You Must Be an Artist

...Meet this solemn question with a strong, simple I must, then build your life in
accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most
indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse."-Rilke
We are, all of us, meant to create. We are creat-ures, thus it is evident in the world
around us that as a spider spins a web, a bird builds a nest, humans are possessed
of a spiritual and biological mandate to spin and build a world of beauty and
function. The human distinction is the ability to make symbols. Symbolism is the art
of investing the world around us with meaning by expressing the invisible or
intangible through visible or sensuous representation. This is the simplest, the least
unsettling definition of art and creativity. From this definition, we have come to
believe and to thoroughly accept without question that art belongs to those who
paint the paintings, write the words, and mold the clay, into those representations
of the intangible and the invisible. Art has therefore been divided into those who do
and those who dont.
The reinstatement of art into every one of our lives, both in our ability to receive
and to recreate it, is to return to living with meaning. Creativity is, like evolution,
like all growth and change, an irrepressible force in nature. Thus far, only humans
have attempted to turn away from this call, and a case can be made that it is this
turning away that is the cause of so much of our pain, suffering, and longing. This
suffering, however, is the result of confusion and misdirection, not hapless
circumstance.
Art, like science, philosophy, and civility, is our best defense against the
insupportable weight of all that we dont know. If we could disperse the weight
among us citizen artists, come up with a more inclusive outlook, we could lighten
the formidable load of ignorance. In the broadest sense, art is a response in
whatever form it takes--an expression of the love and beauty and terror as it is
given to us through the visible bounty of Naturethat pulls us further out of the
mire. Creativity is anything that fosters that indwelling spirit, any creation or activity
that advances the progression of the unimpedable energy of growth that is life. The
replication of that love and beauty, the balm that soothes the terror, or the release
provided by the recognition of that terror, is our task, is the way of art and
creativity, a whole-some response to existence.
Whether you are a fireman, a pathologist, a babysitter, or a banker, you must be an
artist. Must be means, first of all, the recognition of this as your identity, as in, Oh,
you must be an artist... Secondly, must be makes it imperative. You must respond
to the dignity evolving out of creaturehood toward a greater man, toward God, and
remain fearless as well as awe-struck by the vast implications. In the meeting of this
challenge, you will be recognized by a light in the eye of those you encounter, as
extraordinary.
The commitment to creativity, like any other commitment, will become an integral,
necessary, part of our life once we realize that not only does our art spring from and
define the core of, yes, our own identities, but more importantly, that it is an
expression of that which is greater than ourselves. Thus who we are becomes linked
with the world, and it is given meaning and purpose by what we do with this link.
Creativity is the purveyor of meaning.
We begin with a sense that there is something within us that must act and express.
We begin by going beyond the sadness we have experienced at having this
something repressed, discouraged, buried. We begin with the thin person with the
fat body, the sober, healthy being underneath the addicts skin, the lover inside our
neglected hearts. We begin with the hope and the longing of the creative force
within ourselves.