Let me first say: this is going to be the one and only butter
reference that I’ll ever make in a blog post. Promise. (I keep saying how no
one will let me live down that one time that I might’ve danced in a kiddie pool
of butter at a Jacksonville, IL poetry reading, but I’m partially to blame for
the legacy living on.)
Now, I’m gonna say this: Man, I used to be one pretentious little
shithead when it came to the arts. When I was younger – say, around the high
school age – it was because of my inflated ego. My sworn enemy at the time and
I used to secretly read each other’s online diaries to further fuel our hatred
for each other (teenage drama, psh), and I remember one time knowing that she
was writing about me. She had written, “She thinks she’s God’s gift to
writing.” Yeah, back when I was 15, I sure did think so. I’m not even sure why
I thought that, other than teachers’ compliments had probably simmered in my
mind and created a monster.
But, as I got older, the pretentious attitude came from
my time served in academia. Now, now, I’m not saying there is anything
wrong academia/academic-flavored creative writing. But I am saying that earning
an English lit degree left me with this false sense of knowing what qualifies
as good, and that in turn meant, turning up my nose at some things that could
very well have been worth my time. (Take, for example, The Hunger Games.
A while ago, I never would've touched them because I was all, "Ewww, what
is this? It's definitely not 'good' literature!" But then I read the first
book and, yep, I fell in love.) And sure, there are some qualities of art
that we can just tell are not typically 'good', but that’s a different topic
for a different week.
My point for this short and sweet inaugural blog post deals with the pretension surrounding what is art and what is
an insult to art. So to speak.
How many times do we go around spewing out, “That’s not art.
That’s art. Oh, that is definitely not art”? Who are we really to know? We can
have our own opinions of what art is and we can (and should) use those opinions
to try forming a substantial definition, but see, the problem is that not even
philosophers who spend lifetimes studying the question of what is art have a
comprehensive idea of what it is. They do agree (and I do, too) that there is
something “special” that sets art apart from other forms of entertainment or
expression, but not everyone agrees on what that thing is. For instance, could
art be art because of emotion, or is it intent, and blah blah blah? So, again:
who are we to know ourselves? We simply know what we create. Everything else is
just something we’re all striving to understand.
So, now to the damn butter incident. Yes, one time, my friends did
talk me into dancing in a pool of butter while a woman sang “Someone Like You”
and a man danced behind me in a diaper. Some people regarded that as a mockery
to art, as if we weren’t taking poetry seriously because we did this between
readings. This is where the problem of thinking we know all about art comes in.
No one ever claimed that this gimmicky little stunt was art or what have you.
It wasn’t even in defiance of art. Not at all! And the truth is we all care
deeply about the art form. What was it then, this stupid little dance? Fun.
That’s all.
 |
| Mockery? More like beautiful regret. |
Art should be taken seriously, indeed. It is very important for
our society, it is critical for human existence, but it should not be taken so
incredibly seriously that we cannot have fun with it, alongside it, or at its
expense. Sometimes, it is when we step beyond the boundaries and delve into the
batshit that we learn the most about ourselves, our groups, our art. We might
learn more about what it may or may not be, we might gain experiences that
enrich the concept we already have of it, we might simply walk away with
story/poem ideas (which is always a good thing). But when we turn up our noses,
we risk losing out on all sorts of interesting (not always in a good way, of
course) experiences and opportunities.
Follow Siren Bee on Twitter @ButterDancer.
Check back for a new post every other Monday.
