Art Skool is for Gimps

I've always thought it rather conceited to 'want to become an artist' or to 'be a poet'.

I've also thought it conceited for those who are perhaps artists and poets to call themselves so. It's like saying you have attained enlightenment. For the enlightened among us, they know that this is just silly, for if you have to declare your own awakening so explicitly then clearly you are not awake.

The same goes for the self-conferred artists and poets. I would much prefer it if they simply called themselves humans-simply-being.

For the nature of art is such that it unites man with nature and so creates the human. The human - man in tune with nature - in turn, brings forth the being of Being. Action within this sphere, whatever that action might be, is spontaneous - sua sponte - of one's own free will. This spontaneous action, naturally arising from the great field of Being, is Art.

The person without art, the artless and the inert among us, are simply the mutations of an organism that has been separated from the field which allows it to blossom, that is, nature. Removed of one's natural and spontaneous context, one's growth becomes 'perverted' and squeezed through the hoops and gunloops of a society in decline. The resulting creation is, as the word mutation might suggest, something monstrous, that treats its matricial field as something either to be ignored or exploited, certainly not something to cherish, respect and uphold. 

Just as certain people proclaim that we are all born enlightened, so too do I suggest that we are all born human, but through the course of jumping through hoops, lose that humanness in favour of a more mechanical and contrived response. Consequently, there are those that wish to reclaim it, who wish to become artists and poets. That in itself is no bad thing. But the art school isn't going to do it for you. What it will do is hone your talent and pop you into a box: designer, painter, etc. etc. And make you a 'professional'.

But the true artist is never a professional. The true artist never contrived. How can they be? Art is all about humility, about the humbleness of being human, and of the joyful celebration of the creative drive that nature provides. To call yourself a professional is not only to deride your own being but to welcome derision from others too. True artists are always amateur with a beginner's mind. Even the word 'professional' has something about it which conveys an element of disrepute.

And so, as the graffiti at the bottom of Buccleuch Street proclaimed all those years ago when I stumbled upon it, Art Skool is for Gimps....

...and the recent burning down of the Art Skool, albeit accidental, something of a stark symbol of this.

Art outside the art school in Buccleuch Street.