Saturday, August 18, 2007

Command Language

Making Fun, or Everyday Acts of Art

Tonight at a party I said something silly and, as often happens, I met the resulting chuckle and retort with the teasing accusation: "You're making fun of me!". "No", said the new friend, "I'm making Fun". I like to think of mixing up a big steaming cauldron of Fun. And I like to think of making art in a similar way.

Last year I learned that curiosity is an act of bravery. Fear can keep you too freaked out to be deeply curious (hence the saying "I don't even want to know"). But being curious is an Opening act- unguarded, detached enough to have room for any answer or observation that might be in front of you- a posture of learning as oppose to a brace against the potentially hurtful 'reality'. Curiosity, at its essence, is a form of Presentness, the practice of experience and oneness (participation) combined with the perspective of a (more distant or accepting) observer. Humor (and 'Making Fun') both requires and facilitates the perspective necessary for fearless curiosity. This too, is necessary for the stance of an artist.

Every so often I get tripped up in the game of producing product I can point to and call art. But what excites me is seeing what is already here: the zig zaggy termite drawings I find on stumps while hiking. Or interacting in some silly curious impulsive way- like putting the puzzle of a 50 pieced shale rock back together on my kitchen table. When I was in the city taking pictures with my friend this July, I saw the kind of art that excites me: in place of the "Do Not Hold Doors" sign inside a subway car was a sticker that read "Do Not Fall In Love", and one morning while walking in the Village I saw three blocks worth of fire hydrants, telephone poles, & trash bins with last nights streetlight shadows traced in chalk on the sidewalk... Now thats art. Observation, Curiosity, Interaction/Intervention.