what does it mean to share art? (a deconstruction)

as i move into a season where i will be prioritizing the creation and sharing of art, i am left with questions about the form it takes in our current american societal state (and very budding questions about what else we could do). here i will focus primarily on the medium of music, however the questions i pose certainly extend to our greater art landscape.

to poke at theory for a moment, imagine a time where humans existed off the life provided by the land itself, and our communities carried the natural human need for/of expression - art! imagine art that the collective community would gather around, possibly participating in via dancing or playing or singing or hamboning. i assume they had their prophets and visionaries - people who the community would also gather to hear wisdom or thoughtfulness or social commentary from.

i invite you to imagine the early human as an exercise in understanding how our human needs might have first found their life in the forms of these customs - i'm not yet concerned with the customs themselves. i care deeply of the human needs here, that being connection through expression and the broadening of our hearts and minds. these come out in our days with each other now! we still very much value the communal nature of art, albeit in our individualistic distance from each other. we enjoy entering into the shared consciousness of the world around us, and we certainly have our modern day prophets - people we see and feel as tapped in: Bob Dylan is and was tapped in! Paul Simon was tapped in! 

think of artists that have enriched your life beyond entertainment value, beyond what has passed your time away until you die. think of your community experiences that have enriched your life beyond passing the time with your loved ones until they die. it naturally looks different for different people, however there is a shared human acknowledgement of the potential for substance in both of these areas. substance that changes! substance that speaks!
i mean not to denigrate art and community that carries us through life, nor the beauty and goodness of the experiences felt in these places - i am personally very interested in depth! and i believe much of our humanity, in an age of noise, also yearns for depth. for substance.

i have traveled with my mom from church to church over the course of my young life, and the quality of these concerts were felt due to what the venue provides: a willingness to listen to what is being sung or spoken (i was gifted this observation from a new friend of mine). where a traditional concert venue might host people disinterested in listening (and in some cases people disinterested in the nature of what the artist is saying), a church hosts seekers! as i have stepped out of the framework of the church environment into public spaces, i notice a drop off in care for substance. again, i have no bone to pick with this! to each their own! however, what are the possibilities for the art of community and the art of sharing art?

(if there is one bone i have to pick, that would be the poison of capital gain and the commercialization of art. authentic art is not hard to come by, however (not dissimilar from my thoughts on content engineered spaces) the space for the depth of authentic art is rather suffocating. amidst the noise of humans desiring to be heard is the noise of humans desiring to be supported (of course)! there is a strong social pressure to support the arts in a way that transcends impact, as if we are tithing or engaging in religious obligation. in this same breath, the quality of said art is impacted by this suffocation. what are we speaking to!? who are we speaking to!? what is this thing!?)

to turn to art's relationship with community - what is the nature of the veil that separates the humanity of the artist on display from the humanities of those it calls to? this question intrigues me greatly as i recount my favorite concerts over the years, and the way in which the artist reached out beyond their status as a pundit and into my heart and mind as a human. we live under the pressure of glorification, individuals who have microphones as role models, and let me be the first to say on this matter that i am already disqualified by both the standard of blemishless purity and the standard of future perfection - i am human! and in my art i long for real humanity!!! in the art i make and the art i receive i am desperate for some humanity. in concert and in the communal sharing of art, what does it mean to break this veil? on stage and in the song, what does it mean to cross celebrity? in this late stage of celebrity, what does it mean to share art?

this is what i have been deconstructing. i hold the wreckage loosely, and am ultimately not interested in changing society. the winds will blow, and people will be drawn to stuff or not. authenticity is certainly my greatest desire! for people to really be drawn and spoken to - for bonding in the spirit of art! my questions turn to my friends and people interested in playing a different game. i really have no clue what to ask, but i do know that this is where the conversation gets really interesting:
what are the possibilities? what is the need? who is invested in this kind of work? where is this happening? how does it happen?

my core question - what is real?

and where is real life/goodness here? i'm sure that a good kind of change is already stirring in the hearts and minds of the people who want to have the most fun, and the people who feel the substance thing like i do. whoever out there who really cares about this, what does this all mean to you? what questions are you asking? what are you involved in?

if you have opinions, thoughts, criticism, ideas, or just want to say hi, please email me - kgmail@kirbygroves.com

<3