Evolution From A Common Culture: “Manifesto Lite”

Here I am! Or, am I here? Is this that precious period of “rapid stylistic evolution” of the self as artist I’ve read so much about in the haughtier publications? Will I spend the rest of my life struggling in vain to rival the achievements of my youth; or is this precisely what I’m doing now, looking backwards at the dreams that have already realized?

Of course the term “artist” is as weighty as it is garbage. Everybody is an artist (I say this sincerely and cynically). And when the critics and writers take ownership of the A-word as it reflects your life’s labor, the pigeonholing begins. Terms of definition like “self-taught” artist emerge and stick like glue. And, “self-taught” is weighted with as much loathing and disdain as is “folk art,” “outsider art,” “urban art,” “black art,” and perhaps the worst, “raw art.” And, anyone calling me or my work “African-American” loses all access. It ain’t that, y’all.

Self-taught, huh? I guess I missed the workshop on who was supposed to teach me to believe, to see, and to execute? Isn’t it enough to be influenced by a higher, personal, inner aesthetic? Isn’t it enough to react to other art, and the beauty and pain in the world around us? Isn’t it just enough to find the time and space to even be able to do a tiny fraction of the shit that’s in my head? Isn’t it enough to find muses kind enough to spare a portion of their own miserable lives just being patient and indulgent of such self-indulgent bullshit? Isn’t it enough?

Yes, we’re all making the “radical departures from the more convention approaches of our commercially minded peers.” Yeah, I know. I know! We’re breaking with the clichés of the day, having little in common with what is being created around us and what has been created before us. Yes, I fucking know. Oh, and we’re all “expanding the possibilities of art hybrids” too, you know, where medium X meets medium Y for some sort of “unique” creation that God put us here to share. We’ve become so goddamn virtuoso. Yep. I know. I just hope I’m not actually saying that crap too often, if ever. So help me.

But, if I can remain as allusive and increasingly cryptic within my own self-imposed rules of discipline, then I believe I can survive. Success? What is success? How is success a definable aspiration? For me ideas, execution and survival prevent me from becoming fat, drunk and stupid. It’s just that easy.