On Art

Excerpts from the Heights Vol. LVI No. 2 Editorial by Fidelis Angela C. Tan (Editor-in-chief)

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Art begins with inspiration, a sudden striking of the nerves so that the fingers itch to commit something to paper. Or sculpture. Or some digital medium. There's the sudden rush of vision, the desire to create. It gives one a high. The rest is downhill from there.

If inspiration alone could carry one through to the finished work, everyone would be an artist. What many people fail to consider is that works churned out in the heat of inspiration are about as remarkable as vomit or piss or excretion. Anyone can produce those.

Anyone can come across a ray of sunshine, find it fascinating, then jot down two or three stanzas expounding on this realization. And then, call it a poem. Granted, the happenstance arrangement of words may be interesting, may even go beyond good to be downright fabulous. But even then, there's only the tiniest, most infinitesimal sliver of chance that said poem might be considered art. It's not impossible. But almost.

For those who do noy make this sliver of a chance, an entire world of pain awaits. The moment inspiration ends, work begins. And inspiration doesn't usually last very long.

For the short story writer, work is getting from one scene to the next, forcing oneself to continue despite the nag of one's inner editor telling you 'no, that's a stupid thing for the character to do, no, what inane dialogue.' For the visual artist, it's struggling with perspective and color and proportion (or lack thereof), and asking why that thing you saw in your head isn't translating to reality. At this point, some people would abandon their project altogether. Some though, take the extra effort to fix those line cuts, or construct that plot, or paint that background. These are the people who find themselves looking upon cohesive works, the work of their hands, and proudly fix their names under their titles.

And then the real agony begins.

Showing someone else what you have made is a lot like a nightmare of finding yourself naked in front of a crowd. Unless you want your project to gather dust under the bed however, this next step is inevitable. It is advisable to steel oneself. Scrutiny always comes with critique.

The person with enough will to open themselves up to critique experiences all manner of anxiety, embarrassment and self-doubt. If creating art is like giving birth, with all the efort, strain and blood that goes with it, crituqe is like a total stranger slapping your baby. Or at least, calling it ugly.

It is only after extracting oneself from the muck of personal ties that sprouts between the artist and the art can one get through the task of revision. And then it's back to the work table and questioing your word choice, metaphors, character design, what you're doing anyway, is this worth it, maybe i'm not meant to be a writer, this sucks, et al.

Like accounting, astrophysics and breaking up with a sordid boyfriend, art is difficult.

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