whether you are some rich person in Uganda or some pauper in Europe; We are all living life. I believe that is a skill and a craft that can be mastered and excelled at wherever, however and whoever you are. The issue we come up with though, is what excellence and mastery of this craft of living truly is.

I believe true living is achieved when our whole beings tend towards a nature that is apart from ourselves; a nature so much greater. This is because in expression comes the undeniable nature of the artist reflected. Therein are strengths and weakness in equivocal sight- bare. Same thing with living and any form of art; you can strengthen your strengths and weaken your weaknesses into inexistence.

Guess all I’m saying is I believe the only way you can be excellent at living is striving to reflect in nature and character the only perfect one- Christ. It involves falling and getting back up again, the struggles of faith and doubt, courage and fear but that is life, isn’t it? 

 

I’m saying that art is beautiful. Beauty is art. Life is beautiful art in this way. 

We are flesh and bone in both literal and metaphorical sense, a figure of speech that borrows a lot from the biblical conceptualization of flesh and bones- sinful, perishable, lacking self control and weak. The Holy Spirit, the helper, guiding you and teaching you steadfastly in the knowledge of Christ and the counsel of His word, and then the spirit of flesh, conflicting with the Spirit in every possible way. The spirit of flesh seeks everything depraved and humanistic, it seeks the satisfaction of its insatiable sinful appetites. 

It seems like the thing to dread is being Human. It is weakness. It is pain. It is folly. It is mortality. It is once. Take your pick at all the grave disadvantages and least preferred facts of life but in this conflict I have learnt that life is beautiful. Life is beautiful beauty as art. (Indulge the semantics please)

It isn’t a fateful and undeadening crush of ruthlessness, it is an overflow of the understanding and experience of love- the love of Christ himself. I am won over constantly by that amazing love. Life is no longer just pain and despair, confusion and regret, but redeemable by the presence and overflow of love. 

There is an ancient Japanese art that I have forgotten, mostly for the reason that its name is in Japanese, that thrives and centers on the beauty of brokenness for the very fact that in redemption of brokenness is another particular all surpassing beauty. In this art, broken pottery and the like were pieced together using molten silver and gold as significance of that beauty. 

I see life in the same way. 

You can choose to concentrate on the fact that it isn’t just one perfect spherical whim, but even in that, you realize it is definite and can thus be appreciated.

Life is beautiful. But only with love as that molten Gold and silver piecing us together after we heed the spirit of the Flesh and not the Spirit Christ gave us, his very own Spirit, his very mind and counsel within us. Life is beautiful because of the love of Christ and so life is art. We can be good at being loved and loving others as we have been loved.

Life isn’t necessarily roses and lilies, and cotton candy and chocolate. It’s also pain and heartache, and sadness and depression; that one thick and dark cloud in the blue sky. Until that silver lining appears, all you had before was a blue sky. Life is beautiful because we have silver linings. Silver linings are art. Amazing, silver sliverer linings. 

Okbye.

Romans 8; 29

“For those he knew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he may be the first born among many brothers.”