Art as Presence

What is art if not presence? It appears the soul of any art is lost once there becomes a point to it. If the art is created to make money, or to become famous, or for any other nefarious reason, it becomes a case of the artist getting in the way of the art. Honest art is non-dual, in the sense that there is no artist and artwork, there is only creation. It’s the creating itself which is the art, and this is life at its core. Life is constantly creating, falling apart, and creating again.

Art is not only an expression of this, but it’s also this. Art represents creation and destruction, but art also is creation and destruction. At some point, all art is inevitably destroyed, and an attempt to create permanency out of art is to miss this critical point. An attempt to create permanency of one’s self is no different. I suppose it’s missing the point twice if one were to try to create permanency out of the art and out of themselves.

The life of the artist often follows a familiar path. We lose ourselves in the art, thus creating great art, and are then celebrated as individuals for creating this art. Everywhere we go, we’re told we really are somebody. We did this amazing thing. It’s us who made the art, and we should be revered and respected. So, we begin to believe it, either consciously or subconsciously, diving into a world of duality, where art goes to die.

And so life becomes very confusing. We seek an escape from all this, and sometimes we find it again in our art. Often times we don’t, turning to any of life’s pleasures, often of the chemical variety. Many times our art takes on a chemical composition, castrated by money, fame, ego, or greed. Unable to get back in touch with the state of true creation we once occupied, the art and the artist begin to fall apart.

The artist who persists is one who understands the truth. They know they aren’t responsible for creating the art because they can’t explain how they do it. They just do. The art is an expression, and this expression is simply expressed through the artist. If the artist understands they are actually an impediment to the art, the art passes through them freely. Art is not created by finding oneself, but by losing oneself.  

By attempting to find ourselves, we by default admit we are lost. Being lost is an anxious circumstance to inhabit, but being is not. One who simply is, is neither lost nor found. It’s only in this state of present being, absent of self, where true art can reveal itself. When we project some future goal onto the action of creation, the art becomes strangled by the abstract future, which is a projection from the self. Then we begin to worry about what people will think of us when we share the art, how it will be received, and so on.

The suffering artist only suffers because we attempt to attach the self to the art. If there is no attachment, there is no suffering. Many of the world’s great artists were not discovered until after they passed, which one could argue is the best-case scenario for the artist. By avoiding the barrage of credit and fame, the artist lives in a place of irrelevance, which is the best place for creation to prosper. The most profound art becomes relevant only because the artist became irrelevant.

- The Guy