I have been slowly reading this book over the past month since school started at NBCCD and discovered the wonderful refurbished library in the barracks!
I appreciate how he places an importance on the spiritual in art but his opinion is one sided rather than being an integrative vision spanning a broad spectrum. His belief is that the ultimate mission or purpose for art is to always seek to express the spiritual and through the act of expressing it through art the artist achieves "higher" states. It's all very new age philosophy and is obviously a movement against the counter movement that has been going on for years about not expressing the spiritual in art.
I believe that the mission of art is for the artist to find their fullest potential and all that holds them back is the clarity or lack thereof, of their vision.
There can be a huge discussion about exactly what constitutes spiritual art or why it is so called better than a painting representing reality. My argument is in defense of my own spiritual belief system which seeks to include rather than segregate and compartmentalize god/goddess into one area of creation. If God/Goddess creates physical reality then why is physical reality not seen as spiritual? My experience making art that represents something from nature whether realistic or abstracted reality is that I feel closer to the life force, to goddess/god. Everything is a reflection of Goddess/ God but also is that God/Goddess all at the same time.
People don't have to agree with me. My argument is simply, but why would you see spiritual art more in the human form than a landscape painting or a painting of an animal for example?
I also question the labelling of art styles because abstract very often simply is something from nature. Everything created simply is re-created in a new form. Sometimes it may not seem like something we've seen before but again it is really how we are looking at it. An abstract painting can be up close details of minerals found in nature or even of toxic waste whether the artist intended it or not. Maybe if we could understand and accept this perhaps our egos as artists would be humbled by understanding that we are recycling forms into something new. That we are working with a very old language and evolving it in such a way that speaks to the current culture of people that inhabit the earth.
Back to The Mission of Art, I felt myself not wanting to finish the book when he begins to speak more about how great taking LSD and other drugs are for bonding with God and creating an artistic vision and style that expresses God. To me, it just sounds like a lazy excuse to get high and attaching an overly bloated meaning to it as a form of self denial and defense.
I appreciated his description about his own process of creating art and how he has even taken years to finish a piece. I also appreciate that he mentions his wife and how she plays an important role and influence in his work.
Overall it's a good read but please do not start believing that the best art is your version of god/goddess or higher spiritual planes. I do love the things he says about how Art can be a form of worship and service and of being aware of the beauty of creation. I am however not about to start saying that an artists realist painting or sculpture is low because I know them to be lacking in spiritual awareness. I might as well as go so far as to say that nothing good comes out of an atheists mouth which isn't true! Most art has it's place in it's mission and function. I say most because some art I don't get and will never get. Such as the documenting of decomposing animals or laying in excrement and calling it "The Fools Room"
I do love that he included the little picture book about "How To Be An Artist" by his daughter Zena.
You can develop all kinds of notions about what art is and it's mission but art always becomes stale even if it is new and shocking or weird if the intention and vision of the artist was simply to stand out. This means the art wasn't about the art. The art was about them and their ego rather than a pure form of expression.
Yet people can say art is art because people and the artist label it so.
Then again, our ancestors made what we call "art" but probably didn't call it so or attach so many superficial and egotistic meanings to it.
When we attach these meanings and high society labels to art, when art is simply a form of human language, art is then institutionalized and objectified in ways that are not only demeaning but draw it away from it's real purpose.
When people look at art, fashion, music, a person or a group of people and the only thought on their minds is " What can I get out of this thing?" not only are they not perceiving the reality of what they seek to use, they are failing to learn and grow as a human being. Cutting off their own humanity themselves they do not see the human reality in others or in works of art. The fact that human hands or that a human voice made the piece and breathed life into it means that this human has a story to tell that can reach deep into another human being if they would just listen.
Ego, vanity and conceit are the large blockages in the ears of many people who have allowed themselves to become more fragmented in an ever fragmenting world.
In this age of technology we need to remember what art is and what it can offer us as a human language. Artists of all kinds from fashion designers, musicians, poets, fibre artists, painters, novelists keep what is human alive in us whether we know it or not. Even if we seek to use it for our own egotistic and selfish ends the art of others keeps what is left that is human in us alive.
It's a great book to read. Some backs are so weak in their statements and use of language you kick yourself in the butt for continuing to read it because you hope it will get better at some point!
This one you might get something out of if your open minded and have the ability to think for yourself rather than develop a form of new age snobbery towards "non spiritual" artists.
And I say this as an artist who is also spiritual, who makes art that is more traditionally considered spiritual and at others times not.
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