Your friend who is dying and wants you to document his life, most likely understands what it will do for you (more than what it will do for him). Full circles are eternal yet our culture (perhaps our nature to some degree) regrets and avoids understanding life and death. Notice how "normal" it is to perceive "life and death" instead of "death and life". Just think if we taught the latter how we might journey with lessening conflict. Humanity is just burgeoning into a new phase, where - once conflicts brought resolution (largely perception that we are "here and now" and have to do it all, see it all, and take it all before we perish). What is this new realm?
Remember when you were 4, 5, 6? What do we lose when we enter humanity? What can we (our generation and future generations) retrieve, gain and go forward with such wisdom from when we were so young?
As an artist you should be aware of the process, the methods, the final product, and the spirit of living (yet you have no control over since you choose to display your work freely and honestly to the masses..."this spirit" found in criticism represents the artist's works... read any art critic and many will express something to do with a spiritual or emotional context or content... look up Maureen Gallace, who is a contemporary painter. The critics say her work is "spooky" since it shows home life, without people, that viewers seem to interpret as j"ust like their home and feelings" ... to think she paints mostly in the New England area yet some who say her work reminds them of their homes live as far away as Australia. She is a "Edward Hopper" type, hence the long standing associations with architecture / homes without people equaling the responding tones of alienation and loneliness in the paintings.
I frankly don't see this in Hopper or Gallace. I see pleasurable memories about seashores and summer days... hmmmm..... what we perceive could be modifying.... get what I mean? We as artists almost have a responsibility to record our point in time.... visual artist are able to touch a chord where other mediums or realms ... e.g. politics, economics, geographic, etc., cannot enter without bias... So when we choose to show something, we are vulnerable and that is the greatness of art that it exposes the spirit... seems when we directly aim to show truth, honesty, openness (the predominant qualities of a Mr. Rogers “type".. and I am not talking gayness), is perceived as a weakness in our culture.
Yet, people desire to see this (weakness) quality in art form. Man of Man! The Internet has the power to travel into "the no fly zones" of emotions. This is by far, the most influential, impacting technology of our times. Never before has humanity been able to easily access "what's it like on the other side of the fence". Television can easily be turned off or tuned out (removing content from reality) but cyberspace is eternal and accessible even if you turn it off it is always emitting the sights and sounds from the living (perhaps "this livingness this vibe" is the contemporary way in which humanity interacts (removing our physical presence to be seen or heard... Imagine a "gruff, weirdo, loser", whatever the outcast and they too will or are compelled (by human nature) to visit "what others are doing". Powerful stuff. Hmmmm, a Klansman visiting a black church blog and seeing people doing similar things. On the flip side, there is the Columbine massacre (only a massacre if we perceive it as such).
All of Austria could not have been populated by evil people, forming the Third Reich. It was the (environmental influences) hard economic times that were shaped through the evil eyes of Hitler (wow to think he wanted to get rid of "Picasso like art"... cubism...etc....and replace the art with "wholesome visions of white Arian homelike"... scary stuff... Did you know Hitler wanted to be an artist but was rejected by the "status-quo" art community? Such a sick mind knew to remove visual markers that expressed other viewpoints. People are easily influenced to make choices and that's how Hitler got away with persuading hundreds of thousands of average people to back the evil actions of his demented persona. Few surfaced to show and promote a "here and now before we die" perception.
Especially, when we are currently feeling in some way (like hardship... and in the case of Hitler... the power to choose only between life or death).
Notice how many "conventional artists" are, as they are caught up in appeasing and conforming to the twentieth century convention (choice) where "art as a process" is/was the rage. Seems that such an artist is distancing emotions captured in the final product or denying emotions to be employed in a final product? Reducing the mind to deduce or choose is what makes trends and movements powerful (having to place time and energy between the limits of choices for one set point in time. Too narrow minded, since no two individuals have the same thought... only perceived to be the same (neurologically impossible). At the end of the twentieth century there was an “other” (competing) art movement that desired to see and return art to a stature where the end product produces and captures "high art through mastering a technique" and evoking an emotional response... like the Hudson river school did in the 1800's. Both realms seem to be struggling with "identifying" a pinnacle of the "final product, when in fact it is all and none.
As far as the anti-establishment, the "goths", the "anti-this or that", they are actually revealing a mirror which shows the lack to express all of life's emotions, primarily joy, happiness, and contentment. In my opinion contentment is what some greedy people (who want material riches, fame, etc.) think "having such will bring". Maybe this perception of greed is actually a neurological construct.. meaning some are born to want, to care, not to love, etc. yet I don't think the majority of humans are that way... heck just look at (one side or percept) of the Victorian era where love and love letters were all the rage. Most people are influenced to "go with the flow".
Inwardly we will all produce great art that will pacify and promote humanity for a set point in time though not eternally... linking past, present and future humanity (perceptual full circle). Funny how the current crisis like attaining green energy, ending wars, reducing global warming, attaining satisfaction, contentment, (realistic) material wealth can all be quested (perhaps solved) by searching for answers inwardly. External solutions, politics for example, do nothing more than promote conflict, separation and dominance by a powerful few / faction for any set point in time. Too bad enlightenment is nothing more than reading the most recent pseudo- Buddhist publishing from any coffee house library. So that's what I think about your friend dying. You should celebrate his life even if all or most of it was poop. It should be done not as a grand finally but a casual "ebbing and flowing" of life's processes. It is the raising of the mind to account for life, then acknowledging the life it was and how it will be remembered and sustained amongst the living. It is here and now we all are living. This is the simplicity and greatness that unites us all. This is the simplicity and greatness that most all seem to forget until a death and its passing remind the mind and spirit.
Hey Dad, I'm sending you this letter too... Just "place it somewhere" if you don't care for it. …Just my way of connecting with you. Hey Jane, I was hoping that I could write myself to sleep but it seems not to have worked! Man! I am glad you two do not "have the gift of gab"! I would hate having to read such gloopy-gloope ( Dad, …sounds like one Grandma Evans's made up words).
(Son, regarding what you said in the paragraph above about you sister’s friend approaching the end and the reason he should be remembered, to me, is an intangible quality of their friendship uniquely recognized by your sister. No judgement is necessary the feelings just arise.)
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