Art with a Big Fat A
I was over at a friend’s house up on the North End, looking at his newly crafted cigar box banjos. I know what you’re thinking … and yes, I do have friends on the North End. And no, these cigar box banjos weren’t some thrown together in a drunken afternoon cheeseballs masquerading as musical instruments. They were objets d’art first of all — and first of all they were musical instruments, from the tuning pegs to the piezo pickups that allowed them to be played through an amp, which gave my buddy’s slide blues a nasty growl. You’d think you’d landed in a late night bar on the Lousville waterfront next to the Ohio River in 1920.
I’m forever amazed at how many folks are out there, just out of sight, doing their own thing, not for remuneration or accolades, just for the sheer joy of it. Folks who never joined the Arts Associations, folks who work with woods and metals and found objects and cigar boxes and whatever else comes to hand. My pal told me the story of a local artist at a la-de-da soiree asking what he did after crowing about her own artistic achievements so he mentioned a few projects he’d completed recently. “Oh,” she said dismissively, “you’re a crafts person.”
We so-called artists like to draw a distinction between art and craft. As if they’re inescapably discrete and inviolably separate. It’s a boring argument, trust me, like arguing religion, fit only for adolescents and morons with an ideological bent. But I do know this: there are people like my cigarbox buddy who apply a spark of creativity to everything they touch. They probably can’t help it, it’s as natural as laughing. The old adage that something worth doing is worth doing well rolls off their imagination slightly differently. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing with p-zazz.
My own definition of an artist — and it’s the same for a craftsman — is a person who creates their life. In their own image. Meaning, with their own imagination. They make the world around them. They create. They don’t do it so they can say at some party they’re an artiste. They do it because there’s no other way to do it. And when I’m fortunate enough to be around them, they’re an inspiration. Those cigarbox banjos — they belong in a museum. But meantime, they got some blues waiting to come out, stuff that will make a toe tap, stuff that will make you smile, stuff that will make a guy like me want to try to make one myself. It’s about all I can ask from art.
Hits: 57