I don’t remember what year it was. I found myself at a kind of arts and music festival nestled in the hill country. The event was hosted by a subculture of people about whom I do not know enough to credibly speak. I was told it would be a temporary community. A city would rise and fall over the course of a holiday weekend. With reverence we would create then destroy to pay homage to the impermanence of all things, like when the monks scatter the sand mandalas after hours and hours of meticulous attention to detail. Some friends asked me to join them and be a part of their camp. It was their community. I was their guest. I will say, one of the things that drew me in was that, apparently, one of the rules of the event was “No Spectators.” I took that to mean that the participants would be artists, thinkers, and seekers. You couldn’t just show up and watch. You had to contribute a verse. Easy enough. I brought some art.
I quickly learned that the main thing to do at night, after the sun went down, was dance. Those who chose to, which seemed to be most, put their respective camps on autopilot and migrated toward a central hub. A wide-open field where the stars twinkled through the haze of electric light. There they danced the night away. Twisting and gyrating to the rhythmic pulse of the music, as a wizard spun his spell on center stage. You could see them lose themselves in it. Swept up in a whirlwind like sugar stirred into tea. A boundary dissolving condition indeed. Truly transcendent. Well, I don’t dance. So I found myself sitting back at camp, with a group whom I’d only just met. They were welcoming of this stranger, and like me, they were not very keen on dancing. So, we sat around visiting for a bit, trying to find an answer to one of life’s toughest questions. You know the one.
“What do should we do now?”
Someone brought up that one of the participants was billed as a shaman and his presentation was about to start. He was going to address a gathering, and then give each person one-on-one time where he would diagnose your spirit animal. If we left now, we could make it in time. Now, this piqued my interest. It was a bold statement for sure. To announce yourself to the world as a shaman (which itself is a weighted term) in possession of some special esoteric wisdom. To draw in a crowd and lay that wisdom bear, with confidence that it would pass muster with the most skeptical minds you would inevitably encounter. To face a crowd with openness and vulnerability. To stare into an abyss, as it stares back into you. Glad it’s you and not me buddy. Yea let’s go see him.
When we arrived at the tent it was already crowded. It occurs to me that my expectations were wholly informed by cliches and cultural archetypes. Still, I saw some things I expected to see. Tapestries lined the walls. The seating area was laid with rugs. Incense was burning. Candles were lit. The shaman was seated facing the crowd. He was wearing a hooded cloak. He held a staff. He was a bit younger than I thought he would be. The archetype in my head called for an old man. This guy had to be in his late twenties. More things I expected to see. He was wearing sneakers. Black denim jeans. (To match his cloak, I assume) He had corrective lenses. Who knows, maybe he was a pizza delivery driver in real life. Right now, he was a shaman. And we were all gathered here to listen to him speak. This is where me and my group parted ways. They worked their way to find a seat front and center. I preferred to watch quietly from the back. Once everyone was seated, he began.
“Human beings are communal creatures. Our evolutionary success is predicated on our ability to cooperate. Division of labor has allowed us to advance civilization far beyond what our ancestors could have dreamed possible. All communities emerge from cooperation. And all communities will have needs. There are roles we need to fill to make the whole thing work, both at work and in our personal lives. The needs of the community are a calling for us to fulfill. Meeting the needs of our community provides a sense of purpose. Helps us feel fulfilled. So, as we search for meaning in our own lives. As we contemplate our own sense of purpose. One thing we can do to look for clues, is ask ourselves “What do I do for my community? For the people in my life? For my friends? For my family? For my coworkers. For my spouse? My Pets? For nature? For the world at large?” Not just your vocation, but who are you in relation to the world around you? A loving son? A gifted daughter? The person at the office you can always count on to say what needs to be said even if no one wants to hear it? What do you do for the world around you? If you are what you do, then who are you?”
By the moment this last sentence was uttered he had already chosen his victim. Seated in front of him was one of the guys in my group. The shaman looked him directly in the eye and asked, “So who are you?” You could hear a pin drop. You could hear his heartbeat. You could hear his silence. The question was layered. In the moment, any answer he could find wasn’t deep enough to satisfy the true depth of the question. So, he just stared back into the shaman’s eyes and let the awkward silence set in as both of their smiles grew wider and wider. The shaman continued:
“You see, it’s hard, isn’t it? Because once you give your answer, once you make the “I am” declaration, you become responsible for the entire spectrum of conditions and affirmations that flow from it. You have talked the talk, now you walk. Now you prove it. And this is why so many of us fail to actualize. It really is fear causing so much fruit to die on the vine. Finding yourself is more like finding your place in the space you are in. Like taking a part of yourself that has announced itself as meaningful and bringing greater definition and clarity to It, then integrating it into the world around you. As you take your place in the world, so does the world see itself through you………”
Looking back, I remember thinking "Man, imagine if he had called on me. I would not have hesitated. I am an artist. Never been surer of anything.” Then the voice in my head chimed in, “Ok, so what does that mean? What do you do for the community? What need does the community have that gives the artist purpose? Gives you purpose?” And as I was about to fire back at my argumentative inner inquisitor about how obvious the answer really was, I had to stop myself. Because I realized the answer wasn’t obvious. In fact, if anything, the question was layered. And none of my answers were deep enough to satisfy its depth. Guess I’ve never had to put it into words before. Like it was one of those things we all just implicitly understood and never really questioned. Entire periods of human civilization have been defined by their art. History taught us art was important. Some paintings on a cave wall in France were a big deal because they were put there before history even started recording. Art is an essential element of being human, right? Art is important to society, right? It’s just been a while since I’ve heard anybody say why in a way that satisfies. It’s a good question. It deserves a good answer.
Here's the thing. I’m sure there are professional artists, well-educated teachers, art dealers, avid collectors, and probably even clever philosophers who could articulate very impressive answers to this question. All these brilliant minds are directly connected to the artworld, or maybe one or two degrees of separation from it. They might even think the whole line of reasoning is ridiculous. The answer is obvious. Still, I’d like to hear them say it. I think we would all benefit from hearing it. What about the world at large? What about your average Joe? What does he think? Seems like the farther you get from the center of the artworld the less people are able to put it into words. You ever ask a random person why they think art is important? What need art fills for the community? You ever go to an art show and look at the faces of the people who are there only because it was important to someone they love, but deep down inside, they’d rather be somewhere else? What would they tell you is the purpose of art? Would they know? Or even care? Some don’t. And as an artist who doesn’t know what else to be, I find that alarming. Not so much for me, but for them. If art really is so important, there seems like a lot of people blissfully unaware of its benefits.
What is the artworld if not a community? A community of artists. Foundational to that community is the idea that art is a higher calling. But something is wrong. Something has been lost. We are a community desperately clinging to the notion that art was, and is, meant to be a transcendent experience. A meaningful endeavor. We rely on the notion that deep down inside, all rational beings understand that art, and the act of making it, holds value for our society. My fear is that that universal truth is slipping away. As artists, as a community, we have a need. That need gives us purpose. We need clearer expressions of what art is and why that matters. And those expressions need to be fully developed and readily available to those called upon to speak them. So that we don’t bore the world any further with our musings and ramblings, but rather we inspire the people to see the art in themselves. Because we all know that art is part of our humanity. We can’t lose it because it failed to replicate in this new cultural and economic environment. There is a need. It is a survival need. We have a purpose. As artists, we need to redefine ourselves.