Art and Suffering

[Kokuu]

Actually it is my view that we in our cocooned from real life existence play at the idea we suffer

It is great you feel compassion for people in Syria and those hit by the destruction of the welfare state in the UK. I might, however, suggest that you can widen that to include others without suggesting they are wallowing in suffering or playing at it.

I am sorry to hear about your own struggles. Looking at the suffering of others can indeed put our own travails into perspective. Using the worst of human experience as a benchmark to measure what others are going through may be less helpful.

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

[RichardH]

Hi Stev. Considering this is the all topics related to zazen forum. It might be good to mention that self-importance or self-denial both go out the window on the cushion. Art is either important or not important depending on the context, and no context is absolute. The best I got is honest perspective.

In the context of the history of Zen, art has played a beautiful and (IMO) important part, and hopefully will continue to.

Gassho
Daizan

sattoday

[Stev]

Hmmm

"Do you think that art is something that people do when they have the time and money to pontificate? "

Nope, that is not what I said.

" What about poems written on the battlefield of the Somme and art from wartorn countries? Hard times often produce great art."

So Banksy goes to the West Bank to do some protest art which by all accounts, where possible, is dismantled and shipped to the US for sale.

"The 'as necessary as oxygen' is poetic license. Poets often use metaphor to express strong feelings. Reading poetic words literally will render them easy for criticism. "I wandered lonely as a cloud" Is a cloud lonely? Perhaps focus on where the feeling is coming from than the precise words. "

Yes that is my whole point, I am focusing on the feeling of the self importance of the artist.

"Do you really think that art cannot be appreciated unless everyone has everything they need for a reasonable life? A luxury for the wealthy and idle? What then of protest songs, satire and political cartoons expressing dissatisfaction with the way things are and a desire for change? Art is often at its most vital and important when life is a struggle, not when everything is good. "

I said nothing about the appreciation of art I did though suggest i would appreciate clean air more than art.

"Your view of art as a luxury for the wealthy seems very out of step with what I know of art and artists. For me, art is something that people feel compelled to do rather than an activity of leisure after everything else has been done. Of course there will always be people for whom it is little more than a pleasurable hobby but to paint all of art like that does not resonate with my experience at all."

Actually it is my view that we in our cocooned from real life existence play at the idea we suffer. Recently my mum died and then a loved pet died and then the family disintegrated because of one person's greed, but any suffering I feel pales into insignificance when I look at the suffering of the Syrian refugees who have lost their families and homes and everything they owned, or the disabled on benefits in the UK who have committed suicide because of the Government's, for want of a better word, pogrom against them. You quoted an artist wallowing in her suffering to produce beautiful art, My thoughts are , only in the west! While n the East Banksy's art borne from the real suffering of loss is pulled down, packed up, and shipped to the US for sale.


Sat today

[RichardH]

One of my favorite early modernist artists was George Grosz. He was active during the Weimar period, and painted the hellish conditions in Germany after the first world war. This was precisely the kind of art the nazis wanted to destroy and replace with neo-classical kitsch. Looking at it, it looks like suffering and despair, but in that line in that expression of darkness, there is joy, right in the line. It may be anguished on one level, but it is creative flight.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today




http://images.tate.org.uk/sites/defa...?itok=UFeJipuZ

[Kokuu]

Stev

Do you think that art is something that people do when they have the time and money to pontificate? What about poems written on the battlefield of the Somme and art from wartorn countries? Hard times often produce great art.

The 'as necessary as oxygen' is poetic license. Poets often use metaphor to express strong feelings. Reading poetic words literally will render them easy for criticism. "I wandered lonely as a cloud" Is a cloud lonely? Perhaps focus on where the feeling is coming from than the precise words.

Do you really think that art cannot be appreciated unless everyone has everything they need for a reasonable life? A luxury for the wealthy and idle? What then of protest songs, satire and political cartoons expressing dissatisfaction with the way things are and a desire for change? Art is often at its most vital and important when life is a struggle, not when everything is good.

Your view of art as a luxury for the wealthy seems very out of step with what I know of art and artists. For me, art is something that people feel compelled to do rather than an activity of leisure after everything else has been done. Of course there will always be people for whom it is little more than a pleasurable hobby but to paint all of art like that does not resonate with my experience at all.

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

[Stev]

I guess I am just coming from a different place with this.
In a free wealthy society (for some) where we (some of us) have the wealth and time to not only express our creativity but to pontificate on it's importance, where our grasping of things including art creates cities full of unbreathable smog, where the aged are warned not to venture out, (which happened in the UK just a few days ago) that we can celebrate art as being as important, if not more important than oxygen just seems rather cringe making.
But then what is art?
Gunther von Hagens' macabre exhibition http://www.theguardian.com/education...ighereducation



sat today

[Kotei]

Thank you for posting the article.

I recently came across a Ted talk from Phil Hansen, called "embrace the shake".
Phil was developing a tremor in his hands and found himself nearly unable to work at his art with it.
Over time, he found his way, developing something new, embracing his limitations.

This is the talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/phil_hansen_embrace_the_shake

Even if it's not about "suffering", I find some of his aspects in 'limited by rule' art forms, like Haiku.

Maybe not in direct connection to the above, but still about "Art and Suffering".

Gassho,
Ralf

[Byrne]

Stev, I too cringe when I hear something pretentious. Here's what I consider pretentious artist bullocks. Someone I know posted it on Facebook the other day. I won't say who said it, but despite my criticism they are a very talented artist. But I think they're missing something.


"This is how I see it. As an artist it is my responsibility to not have a boring life. To feel deeply. To listen to the stories of strangers. To try new things and go new places. To say yes. To question everything. To find beauty in the commonplace. And to fall in love. Over and over. Because through the highs of love and the lows of heartbreak I truly know what it is to feel."


Even though it's a nice sentiment is also ridiculous. Everyone has feelings. An artist is just someone who has figured out a way to express those feelings. An artist's only responsibility is to produce art, otherwise they aren't artists. Maybe their life is really interesting with lots of adventures. Maybe it's very mundane and unsatisfying, and never leave the house. If they're good at it, maybe they can have a career. My wife and I make a good living off our own art. It's not because we have had a responsibility to be any particular way. It's because circumstance gave us a few talents (wife is a great percussionist, songwriter, and singer. I'm an all around instrumentalist and visual artist) and we found ways to transform those talents into skills. Live performances and merchandise sales. Beyond that, we're as like everyone else as everyone else is like us. We're artists because we produce art. Not because we are a certain way.


The most talented songwriter I know restores furniture in Marietta GA. His life is pretty ordinary. He rarely performs out and what he's done is poorly documented. His songs are fantastic. He's also a great dude.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Risho]

This is very interesting! Thank you for this topic and the posts -- too lazy to iterate through your names, but these are very interesting responses .

Is art more important than oxygen? I guess it depends on important in terms of what? And I guess it depends on your definition of art. Like Kyonin said, just by living here you are art. In a way that touches me. I mean, I'm not artist. lol You give me a canvas, and it's going to look like a 3 year old did something to it, and that would be a slight to 3 year olds. lol

But at the same time, making something, the way we work, the way we live and express ourselves can be art to. So I don't think it necessarily has to be traditional to be art. And if we are talking about art in terms of human expression, you're damned right it's more important than oxygen, because expression is what it is to be fully human. You can be brain dead and still breath. Anyway, I'm throwing out lots of generalities, but these posts revved me up.

Gassho,

Risho
-sattoday

[Byokan]

Art offers a way not only to face grief, face pain, but also to soften grief's and pain's faces, which turn back toward us, listening in turn, when we speak to them in the language of story and music and image.

...art allows us to find a way to agree to suffering, to include it and not be broken, to say yes to what actually is, and then to say something further, something that changes and opens the heart, the ears, the eyes, the mind.

Thanks for posting this Kokuu, it really speaks to me.

Daizan is right, of course, it's all very subjective.

I have a low level of chronic pain, that was much more intense and debilitating in the past. I think it’s no coincidence that I “discovered” art in the midst of the worst times. It was not just a distraction from the pain. I think the way that the pain brought me into the very still center of each moment, opened me to experiencing things in a new way. It opened my heart and my senses, for sure. The slowing down that pain brought, allowed me to notice things I used to just rush past. This pain also connected me to the human race in a way I hadn’t been aware of before. Now I could also see this connection in art. I could feel the human experience behind the art. Art reveals relation, and encourages us to consider meaning. It helped transform my suffering into just presence and awareness of experience, without all the dukkha. I can’t say it very well, and I am no artist myself, except in the way we all are, with our lives being our expression. But art saves me, daily. I know Jane Hirshfield was talking about the healing effect of making art, but even for those of us who don’t make the art ourselves, this wonderful connection, reflection, and healing is available by engaging with art. Much gratitude to the artists who put their creation into the world, from an art lover.

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

[Kokuu]

It is very likely that different people make art for different reasons, and definitive statements about "Art" are iffy.

Agreed. This one resonated with me but may not with others.

Gassho
Kokuu

[RichardH]

Hi Kokuu. I appreciate what you are saying. Creative activity expressing difficult states is very healing. I have never suffered from chronic pain (just chronic dukkha) and cannot speak to that experience. It is very likely that different people make art for different reasons, and definitive statements about "Art" are iffy. Different statements may resonate with different people.

Gassho
Daizan
Sat today

[Stev]

Hi Kokuu,
I am glad to hear of the benefits you have found in your art.
Thanks for your point of view.

Gassho

sat a couple of times 2day

[Kokuu]

"Art isn't a superficial addition to our lives; it's as necessary as oxygen."

I live with pain on a daily basis. Having an artistic way of expressing what I go through is a huge release. Many other chronically ill friends feel the same way. Many of us didn't have any interest in art before becoming ill and now it is an essential part of our lives. Sure, as necessary as oxygen is over-egging it somewhat, but I totally get what she means.

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

[Stev]

"Art isn't a superficial addition to our lives; it's as necessary as oxygen."
I found this statement to be pretentious artist bollocks, so i was just being facetious, take no notice of me , I don't.

Though having further thought about Daizan's post I think that is the best explanation of art I have heard.

sattwicetoday